What is Rooting ?
Rooting in simple words means getting root access or administrative privileges for your device. Rooting an Android phone or tablet is equivalent to jail breaking an iPhone. Rooting lets you unlock the phone’s operating system and dig into phone’s sub-system. You can you access to the entirety of the operating system and install unapproved apps, deleted unwanted bloatware, update the OS, replace the firmware, overclock or underclock the processor, customize anything on your phone. Along with the advantages there is high risk rooting your phone. You will void your warranty if you root your device and also some security-conscious apps and services do not work on rooted devices.
Advantages of Rooting
1) Unlock Hidden Features
Android cannot provide you all the features you want. Either an app is blocked by carriers, hacks into Android’s system files, or otherwise isn’t available. Luckily, rooting can help with that. Rooting allows you to bypass these restrictions and install all the apps developed for Android. Additionally, there are a lot of root-only applications available which enhance your user experience and let you have much more power.
2) Get rid of bloatware
One of the biggest advantage of rooting a android phone is that the users can get rid of the applications which the manufacturing company has pre-installed in the phone and cannot be removed. The pre-installed apps in the phone occupy lots of space and most of them are not used by the users. After rooting your android phone you will have full control over the pre-installed apps and you can remove them whenever you want. Removing bloatware will free up space and make your smartphone faster.
3) Installing Custom ROM’s
A custom ROM is basically a custom version of Android, and it totally changes the way you use your android phone. If you don’t like the normal version of android then there are lots of customized ROM’s offering unique features to improve android experience. Many people root their smart phone just to install custom ROM. Some of the popular custom ROM’s are Lineage OS, Paranoid Android and MIUI. There are lots of customized ROM’s which have really handy features and change the OS from head to toe. If you have rooted your phone or plan to root it someday i highly recommend you to try out custom ROM’s.
4) Block Ads On Any App
Annoyed by the ads popping up on apps ? Don’t worry rooting your phone will take care of it. Ads on the web browser can be handled easily but blocking them on smartphone is quite complicated. If you want to block ads in certain apps or on certain devices, rooting is the best option to do so. Since the Ad-blocking software on Android needs root access, as it modifies the Android hosts file to block known ad servers.
5) Greater Battery Life
You can do so much to increase your battery life even without rooting your phone but with rooting you have even more options and power. This is one of the practical benefits as rooting helps to unlock the full potential of your phone. By using the apps like Greenify you can automatically hibernate apps you aren’t using. This is very beneficial for those apps that always want to run in the background when you’re not looking.
Disadvantages of Rooting
1) Voids Your Warranty
One of the biggest disadvantages of rooting your smartphone is that it voids your warranty. Most of the smartphone manufacturers won’t consider the warranty if the smartphone is rooted. Even if the problem caused isn’t due to rooting, it won’t be fixed by the company. If you carry a expensive smartphone i suggest you to think twice before rooting it.
2) Root can Brick Your Device
The rooting process is not so simple as you might be thinking. It is a bit risky and if failed it can brick your device. One wrong step can make you pay a heavy price. To avoid the risk of bricking your device you should always get your apps from reliable sources, like Google Play, and do not delete files that rooting apps suggest not to delete. If you failed to root your device and bricked it instead you need to get it fix by going to manufacturer’s service center. So i suggest you to learn properly on how to root android device by watching detailed tutorials available on the internet.
3) Update Problems
In the devices which are not rooted, no matter how much late but system update arrives. But with the rooted device there is risk of system update may fail to install. Updates may fail to install not only due to software modifications that occurred while the distribution has been rooted, but also because of user alterations or due to the root access itself .
4) Security Risks
Rooting lets you unlock the phone’s operating system and dig into phone’s sub-system. Rooting is achieved by exploiting a security flaw and installing an application to manage requests for elevated permissions. After rooting your phone will be less secured than it was before. So you need to be careful with what you are installing.
5) Tweaking Risks
When you adjust settings their are certain risks that can occur. The biggest risk is that you might brick your device. Another risk is that nothing will happen even after you root your phone. Your phone will be rooted but won’t perform the actions that a rooted phone can perform which is quite frustrating. Fixing this problem can cost a lot of time and money.
As you saw there are both advantages and disadvantages of rooting your android phone, you should decide carefully that you want your android phone to be rooted or not. This article is not meant to persuade you to root your device or make you believe that rooting is useless. This article aims to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of rooting your device. By looking at the points above, the choice of rooting your phone is up to you. I hope this article gave you a clear idea on positives and negatives of rooting. If you like to add any point that i missed above the comment section is always there.
