Anybody who is interested to know more about Android OS or Android devices might have gone through the word “Rooting”. Have you wondered what Rooting is all about and how is it done? This article provides a basic understanding on the process of “Rooting”. If you ever heard about jailbreaking iPhone, you almost know what Rooting is all about. While jailbreaking is done on iPhone, Rooting is done on Android devices. A warning before we proceed, Rooting is not recommended by manufacturer. Rooting your smartphone will make it devoid of any warranty provided by the manufacturer. So if you want to proceed with Rooting, Do it at your own risk.
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What is Rooting?
Android devices manufacturers usually disable making changes to their hardware and software features. Rooting allows you to crack root user who is like the administrator user account in windows OS. After Rooting, you can tweak the Android device by making changes on kernel of the Android OS and hardware features of the device. Once the device is unlocked, you can upload your custom ROM’s, install favorite custom themes and tweak hardware and software features to improve performance. The manufacturers don’t recommend it, so that they can exploit the users in future. Another reason for manufacturer restriction is to keep the hardware and software details standardized in all devices without making any changes, so that it is easy to manage and release updates for these locked devices.
What are the advantages of Rooting?
You should be wondering, why some users go an extra mile, taking the risk of losing the safety of manufacturer warranty to do Rooting.
Custom ROM: ROM is “Read Only Memory” is a chipset inside the device which stores information that cannot be erased. However you can modify the ROM by a process known as Flashing. The OS is usually loaded inside ROM. Let’s say, you want to upgrade from Android Froyo to Android Ice Cream Sandwich. You can do it by flashing the ROM. Flashing helps in making the phone looks different and also enhance overall performance.
Overclocking: Rooting enables you to make changes in the hardware components. This allows overclocking the processor to make it work faster, just like overclocking the latest CPU’s. There are special apps in Android store which allow handling this task easily.
Improve performance: Tweaking the kernel of OS and making hardware changes enable to increase the overall performance of the device. But you need to be extra careful, as it can also damage your device.
BaseBand: After rooting, you can update the baseband of the device which can improve signal strength.
Unlocking more features: Apart from kernel and hardware access, it can also provide access to UDB tethering and WI-Fi. The telephone operators might charge you extra for getting these features.
Disadvantage of Rooting
Even though Rooting has its own advantage, it comes with a lot of risk. First of all, it make the device void of any warranty from the manufacturer. Another risk is the changes that you make on the device. Extreme changes can destroy the device and rend it useless as a brick.
How to root an Android device
The rooting process varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. The best place to check for rooting process is to look in forums and websites which specialize in discussions on rooting a specific device. These forums are full of discussions on how users tried different tweaks, its results, the one which worked and which flopped. Do proceed with caution and only select the one which you are confident to try out.
Find the different Rooting methods
FYI, Some of the popular Rooting methods
Z4Root: Z4Root use a single button to root your Android device. This application can be downloaded from the web. Connect your PC using USB, transfer the .apk file to the root of the SD card, open the file using files manager and install it. Once installed, it allows you to select the root option. This application is compatible with lot of Android devices.
SuperOneClick: This is another popular tool. Download the tool. Then turn on USB Debugging Mode which is located under the settings. Open application and run it. This application allows full or partial Rooting and is compatible with wide range of Android devices.
Revolutionary: If you have good enough technical knowledge, then go for this method. The method involves S-OFF, installing custom recovery and flash ROM. Be on the safer and refer technical articles before trying it.
How to identify a device is Rooted or Not
Plenty of Apps are available in Android market which will let you know the root status of your device. Some of the Apps such as Android Terminal Emulator allows to check the status if it is rooted or not. If the status display ‘$’ sign, the device is rooted. If it is ‘#’ sign, then it means the device is not rooted.
Hopefully this article is helpful and you get a better idea of why and how Rooting is done.
Check What Others Have To Say
What a neat article.
I was in a kind of dilemma, to root or not but after reading of the advantages of rooting it seems as the best option even if i’ll void my warranty.Thanks for the post.
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If you just want to have some apps that are not found on the official Android app store, you don’t have to root your phone. You just need to change some security settings.