I have a Sony Z3 Compact from Three UK. The phone is one of the best phones I ever had and its form factor is superb, along with a great camera, impressive hardware, speed and battery.

Now, the first annoyance I had with it was related to Sony and the months it took to go from KitKat to Lollipop. Then was that thing called small apps that clutter the app switch screen. Finally, the tethering problem (or bug) that Three UK has with their recent update, which killed all those tethering modes.

For the first the first one, we’re stuck to Sony scheduling (or we can go to the XDA forum and grab one ROM and install ourselves). As for the last two, there’s a solution:

– Install ADB on your computer (if you’re using a Mac, just install a free Windows 7 on Parallels – not VirtualBox!). Install all the drivers; first in normal mode, then using developer mode on the phone.
– Enable Developer Mode, authorise the request, connect the phone – bla bla
– Fix tethering

adb shell
settings put global tether_dun_required 0
exit
adb reboot

– Remove Smart Apps. On Lollipop 5.0.2 its pm hide, instead of pm block

adb shell
pm hide com.sony.smallapp.launcher
pm hide com.sony.smallapp.app.widget
exit
adb reboot

… and that’s it!