While your Android isn't in the same sort of jail an iPhone lives in, rooting can help you break out.
If you've researched anything about Android on the internet, you've
probably seen and read about "rooting" one. There was a time when many
of the Android phones available didn't live up to their potential, and
root was the answer. Horrible software
was the norm, applications that you would never use ran amok and wasted
data and battery life, and the experience was bad all around.
Because every Android phone is running the Linux kernel and middleware
very similar to a Linux distribution you would install on a computer
under the hood, rooting them was the way to allow us to try and fix them
our own way. Rooting is how you get complete access to everything in
the operating system, and those permissions allow you to change it all.
Modern Androids are quite a bit better than they used to be. Even the most inexpensive
phone or tablet you can buy in 2016 will do more and perform better
that the best Android phone available just a few years ago. But many of
us still want to root our phones and are looking for more information.
What exactly is root?
Root, at least the way we're talking about it here, is the superuser. Your Android phone uses Linux permissions
and file-system ownership. You are a user when you sign in, and you are
allowed to do certain things based on your user permissions. Apps you
install are also given a type of user ID, and they all have permissions
to do certain things — you see those when you install them on older
versions of Android, or you are prompted to allow them on Marshmallow
or higher — in certain folders with certain files. Root is also a user.
The difference is the root user (superuser) has permissions to do
anything to any file any place in the system. This includes things we
want to do, like uninstall application forced on us by the people who
built them or the people who sells them to us as well as things we don't
want to do that can put your Android in an unusable state. When you're
doing things with superuser permissions, you have the power to do
anything.
When you root your Android, you're simply adding a standard Linux function that was removed. A small file called su
is placed in the system and given permissions so that another user can
run it. It stands for Switch User, and if you run the file without any
other parameters it switches your credentials and permissions from a
normal user to that of the superuser. You are then in complete control,
and can add anything, remove anything and access functions on your phone
or tablet that you couldn't reach before. This is pretty important, and
something you should think about before you begin.
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