[Q]Why "root" your phone ?

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Hi, everyone.

I am fairly new on the forum. I keep reading about "rooting" your phone. I have a Samsung Galaxy SII T989 and my questions are:

1. What is "phone rooting" ?

2. What are the advantages of having your phone "rooted" ?


Thank you.

I'm *hoping* this is a joke, but if it isn't, here's a good place to start:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=why+root+your+phone

Originally Posted by unclespoon

I'm *hoping* this is a job, but if it isn't, here's a good place to start:

Wow that's pretty awesome, would have never thought about that ha ha ha

Sent from my SGH-T989 using xda premium

Yes... It is a job to think: Why would you risk to unstable your phone by "root" it?

I see that:

- people are removing the wrong apps that negatively affect their phones (e.q. a ccounts and sync).
- people's phone are missing other thinks they used to like (bars, the small flashing blue light when you scroll to the top and to the bottom of the screen).
- the pletoria of apps for rooted phone are not that great...
- the advantage you get is that you only free up some internal space?

I have no issues with my phone rooted. I am on a stock T-Mobile ROM and froze all the bloatware. You can get rids of ads in apps when rooted which is pretty damn convenient for me. Do research on what is safe to freeze and you wont have any problems. Freezing is more safe than uninstalling...

Sent from my SGH-T989 using xda premium

The reason is you then have 100% control over your system. If you know what you're doing, having root can be a very powerful tool. You can greatly speed up the phone, free up ram, theme things, it gives you total control.

Now this is a double edged sword too. All the horror stories you're hearing about root are by people who don't have the faintest idea what they're doing and are breaking things.

Think of it in terms of computers. On linux, having root is, well, having root. You have full access to the system. On windows, (vista and above mainly) it's like having an administrator account with UAC turned off. In the right hands, this is very very nice. In the wrong hands, it can cause problems.

If you don't see the benefit of rooting, then I'd highly suggest you do not do so. These devices are not windows boxes where you screw up and "oh well, guess it's time to bust out the windows cd and do a re-install. I'd also suggest perhaps looking through the market at things that require root, and the benefits they give you. (Titanium backup, for instance. Or tethering when your provider doesn't want you to.)

Originally Posted by Sui Generis

Yes... It is a job to think: Why would you risk to unstable your phone by "root" it?

I see that:

- people are removing the wrong apps that negatively affect their phones (e.q. a ccounts and sync).
- people's phone are missing other thinks they used to like (bars, the small flashing blue light when you scroll to the top and to the bottom of the screen).
- the pletoria of apps for rooted phone are not that great...
- the advantage you get is that you only free up some internal space?

Honestly if you don't want to root your phone do not root it. A lot of the problems you mention stem from people attempting to root and don't know what they are really doing. I am one of those people who are strictly against one click root methods. Because you literally don't need to read anything to understand what exactly are you doing.

If you know what you can do with a rooted phone things like
-Better battery life by manipulating the cpu cycles and governors.
-Change the entire look of the phone to look as if it a totally different os.
-Better performance overall of your phone
-Overall better experience than what the carrier give you.
I could name endless things about why rooting is better than what the stock gives you.

A lot of people I hear just say go to xda and root your phone. Which is very ignorant. Not everyone should root. If your phone is doing what it needs to do then leave it alone. My friends who have android phones ask me to root for them i tell them no root it themselves. With one click methods people make an xda account and blame the developer saying their rom sucks and is bad battery life where as the problems stem most of the time the user side.

I agree. I haven't rooted my SGS2 yet because the stock ROM, for me, seems to be serving its purpose very well. All my benchmark scores are within standard deviation of the OC kernels and now we've got wifi calling. I use ADW for a new UI and that suits me just fine. Yes, ICS will come from CM long before it does from the carriers, but I'm ok with that - even though I'll probably end up rooting and installing ICS once it's stable. My previous Android phones were rooted within days of purchase, and yes I would like to remove bloat, but with all the internal storage and my 32gb sd card I think I'll be a happy camper. It would be nice to know carrier IQ was gone, though...

rooting = control

no root = no control over settings

they don't let you root by default to prevent noobs from damaging their phone by changing some settings they should have not touched

when i rooted my phone and got beastmod 4.0 with flaux kernal my battery life increased like 50x than stock x.x

Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk