Root why

Pretty much every semi-popular phone has a decent following of developers working on porting the latest versions of Android to their handsets, most of which can be found over at the XDA Forums.

Not to mention that most custom ROMs are updated to the latest version of Android very quickly too, bringing you the best of both worlds. Remember when all phones were slow? Well, not all, but they all needed that extra push. A very popular thing to do among root users was overclocking the processor to make things more snappy. Even if overclocking is no longer as popular, you will find that altering processor speeds is definitely convenient.

Got a super powerful phone and want to save battery? Under-clocking is also an option. That makes this one of the most unsung benefits of rooting. No one likes it when their smartphone is running out of its battery charge. While we have seen advancements in terms of battery charging speeds, the truth is that lots of installed apps drain a battery down, even when the app is not being used. Having a rooted phone allows users to download apps that can actually save battery life.

One of our favorites is Greenify , which can discover which apps on your phone are draining your battery charge while not in use. The app puts them info full hibernation mode, so your phone battery can last much longer than normal. File browser apps can take full advantage of this, allowing you to move stuff around on your internal memory if so required.

Fans of custom ROMs can even use a ROM manager to install and update their operating system without the need to flash zip files from Recovery.

There are a lot of other great apps that only work on rooted devices and can take your Android experience to the next level. The app is available on F-Droid and is therefore open-source. Since ad requests eats up battery, most phones will see a noticeable improvement in battery life as well. The biggest problem with AdAway is that it doesn't get rid of the space ads use to occupy, but have no fear.

With the AdBlocker Reborn Xposed module , you can remove both ads and the area they used to occupy, eliminating any reminder the ads were once there. However, with the help of an app and root, you can remove this. Developer Arter97 created a way to modify the stock YouTube app to not show ads, similar to the way some Xposed modules accomplish this.

With Arter97's app, you accomplish the same thing while avoiding root detection if you used Magisk to root. YouTube Vanced is another solution which gives you YouTube Premium features such as background playback along with additional customization for free. This APK will work with for non-root users, but those rooted do get a somewhat simpler installation. Non-rooted devices require microG to be installed after installing the APK to log into the app, but rooted devices don't need this step.

Probably the biggest reason to root is uninstalling bloatware. Only with root can you permanently remove unnecessary apps installed by the OEM. Non-rooted phones can only disable apps which return after factory resets.

With root, you can uninstall apps, free up space on your internal storage, and never have to think about them again. And if you make a mistake and remove an app which breaks functionality, with root-improved backups, you can easily fix your error and proceed forward. There are several different methods for removing bloatware with root, including Magisk modules and file managers, but by far the easiest method is Titanium Backup.

Using this app, you can remove any app installed on your device. If you are not sure if you can delete the app, you can also freeze it, which keeps the app but make its inaccessible to you or any other app.

Remember that Presidental Alert on October 3rd, ? Typically, these are pretty important, usually reserved for a national emergency. However, sometimes, like on the 3rd, FEMA is just testing the system, and for those, you might not want to have to receive that alert. If you were like many Americans who were researching online on how to block this, you soon realized only rooted Android users could. There are actually several methods posted by Redditors that work.

The real fun part when it comes to root is the sheer customizability. There's virtually nothing about your phone's software that you can't tweak to your heart's content when you're rooted. Let say you love the stock ROM that came with your device, but you want to enhance your ability to customize and tweak your system using root. In this situation, you could root your device with Magisk and install the Xposed Framework to accomplish just that. The Xposed Framework is a modification you can install that lets you tweak your OS and apps without having to use custom recovery.

These tweaks come in the form of modules which you can find within the Xposed Installer app, on the Xposed Repo , and in this XDA thread.

The other major source of modules is Magisk. Magisk was created by developer topjohnwu who wanted to created systemless root method. With Magisk, any modification you make to the system is stored in the boot partition without altering the system files. This is what allows it to avoid the detection of Google's SafetyNet.

Magisk also uses modules similar to Xposed that provide easy customization for a rooted device. While far fewer than Xposed, many popular modules from Xposed have made their way to Magisk including Xposed itself , and its collection grows each day. However, unlike Xposed, the modules aren't detected by Google, allowing you to use apps such as Google Pay which won't work on any device Google identifies to be rooted.

It is the easiest way to add new features to your device with the exception of installing an app. And undoing these tweaks is just as straightforward as uninstalling an app. Each time your phone boots up, an animation is played while your phone loads the operating system. These animations are chosen by the OEM but can be changed when rooted.

Boot animations can be changed in a number of different ways. Some custom ROMs also include the ability to customize this via Settings. However, for the most control, you can change it yourself using a file manager.

Using this link , you can download a boot animation. Once renamed, move the new boot animation file to the folder and rename it bootanimation. That's it! It had more features than Android at the time, offered faster performance, and was much more customizable. One of the best features was its built-in theme engine.

But the same team that made many of the popular CyanogenMod themes worked to create Substratum , an app that let you install themes on any rooted devices, CyanogenMod not needed. These themes will change the colors of all aspect of the phone. While we cross our fingers for a dark theme for Android, Substratum is the only way to accomplish this now. With a theme, the entire OS can follow your color scheme. Settings menu, stock applications, and even some popular third-party apps will all match the colors designated by the theme.

Similar to some other tweaks, there is a way to use this theme engine without root using the add-on Andromeda. However, it is limited to Android 8. That is on top of the fee you will pay to install almost all themes ,which typically aren't free. Additionally, Google broke this add-on for Android 9. Therefore, unless you hold back your device from upgrading, without root, you will lose your themes. Android share menu is a powerful tool when used correctly.

The problem is that it gets cluttered really fast and organization is limited. Non-root users are limited to installing apps that replace it or pinning items to the top row of the share menu. And while these options do work, it doesn't stop the biggest problem with the share menu: the countless apps included that you will never use.

Using Xposed Framework and the module Custom Share , you can delete apps from this list. This way, your share menu is a lot less extensive and populated with only apps you will actually use to share data. Rooting lets you change the font of the text used throughout the OS.

While OEMs such as OnePlus do include the ability to change this without root, it is usually limited to only one additional font. However, with root, you can choose from a collection. Apps such as Font Fix , let you choose from over 4, fonts. The app is technically usable by non-rooted devices, but some OEMs will block font changing on non-rooted phones.

With root, every phone works perfectly. Using FontFix, you can change the style of text everywhere. Additionally, the app will provide extra control over the font not included in the device natively. When your phone starts feeling boring and old, that might just be the best time to root. Thanks to the system-level access, you can refresh y our phone with entirely new software and features to and make it feel like new again. To completely cover custom ROMs, we would need a few articles, so we'll give you the cliffs notes version.

ROMs are modified firmware based on Android were customized by a third-party developer for a different experience. In a nutshell, installing a custom ROM replaces your phone's operating system with a new one that usually contains lots more customization options, improved security, and better performance. These options let you change everything from the lock screen to the navigation bar, giving you an unprecedented amount of control as to the exact look of your phone.

Lineage OS, which is easily one of the most popular custom ROMs, brings you a near-stock Android experience with a few additions such as Privacy Guard, which we explained above. ROMs are also developed for older devices, providing them software updates and security patches years after the OEM stopped sending any.

One great example of this is the OnePlus One, which was released in The community has continued to support it years later, allowing its user to run Android 9. For context, the last official release for OnePlus One was Android 5. While technically not a root advantage, custom recovery and root are so directly connected that it is worth mentioning. Custom recoveries, such as TWRP , are usually the second step for any users trying to root their device the traditional ways.

Only when OEMs block the conventional way of rooting do users have to find an exploit to accomplish root first. Custom recoveries make adding modifications to your device easy. Most modifications can be flashed using the custom recovery interface, including custom ROMs. And as mentioned before, it has one of the best backup solutions available to Android users in case anything happens to your device.

Before Android introduced Doze Mode, battery life was pretty terrible on most Android devices. What Doze did was improve background power consumption by creating a hibernation mode when your phone was idle. Notifications for all but high-priority apps were pushed, minimizing battery consumption when you were not using your device.

What apps like Greenify do is maximize this feature for even better battery. Hibernation mode typically requires a select period to pass without any movement of your phone. Greenify can hibernate apps as soon as your phone screen turns off. It can also make hibernating apps wake up faster by using a feature known as Shallow Hibernation, which wakes up apps for a period, makes them high-priority, then returns them to hibernation.

Greenify can be used without root, but its ability is significantly limited. However, when given root access, it will noticeably improve your battery life. The SoC that comes with your device heavily dictates the performance of your phone. However, in one year, the SoC is obsolete after Qualcomm releases a newer system-on-chip that's even faster than the previous year.

Unless Google decides to revive Project Aura, replacing the SoC isn't possible for the average user, making the only way to boost performance to buy a new phone. For those who can't afford to buy a new phone each year or just don't want to give up their current phone , rooting provides a solution. In the early days of Android and rooting, this meant manually increasing the frequency until you got the desired performance, but nowadays, this is much easier.

Developers of custom kernels use presets tested to work on your particular phone and SoC. This way, you can achieve an overclock that works and is relatively stable. Another option you can do is underclock the SoC. Underclocking will help stave off battery aging, which causes your battery's true capacity to decrease each time you discharge and charge your phone. By underclocking the CPU, the power consumed is less, maintaining more of your battery life while only slightly reducing performance.

A governor is a component of the kernel that measures and regulates the CPU frequency. It sets policies that adjust the CPU frequency based on a host of conditions. These governors make a considerable difference as to how your device performs, and the default one is set by the OEM.

With root, you can't modify these at all, but with root and a custom kernel, you can choose what governor you want. When selecting a governor, you can change the way your phone will handle different situations. Depending on the task, the governor will dictate how to increase or decrease the CPU frequency. For example, one governor could lock your CPU to its maximum frequency until it completes its task.

Once completed, it could return to idle or a low power state. These are security holes that can be utilized by malware to take over a device and steal data. There are monthly security updates to patch these holes, but on a rooted phone, you are responsible for security. Root can be a lot of fun to play around with, but it can also lead to plenty of frustration as you try to fix errors caused by overzealous modding.

If you bought your phone with the intention of tinkering, by all means, go nuts. You might be left scouring old forum posts and begging for help in chatrooms to fix your phone. A decade ago, people rooted phones to get features like imposing low-power sleep for apps, managing permissions, and taking screenshots. Unmodified Android can do all of that now. This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use. This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links.

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