If you have been in the Android world for a while, you may have heard about rooting. You may have different questions such as ‘What is Android Rooting?’, ‘What can it do to your phone?’, or ‘How to root your phone?’. We got your back here. In this article, we have the answers to the most asked question about Android Rooting. Let’s check them out.
What is Android Rooting?
Android Rooting, like Jailbreaking on iOS devices, is the process of unlocking your device in order to gain full access to core software that may have been blocked by the device manufacturer.
Specifically, the Android operating system is developed based on the Linux platform. For Linux and other UNIX operating systems, a root user is equivalent to an Administrator user on Windows. A Root user has access to the entire file system in the operating system and is able to change how the system works. By default, users won’t have admin rights on an Android device, and certain apps won’t work without admin privileges. Some installations that deeply interfere with the system will also require rooting to be able to perform. In other words, Root Android is a way for you to get administrative rights on your Android device, from which you can make advanced tweaks or adjust the system files.
Rooting does give you complete control over your phone’s system. However, it also comes with some drawbacks.
The Advantages of Rooting Your Android Device
Here are some cool things that you can do after you root your device
Remove default apps
Default apps or junk apps are apps that are pre-installed by the developers on your device. The number of junk apps you have on your device vary depending on its brand. In fact, every manufacturer has pre-installed junk apps on their devices, and most of them do not allow users to remove these apps. However, some of these apps are unnecessary, take too much storage, or drain your battery. So, to get rid of them, you must root your device.
Install incompatible apps
There are a number of Android apps that do not support your device. However, if your device is rooted, there are many ways that you can install these apps on your device by tweaking system files. These files cannot normally be edited without root access. These unsupported apps are usually apps extracted from another company’s device. For example when you use an LG phone but you still want to use a Samsung app.
Under-clocking and Over-clocking
A very popular thing to do among root users is overclocking the processor to speed up their devices. Of course, even the mid-end phones and tablets nowadays have a good speed, but it’s not bad to make things even snappier.
On the other hand, sometimes we don’t need all the power that our device can offer. Therefore, under-clocking the device’s processor is also an option for a rooted device to improve battery life and avoid overheating.
A wider range of interface customization
Normally, android devices do give users some options to customize the interface. These include icon sets, themes, and background pictures. However, when you root your Android phone, you can even change the font, create a theme for a particular folder, or access some great root-only theme applications
The Risk Of Android Rooting
Alongside the complete control over your device’s system, Android rooting also comes with some drawbacks:
You may brick your device:
Rooting may brick your device or turn it into a useless brick. A bricked device cannot be fixed by performing a restart or altering its components. So make sure you know what you are doing.
You will void your warranty.
Even though rooting isn’t illegal in many countries, some manufacturers still try to fight against it. Gaining root access will immediately void your warranty. If something goes wrong during the process, you won’t get it fixed by the phone provider.
Your phone is more vulnerable to malware and hacks.
Rooting does help you gain access to more apps and features, but that also means that you’ll have to be very selective with what you are downloading to your device. In fact, some apps might contain malware and steal your sensitive data. This includes login details, passwords, or even payment details. Others might even grant hackers complete access to your phone.
You might lose access to high security apps.
Some high-security apps check whether your device has been rooted before letting you use them. For instance, Android Pay is a notable example. So if you don’t want to lose access to these apps, it’s probably best not to mess with rooting.
How to Root Your Device?
This really depends on which Android device you have. Currently, there are tons of Android devices out there. As each model have a unique way to root, we can not list all of them here. Instead, we highly recommend you to check out the XDA forums for your particular model. XDA Forums are a group of people, including some from the mobile industry, who are dedicated to the good sort of hacking of mobile devices. It’s one of the best forums on the internet to learn about rooting your phone.
