What is rooting?

Hi guys wazup. This is Santhosh kumar back again with an android article. In the previous article I wrote about fixing the grey wifi bars in android. Fixing that requires rooting your device. So for people who do not know what rooting means, this article will help.

In simple words:

Without being technical if I should put in simple words, "You just have the phone and you don't own the phone until you root it". In other words, android device comes with tons of features which are hidden from the normal users (unrooted users). If you root the phone you now own the phone and also authenticated to access all the features that android serves it's users.

Technical:

Rooting is required for more advanced and potentially dangerous operations including modifying or deleting system files, removing carrier- or manufacturer-installed applications, and low-level access to the hardware itself (rebooting, controlling status lights, or recalibrating touch inputs.) A typical rooting installation also installs the Superuser application, which supervises applications that are granted root or superuser rights by requesting approval from the user before granting said permissions. A secondary operation, unlocking the device's bootloader verification, is required to remove or replace the installed operating system.

In contrast to iOS jailbreaking, rooting is not needed to run applications distributed outside of the Google Play Store, sometimes called sideloading. The Android OS supports this feature natively in two ways: through the "Unknown sources" option in the Settings menu and through the Android Debug Bridge. 

To be more technical exploiting one or more security bugs in the firmware of (i.e., in the version of the Android OS installed on) the device.

Advantages:

The advantages of rooting cannot be put into numbers, But some useful features would be like,

Expanding your RAM.

Expanding your internal memory.

Changing your operating system.

Remove bloatwares. Bloatwares are the software that come pre-installed with the device.

Move system apps to SD card.

Ability to theme your android device.

Control CPU clock speeds.

Overclock or under clock CPU.

Play around with system files which might end up in bricking your device.

Risks:

Your phone might brick at the process of rooting.

Your phone might stop working partially.

Your wifi or sim slots might stop working.

Your phone might overheat (CPU control).

Your phone might get stuck in a boot loop.

And much more.

Precautions:

Look into the website of your device's manufacturer.

Some manufacturers like HTC, Sony, Google and some others provide a tutorial on unlocking the bootloader of the phone which should be done in order to root. This is not the case for all the phones.

Be careful while clearing the cache and dalvik.

Read carefully and do as said in the forums.

One rooting method will not help for all the phones.

Be specific with your device.

If you are not the first to try the mods from xda or any other forums check the comments before using it for yourself.

Have a good day.

@fojoheartthrobe