Should you root your phone? if that’s the question that you have in your mind then this explainer is the perfect way to make your decision when planning to root your phone.
Rooting an Android phone gives you access to previously locked functions, but it comes with heavy risks. In simple terms, you get administrator-level privileges over the operating system on your phone.
Rooting and the processes needed to achieve root will also void the manufacturer’s warranty. Rooting is the jailbreak of Androids. But just like jailbreaking, accomplishing your goal isn’t always as simple, or worthwhile, as you might have hoped.
Should you root your phone?
Android is based on the Linux operating system (OS), says Dave Hatter, a cybersecurity consultant in Cincinnati. “In Linux, the root is the account that has access to all commands and files,” Hatter explains. “Essentially, it has the authority to do anything.” It may also be referred to as the root account, root user, or the superuser.
So “Rooting” means acquiring root access, which is another way of saying that you have higher-level permissions to carry out special actions that you ordinarily could not.
Most people don’t need root access and will likely break some critical functionality on their expensive phones. So root access is best left to people who know what they are doing.
Benefits of Rooting
- Boosting the speed of the phone
- Boosting the battery life
- Installing incompatible apps blocked by your carrier or Google
- Achieving improved automation
- Allowing for an easier full backup of the phone
- Getting the latest version of Android
- Removing pre-installed apps, often known as crapware
- Accessing free Wi-Fi hotspots
- Discovering features
- Experiencing nearly unlimited customization
- Using custom skins
BootLoader Unlocked
Unlocking the phone’s bootloader removes a big security checkpoint against bad actors. It also trips SafetyNet on most phones.
App developers widely use SafetyNet to determine if a device and its system firmware have been tampered with. Banking apps and other high-security apps require an untampered operating system to work in, and hence, they refuse to work when SafetyNet is tripped.
Remove Bloatware with Rooting
Phone manufacturers continue to bundle unnecessary apps on phones. And removing them the normal way is impossible. They also sneakily bundle many of these annoying apps as system apps, so users cannot easily remove them. For this, you need root access to remove a system app permanently.
Customization
Rooting really opens up the possibilities of what you can do. Some mods like Ambient Music Mod bring the much-loved Pixel feature to non-Pixel phones. LiveBoot is an app that outputs your logcat as a boot animation.
There’s also Repainter that brings customizable and dynamic Material You theming to any Android 12 and above device. And that’s just scratching the surface.
Other Small Features
Rooting allows you to remove ads completely with host file modifications that apps like AdAway can do easily. Root also opens the gate for using apps like Root Activity Launcher, which lets you start activities within an app that the developer has developed and shipped but has not yet enabled.
It’s up to you and your requirements to think about if you want to root your phone We have listed a few of its advantages and disadvantages.