Hello and a good day to everyone, today will be looking into the android device ecosystem and exploring the word rooting?
Now before moving any further, the below is just for educational purpose and I will not be held responsible for any damage done to your device if after the end you decide to root your phone, as this is done solely on your decision.
While some country consider rooting legal and others not, also some mobile device consider rooting an illegal process as it removes all restrictions that must have been placed alongside the device, a law is usually put in place for this
You warranty is now void.
But other mobile device not so much, the android os as a whole is one big open projects, where users are able to test and create different software’s to run on multiple platform and while most of this software require root privileges others not so much and the need to root a mobile device is up to the owner and also try to read the laws guiding a mobile device before purchasing it, so as not to break any law.
What is rooting?
Rooting is the process of allowing users of smartphones, tablets and other devices running the Android mobile operating system to attain privileged control (known as root access) over various Android subsystems. As Android uses the Linux kernel, rooting an Android device gives similar access to administrative (superuser) permissions as on Linux or any other Unix-like operating system such as FreeBSD or macOS.
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The above is a little bit complicated, let’s look at a windows operating system, now in order to run a particular system and give full access to a software we need the administrative permission, most times when running a software and the software will in time edit some files currently running on our pc, they usually ask for administrative privileges.
The act of rooting is usually to install a SU super user, which acts like an administrative function in windows, and the process although not that complex but not done right might lead to one bricking his/her mobile device and we don’t want that.
Like I said earlier, in some countries rooting is legal and others not so much.
Rooting is more or less like that, with rooting you are able to explore, edit, install and delete any software package of your choice.
Say we bought a mobile device that houses an internal memory of 8gig and a ram of 1gig, now one will be wondering, the device is not that bad until you start getting low internal space, this is caused by the internal allocated memory and if though the option to move the installed apk file to your external memory card, you still find the error
- Low internal memory.
Now this is caused by some of the datas, stored on your mobile device which in turns tends to pile up after saving lot of offline files, taking Facebook for an example, when installed it takes say 50mb from your phone memory and with time the space starts increasing, now this is caused by the data’s stored, now you may be wondering, after moving the apk file to the external memory card, the storage space didn’t increase but rather stayed same way.
The above is caused by the files that you were supposed to move are rather unmovable yet, the ability to move such files are yet to be unlocked.
Rooting is able to remove all constrain, and you are able to install software’s which will in turn be able to move such files to the external memory card thus giving your more storage to store files, but also moving of some files data is not too good as it tends to affect your mobile device function.
Now some of this files stored on your mobile internal storage require a fast and easy access, moving them to your external memory card will slow their response rate hence making the mobile phone unstable, at the expense of freeing up some space, so one might ask himself is it worth it?
On the other hand,
Deleting of preinstalled software
Often time, our mobile device come with pre-installed software which only we don’t need but also they take up a large storage space from our device which would have allowed us installed more and better software’s, this can usually be a drag, annoying and thus bring about installing fewer software’s.
Rooting of mobile device also give the user the ability to remove such software’s, thereby creating more room for new software’s to come in or making your device smooth and easy to navigate not the chunked up device it was.
Changing of rom
Your mobile device comes in a default os called stock rom, which was put in place by the phone product company, be it Jellybean, Kitkat and what have you.
Whereas, a custom rom is an edited stock rom which is made to support many and different functions which was not in place for the stock rom.
One of the best reason to root an android device is to install/flash in a clock word mode/custom recovery option, it gives one the ability to install a new and custom made rom, just like a custom car, where the owner is able to put in different parts from other vehicle, so also is custom rom.
You are able to port other applications which might not work if sent directly to your device, rooting gives the user the ability to test out various device software on just one particular phone, although most times they are quite buggy, other times not so much but the best part is, you get to experience how it feels like using another device, in which case you probably couldn’t have afford.
Rooting, although it comes with many advantage so also comes with its disadvantage.
Like I earlier said, if not done properly could lead to a user bricking his/her device.
The term brick was gotten from a brick stone, a stone made quite beautiful and perfected is unable to interact with its owner, it just stares at you all day, now that’s how your phone looks like or behave like upon bricking, you lose all access to the phone it is unable to turn up or even give any sign of it still functioning, although the good news, is that we have two types of bricking, which include software bricking and hard bricking.
Software bricking usually require the user flashing in the default rom and boom the phone comes back to life, whereas hard bricking requires a user opening the phone and changing some hardware’s and sometimes it still not enough.
My advice is, if you not comfortable about the steps to root your phone don’t, so as to avoid the stress of having to unbrick your device if by the way it actually bricks.
Breaching your warranty
Rooting is legal in some countries/device and others not so much, when not legal, a law is usually put in place which states, rooting of your device will lead to one losing their warranty to that that device, others not so much.
Rooting a device involves removing the restrictions placed by the cellular carrier or device OEMs. Many Android phone makers legally allow you to root your phone, e.g., Google Nexus. Other manufacturers, like Apple, don’t allow jailbreaking. Other manufacturers, including LG, HTC, and Motorola, officially allow unlocking the bootloader which allows one to root the phone without exploiting a vulnerability.
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The above is for educational purposes.
Rooting should be done for a desire to wanting to change or edit a certain part of your mobile device not just for fun, as it will serve no use then.
Thanks for reading and I do hope you have been enlightened about the importance, disadvantage of what rooting does.
Thanks for reading and do have a nice day.