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How To Disable BlinkFeed on the HTC One

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While the HTC One’s hardware has likely been the main attraction for users in the market for a top-tier device running Android, many of the device’s most notable improvements come from the newly upgraded Sense 5. In particular: BlinkFeed.

While we found BlinkFeed, HTC’s built-in hub for combining the news articles, status updates, and current weather conditions, to be pretty useful, the fact that is is built-in forced many users who are upgrading from other Android devices to once again learn a new way of doing things.

Read: HTC Digs for Users, Highlights BlinkFeed on HTC One

The HTC One runs HTC Sense 5 with HTC Blinkfeed and a collection of other features.

The HTC One with Blinkfeed.

That’s not necessarily the best scenario for many, especially since the HTC One (the only HTC device that ships with BlinkFeed natively) already famously omits a physical menu button.

While users can’t uninstall or deactivate BlinkFeed for a more stock Android experience, they can configure the home button to default to another panel that’s similar to the default Android home screen. Here’s how.

From the current BlinkFeed powered Home screen swipe from the right. This screen should look familiar as it’s the same view that any Android user is treated to from a stock device or otherwise.

Tap and hold any part of the screen that isn’t covered by an application. By doing this you’ll trigger the settings screen for nearly any element on Android, including the customization options for home screens.

The Home Screen Settings Panel on the HTC One with Sense 5.

The Home Screen Settings Panel on the HTC One with Sense 5.

At the top you’ll find a zoomed out view of all of the panels that are currently on your HTC One, with the BlinkFeed enabled panel appearing on the far left. Decide which panel you’d like to set as your home screen and then tap and hold it.

You should now see options to ‘Set as Home’ on the left and ‘Remove’ on the right top corners of your screen replacing the ‘Add Panel’ option. Drag the panel you’ve decided to replace BlinkFeed with to the left towards that ‘set as home’ option.

A small home icon will appear on the panel you’ve chosen indicating that the switch was successful. Now whenever you hit the Home button on the HTC One, it’ll be this panel that you see first instead of BlinkFeed. BlinkFeed will still be there running, though now you’ll only see if it you swipe to that particular home screen panel.

12 Comments

12 Comments

  1. daverogk

    06/09/2013 at 2:10 am

    Or just run a different launcher,lol

  2. Kaz

    06/09/2013 at 8:05 am

    Interesting how the content of the article is completely different from the title. This method doesn’t disable anything, but I guess a title of “how to make BlinkFeed not the default on your HTC One” wouldn’t get as many clicks. Too bad people just make titles to catch interest, even if it’s not true.

    • Joel

      06/10/2013 at 2:36 am

      Agree 100%

      • Rae

        06/14/2013 at 9:01 am

        I agree also. It is disappointing that you have to have this feature, especially after paying a premium for the phone. There are at least a lot of topics from which to choose. The closest you can get to disabling the blinkfeed program is resetting it to the start/setup screen. To do this press, hold and pull down one of the articles/blue boxes until you have the three dots on the right of the screen. A drop down box with Topics and services, Customize home screen and Setting will display. Tap “Topics and Services” On the next screen uncheck all of the boxes (be sure to swipe to the left as there are more pages). Use this guys instructions to change the home screen. The blinkfeed will go away and show blue boxes and “Get started” it will stay that way until you touch that sceen and it updates either via Wifi or your data provider. You can only choose between those two options. You can make your choice under the Setting tab for Auto refresh. Hope this helps.

  3. davies1

    06/09/2013 at 1:57 pm

    If you think Ruby`s story is super,, last week my girlfriends brother basically also brought home $5932 sitting there twelve hour’s a week at home and they’re buddy’s mother-in-law`s neighbour was doing this for 5 months and got a cheque for more than $5932 in there spare time on their labtop. apply the instructions from this site…….. Fox85. ℂom

  4. Dennis Walega

    06/26/2013 at 12:18 am

    You could download a different, even better launcher from the Play Store. (GoLauncher, NovaLauncher, etc…)

  5. Monkey Butt

    07/15/2013 at 6:24 am

    I have no clue why some are obsessed with tiles or BlinkFeed. It is clumsy and useless. If I want news, I click on the News icon that has already been customized. If I want to see new FB posts, emails or Tweets I look for notifications on my screen icons and open them. I love the HTC One, but really get tired of the garbage phone companies pile on top. Maybe they should stick to making good phones?

    • Nichole C

      08/06/2013 at 6:02 pm

      Does the BlinkFeed cost money or data usage? If so, can it be turned off or something so its not constantly running and charging us?

    • Ruben

      10/06/2013 at 8:51 pm

      100% agree!

  6. Nichole C

    08/06/2013 at 6:01 pm

    Does the BlinkFeed cost money or data usage? If so, can it be turned off or something so its not constantly running and charging us?

  7. Parheez

    08/14/2013 at 8:58 am

    I have used this method to turn it off… My question is once turned off how do i turn it on?

  8. Andrew Haines

    08/23/2013 at 3:28 am

    I have tried to remove the blink feed but it doesn’t work any ideas

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