HTC One and Vodafone. Removing the Kikin search service

If your like me then you will hate how the phone manufacturers install all sorts of things on your phone for you, (to be fair I think its Vodafone not HTC), and I know its not as bad as the galaxy (I’ve several friends with Samsung phones) but recently my phone started popping up a search service every time I selected (long pressed) a word to copy and paste it. really really annoying.

Anyway the Kikin service (http://www.kikin.com/) was really winding me up, software i didn’t ask for, didn’t want, couldn’t remove but did get in the way every time I wanted to simply select a piece of text.

So how to remove the kikin service?

OK first the bad news, you cant, well not without rooting your phone. But you can disable it so it no longer bothers you by popping up all the time.

Settings -> Apps -> All -> Kikin

Sadly you will see no uninstall, but if you turn notifications off, force stop, then Disable. you are done :-) now the long press select text click doesn't also do a web search automatically.
And I’m not sure but since I’ve done it I have not had Kikin auto update on me, or it might just be happening behind the scenes.

Vodafone, HTC, et al. Please please stop installing useless guff on to our phones. just because you can doesn’t mean you should.