August 3, 2010 By

The Pros & Cons of Android Rooting

android-logo This is a useful article from Talk Android about ‘rooting’ an Android device. You’ve probably seen the term ‘rooting’ used often on the internet but may not know exactly what it means. This article explains what rooting is and talks about the advantages and disadvantages of rooting your device.

In posting this device, we are not advising that you do or don’t root your device. One disadvantage that the article doesn’t list is that rooting your device will void the warranty, so if you do root it and it goes wrong, you will be responsible for any costs to repair the device and in the worst case scenario, may need to replace it completely.

My personal advice would be to avoid rooting your device if you are a novice to this kind of thing. However, if you really are keen on having a go at rooting, try it on an older device/one that you’re not bothered about breaking to begin with. The last thing you want to do is to brick your brand new HTC Desire as part of an experiment!

From TalkAndroid:

What is rooting?

Before we get started, I want to explain what “rooting” is.  When you root your phone, you gain “superuser” privileges to the Android operating system. When you are using a stock device, you have the equivalent of “guest” privileges. If you are familiar with any Linux operating system, you know that the superuser privilege allows you to gain access to administrative rights. This level of access gets you down to the nitty gritty of the OS with no restrictions, lets you make changes to the system, and run scripts that would normally be blocked with a standard user account. As long as they are not encrypted, that is… such as the case of the Droid X, which has an encrypted bootloader. With superuser privileges on an Android phone, you can install programs that need complete access to the OS – such as ROM installers (like ROM Manager), theme modifiers (such as Metamorph), and simple apps like DroCap2, which takes screenshots from the device without having to plug it in to your computer.

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About Chris Ward

Better known as 'Wardy', digital media is where his interest lies. Responsible for many elements of the Clove website and external advertising activities, Wardy is our interactive media graduate.

Always chilled out, there is never a time when you see 'Wardy' stressed. A keen music follower, he knows his DJ's and how to mix a few tracks together. Always eating, he remains stick thin and is the envy of the rest of us! A very deep character, there are some suprising twists to what Wardy knows and you'll never meet a nicer bloke if you tried!