nzgeek:

Neets: The first thing I get rid of is Swype. Then I can install the Beta.  If I can't get rid of Swype then I'm not interested in the ROM.  How picky am I?  I agree, there's loads of apps that I'm not keen on and I'm always trolling through the zip file to see what I can safely remove.

Swype's nice and easy to remove from a ROM. You simply need to open up the zip in something like WinRAR, delete the files /system/app/Swype.apk and /system/lib/libSwypeCore.so, and it's gone.

I quite often tweak the ROMs I use before I flash them. I usually:

• Remove the text-to-speech data for languages other than English. These are under /system/tts/lang_pico and /system/tts/lang_SMT, and I simply remove all files that don't have 'en' in the file name.
• Remove any CSC files other than XEU. These are found under /system/csc.
• Force the XEU CSC. This is done my extracting /system/csc/XEU/system, and copying the files into the /system folder of the zip (overwriting as needed).
• Remove any system apps that I don't want/need. This often includes any additional launchers that the ROM maker has added, and default apps or widgets that I don't use. These are all under /system/app.
• Add/update any 3rd-party system apps (e.g. launchers) that I like. These go into /system/app.
• Install the latest Swype version that I like as a system app. To do this, you need to open up the apk as if it was a zip file, and extract the libSwypeCore*.so file inside its /lib folder. This file needs to be renamed as simply libSwypeCore.so, and should be added to the ROM's /system/lib folder. The apk can then be dropped into /system/app. You can also remove the apk's /lib folder if you want in order to save some space.

It's a little bit of extra work, but it's simply to do and helps to get my ROM just how I like it.