What is Rooting? Things You Should Know Before Rooting Your Device

What is rooting? What are the benefits of rooting my device?, what are the risk of rooting my device?, does rooting void my warranty?. Those are some of the common questions many android users ask.

Today I will try to give a detailed explanation on what rooting actually is, the advantages and also the disadvantages of rooting your device.

First, what is rooting? Rooting is the act of gaining an administrative access to your device( in android terms it’s called  “super user”) this is similar to jail breaking on iPhone and “administrator on windows”. The term rooting is derived from the Unix/Linux OS(Operating System), its used to describe a user who has “super user” permission to all the files and programs on his/her operating system.

Though you are the owner of your device there are certain restrictions put in place by your manufacturer and this limits what you can do on your device and also makes you just a guest user. Your manufacturers actually do this for good intentions and is mainly because they don’t want you to  by any means tamper with the system files and programs of your device thereby ending up with a bricked device.

Enough of the story, now let’s get down to the advantages and disadvantages of rooting your device:

ADVANTAGES

1.      INSTALLATION CUSTOM ROMS:

Custom rom is the same thing as your Operating System in your computer. The android platform happens to be an open source and this gives room for a lot of modifications. There are lots of programmers who produce Custom Roms of different devices with lots of function and latest updates. For instance you may be using an old android phone probably running on the android 2.02 OS, with the root access you can check for an updated rom even if your device manufacturer didn’t roll out any update for your device. And the best place I will recommend is the XDA developers where you will find tons of custom roms for your device and different choice to choose from, you can check out this link for more and for those with MTK devices I will recommend needrom

2.      UNINSTALLING UNWANTED SYSTEM PROGRAMS:

Even with the all features of android, the OS can get pretty annoying when you have some unwanted applications pre-installed on your device which you just can’t uninstall and you also find out this apps drain your battery. With root access on your device and some pretty handy softwares such as titanium backup or cleanmaster, you can easily uninstall this apps.

N.B: be sure to freeze this apps first before uninstalling them to be sure your device functions properly without them

3.      BOOSTING THE SPEED OF YOUR DEVICE AND SAVING BATTERY:

There are different methods of boosting the speed of your device even without root access, but with root access you can perform more by overclocking your device with apps like SETCPU. And you can also save battery life by underclocking your device as well or hibernate some unwanted background applications with the application called GREENIFY.

4.      FULL BACKUP OF YOUR DEVICE:

Most manufacturers gives you the ability to backup your apps but none of them will ever allow you to make a backup of your app datas. With root access and titanium backup installed on your device you can easily make a full backup of your device.

5.      GIVE APPLICATIONS SUPERUSER ACCESS TO YOUR DEVICE: 

Though this is also a benefit of root access, it may turn out to be a problem when not used with care due to many malicious apps out there.

Given applications administrative access to your device can help them perform better by bypassing any restriction set by the OS

6.      PERSONALIZING YOUR DEVICE:

This is the part I love most. This really makes you customize your phone to your very taste. With root access you can change your boot and shutdown animation, change start-up/shutdown sounds, lock/unlock sounds and also do a lot more to your device   

DISADVANTAGES

Though the advantages of rooting your device outnumbers the disadvantages, I think it’s just okay to say a little about it:

1.      BRICKING YOUR DEVICE  :

This is far the most common problem many android users are facing. Bricking your device renders it invalid and you may have to purchase a new one. That’s why it’s always advisable to make a nandroid backup of your device before making any modification.

2.      VOID OF WARRANTY:

Rooting your device totally voids the warranty of the device and that means your manufacturer will never be held responsible for any damage done to your device.

Though there are several methods of unrooting your device if you need to.

3.      BREACHING OF SECURITY :

Granting applications super user access simply means you totally trust the application and you are willing to let them go beyond any security measure put in place by your manufacturer.

Some applications can use this as an opportunity to get some private information such as contacts, messages etc.

Though I have never encountered any of these before and it’s also not so common, I just think it’s okay I just chip this in. so be very careful of the applications you grant root access.

With all these been said if you still think you want to root you phone then you can check these out.

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