Android rooting – what, why and how

Since you are using an Android phone, so you must have come across a word called Rooting, a lot of times when you searched how to optimize your android smartphone So you want to know what rooting is and why or why not you should root your android phone.  In simple words, Rooting is a process that allows android users to attain Admin or Super User rights over their smartphones. Android is an Open Source operating system developed by Google for smartphones and other mobile devices. The term root comes from a Linux OS world where Root is the top-level directory.  Even though android is an open source operating system, you don’t have enough Admin privileges in unrooted devices. You are bound to stay happy in the limitations decided by manufacturers of carriers.

Rooting has different names for different devices. For Apple, hackers and developers gave a term as JailBreaking where has for Blackberry you can install roms right over the stock os, which is don’t from RIM’s own apploader. These terms are not only used for smartphones but they are also used for many other devices like Sony Playstation, etc.

Why to root your Android device:

As mentioned earlier that people come to know about rooting while searching for the tips to optimize their android devices, so one of the main reason for rooting is to optimize your device. Rooting gives you full access to your device, full access means complete freedom and control to tweak your device as per your requirement. There are many noticeable advantages of rooting:

1. Alter system files: You can replace many system files of the stock rom of your android devices like changing recovery boot and recovery images, add new themes and delete custom/default themes already in there, edit or remove inbuilt apps like maps, mail clients, messengers, calendar, etc.
2. Install more apps: There are many productive apps in android market that run only on rooted devices. They are designed in such a way that they need access to the root directory of your device. Check out an article in Lifehacker on 10 best android apps that make rooting your phone worth the hassle.
3. Install apps to SD: One of the biggest drawbacks of any android device is its incapability to install all the apps on SD card. Many developers create the apps in such a way that they will be installed only on internal memory. Most of the android devices (apart from the most expensive ones) come with low internal memory, thus limiting user to few apps in their devices. Google explains that fetching the data from SD card makes the response slower and apps won’t be running as effectively as from phone’s internal memory. If you root your device you can install APP2SD, which will copy all your installed apps to a ext2/3/4 formatted SD card and their future updates will also be stored and installed on SD card.
4. Latest OS and Custom Roms: If you don’t root your device, you might keep on waiting forever for your devices’ manufacturer to bring an upgrade to the OS that you have right now. Rooting your device gives you an option to install current updated OS of your device which is launched for a different country or any other device’s upgrade which has the same hardware specification through custom-made roms.
5. Wi-Fi tethering: Most of the new devices these days come with an inbuilt option of wifi tethering, however, all the older devices don’t have the option of wifi tethering to share your cellular data with your laptop or home computer. After rooting you can install any app for this feature. Tethering also works on Bluetooth and also through USB data cable.
6. Improved performance: For rooted devices, there are many good apps in android market like Android Overclock, Tegrak Overclock, etc to overclock your phone’s CPU and enhance speed and performance. If you root your device you can also uninstall some default apps which eat a lot of battery and you don’t really use them, thus improving performance and battery backup.
7. Backup and Restore: In rooted device you can backup your entire system to an SD card almost in the same way as you backup your hard disk. One of the best apps till date for this feature is Rom Manager. This is required specially when you want to try different custom roms to flash your device. If you don’t like the rom with which you flashed your device, you can always switch back to stock rom with this app (if you have taken the backup).

We looked at the benefits of Rooting, so now you definitely want to root your device. But wait, you should understand the risks of rooting before you proceed. Keep reading:

Why not to root your Android Device:

1. Chances of bricking your device: With every god thing there comes a bad thing as well. So with rooting there comes a risk of bricking you phone. If a miss a single step or if something goes wrong in the process of rooting, you will end up seeing you phone turning to a mere paper weight. Sometimes un-bricking your phone is possible, but only sometimes. Chances are that it will never be recovered even by service centre guys.
2. Warranty: Rooting voids warranty as the manufacturer don’t want you to enjoy your device’s optimum performance. So even if you are successful in rooting, you will loose on your warranty. For some devices un-root is possible and you can even load stock rom if you have taken the backup, but practically speaking if you could do all this, why you need to claim warranty?
3. Boot Loop: Sometimes while rooting, devices just stuck in Boot Loop and keeps on restarting. But this is not bricking. So if you are patient enough and if you do thorough online research of your model, you will be able to recover your phone, if not completely atleast restoring your phone back to factory settings.

List of some wonderful apps for your rooted android device: Android Police have made a good list of all the wonderful articles which you can use once you root your device.  Click on the links below:

List 1 , List 2 and List 3. Apart from these you can try Superuser and SetCPU for root users. Do download the apps mentioned in the links for free, check this article.

Conclusion:

Rooting your phone can be scaring because you don’t have any toll-free customer support. But the developers and hackers have made many good forums for support for rooting and installing custom roms. The two best forums that I came across are Cyanogen and Xda Developers. There are hundreds of other communities too who specialize in specific models. Rooting is completely legal and does not involve any risk of you ending up behind bars. For rooting your specific model you can always find solution in XDA developers forum or you can Google your specific model.

To end it up over here the last words I would like to say is stay away from extremes i.e. don’t try to push your device to its maximum performance and whenever you are in doubt, ask for help.

Disclaimer: Rooting is risky and will void your warranty. We explained you the A-Z about rooting so that you can take a better decision on your own. If in the process of rooting your screw your phone, we won’t be responsible in anyways. [Article View] : 3287