Do you root your phone?
If you are just trying to remove bloatware don't bother since there is a risk of bricking it
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It would be nice if they just let us remove the damn bloatware >.>
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How much bloatware are we talking? also what phone do you have? Some phones are easier than others to work with
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Uhh, I don't know how much I'd say but all the samsung/google apps I never use. The phone is a Samsung Galaxy S4 so I don't think it is that hard to root.
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My friend has rooted the phone, he's also changing ROMs on it on a monthly basis, with no issues.
I have S5 mini, also with custom (Cyanogenmod 13) ROM, it was too easy to do.
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It is easy to root samsung devices but there is always the risk of bricking
I changed ROMs on my S2 on a monthly basis I just don't dabble in it anymore because I am always so busy as in playing video games and work XD
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As long as you are comfortable with the risk go for it
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Has that happened to you?
I bricked my old phone once, but was able to do a hard reset to get it back.
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Then it wasn't actually bricked, just needed a reset. It's pretty difficult to "brick" or make permanently unusable most mobile phones these days. Most of the time when people think they have, they just don't know the key combo to press to to enter recovery mode and auto fladh the default rom that is stored "hidden" on most all new devices.
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If there's an easy root for it available, I do it.
One time with my old Nexus 5, I was messing around with custom OS as well, but it never worked as well as it should have and in the end I couldn't be bothered anymore... but rooting for removing bloatware, definitely worth it!
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Yes, I did (with my reliable S4). I remove a lot of bloatware to save space and to use with some "questionable parallel" software. - wink wink
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I have an S4 myself, do you happen to have a guide/walk-through you might have used?
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The guide I use was in portuguese (I'm from Brazil), so it wouldn't help you. It's been a while, there are better things online now. Back then, I use Odin. Today I was reading they use Motochopper. There are some things you should be careful, like backup your IMEI and search for the best root for your phone. Mine has Exynos processor, Snapdragon's better. - A lot of links send you to forum xda-developers. They are great, like this one. - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2252248
Good luck!
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I have an Android tablet, but I root it to get rid of the bloatware on it and reclaim some space. To me, its more than worth it, but I really, really, hate bloatware. I guess its just up to you how much you want it gone, if its worth rooting or not.
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I definitely think its worth rooting in the sense of removing bloatware. My concerns more come from losing out a warranty if something goes wrong (unrelated to the root), bricking my phone (though I don't think it would happen if I'm careful), no longer getting OS updates and whatnot.
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I cant speak to warranties or bricking, but I still get my OS updates. Before you do anything, I highly recommend hitting androidforums.com (or forums.androidcentral.com) and taking a look around. Lots of good information in there that might help you hopefully.
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Yeah I have been reading pages here and there and seeing what people have to say to it. I also think my phone is old enough that it isn't hard to find a good guide to rooting it.
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In most cases unless you seriously cock it up without an available backup, you can just backup/unroot and your warrnty will be unaffected.
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I never did, but looking forward to it, since my phone is a shitty one, factory loaded with a lot of crappy google apps, which are kinda pointless and they only fill its already low internal storage (less than 1 gb)
Any way to "format" a huawei ascend y530? Custom rom or anything?
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Get a third party rom, like CyanogenMod if there's one for your device.
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I think it's more of an "at the same time" thing. The stock rom wouldn't let you update to a third party one anyway so you gotta root it to get another rom on. :)
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Root is Like God :D
My main reason to root my device are following :
Titanium Backup <3
Custom Recovery <3
Modifying Stock/Custom Rom With Mods,
And etc.
PS : I don't care about bloatware. U can freeze them with Titanium Backup If U wish.
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I did that to my phone a few years ago, don't remember what model, but it was a Samsung.
It was easy, and definitely worth it to get rid of the bloatware. Also helped the battery life, not having all that stuff running in the background.
I wonder if anyone knows if you can install apps but then not agree to all the privacy invading privileges they ask for? I don't think all these random apps need access to my email and phone # list and whatever else....
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I've been wanting the same thing but the only way I've found is through third party firewall-type tools. It's a pain.
I refuse to install an app that demands access that I don't reasonably believe it requires, so I rarely install any apps these days.
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Try the SRT Appguard. It lets you reinstall the apps and then scans their code for the permissions. After that is done, you can just say "I dont want this app to have following permissions" and then the app actually does not have them anymore :)
Also, SRT Appguard needs no root. Google removed it from playstore though, so you have to go to SRTs website (it is trustable, as it is made by a university in germany)
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I'm sure I could search for it, but if you'd happen to have the link I'd appreciate it. I hoping to get a new phone soon?, so I don't want to bother rooting this one. SRT sounds perfect, thanks :)
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I probably should, but I'm lazy and bloatware so far hasn't annoyed me to the point of setting that up.
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Yeah same here. There is also a small risk involved and it really isn't that annoying...
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I'm never buying Samsung again. Knox makes you feel like a criminal for wanting to configure your own device. For my next phone I'll be going back to HTC. They seem to actively document how to root their devices.
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Thanks for the tip, might consider looking at HTC devices next time I need to get a new phone, I think it should be standard to allow people to customize their device. It's understandable that they need to stop users from removing stuff that directly impacts the device but there should be more access than what is currently there. If HTC is in a sense promoting rooting then it seems like they understand that.
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I have heard good things about Nexus as well so definitely another one to check
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It's worth checking on their current range of devices before buying, my experience stems from a few years ago now. :)
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Yeah, if I change it'll probably be in a few years as well so plenty of time to figure things out :x
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I root all my android phones, but my newly acquired galaxy s6 edge tricked me. It has nonremovable memory, but all the special Samsungy stuff is on some protected part of the phone's memory. So while after rooting it, it shows up as free, I can't use that memory for anything.
Still, I'd say go for it! I don't know if it counts as being bricked, but my phone got nonresponsive several times during the process, was still able to recover (through some complex bit of boot image loader thing I still don't fully understand).
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Samsung device are very easy to play with root and mods. Very easy :P
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I did it with my old phone since that one only had 350mb internal storage (and whatsapp alone took like 100mb of that -_-) and by rooting it, I was able to get rid of shit I didn't need to gain more storage.
Now I got 16gb internal storage plus a 32gb SD card, so why even bother? Sure, there's some stuff that I just don't need but what harm is just leaving it on there gonna do? :D
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Yeah, one of the reasons I want to remove the bloatware is because I don't have the most storage (though nowhere near as low as 350mb).
If I didn't need any storage I'd probably leave them/disable them.
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A lot of the bloatware is always running in the background, and if you kill the process it just starts right back up. It helps drain the battery, and then there are the privacy concerns to consider. Space-wise it probably doesn't matter at all though.
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I just disabled all of it, so it in fact isn't running in the background. Sure, there are some benefits to removing that stuff but it's not worth risking damaging something.
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I don't know about your phone, but just like they won't let you uninstall the apps, they won't let you disable any of them either. Even if I do, it starts up on it's own after a few minutes. So they are always running in the background.
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Not for me but I don't know about other phones. I just have those running that I want running.
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Hmmm, I've had a bunch of android phones, and I've never had one that worked like yours. Although the apps aren't open, so it's not obvious that they're running. Maybe it's something to do with the service provider?
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Well, I got a "running" section that shows the apps that are running in the background, and all of them make sense / are apps that I actually use.
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I suppose that's mostly my case as well, there aren't too many running that I don't want at all. I guess my 'problem' is that I'd rather they didn't run all the time; only when I actually wanted to use them. I mean, I use a ton of PC programs, but they aren't running all the time, why should phones be any different?
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Because Android is a completely different OS than what you're used to. Most of the apps use the phone-specific features (GPS, other connectivity/location-aware apps) more or less all the time, and even if they don't use the mobile-aware features they check for and download updates on a regular basis. Android, after the first couple of versions, has been much smarter about managing RAM than, say, Windows, has ever been. Additionally, it runs on a completely different CPU architecture than your PC, even PCs running Linux or MacOS.
That's my answer to your "...why should phones be any different?" query...
Also, PCs used to be able to run only one program at a time for the most part. The x86 and x86-64 (aka AMD64) CPUs are direct descendants from those 8088 and 8086 CPUs. Intel's attempt at a more-modern architecture (IA64) was not very successful in consumer devices.... and then Apple dropped the PowerPC chip in its Macs and adopted Intel's x86-based chips and that's that.
Anyone with accurate corrections to what my memory tells me should correct my errors so I don't have anything erroneous in what I've written. There's probably a wikipedia article about the history of CPUs and why some were used in PCs and others (i.e. ARM CPUs... more accurately called SOC "System On a Chip") in mobile devices and why.
I'm fairly certain that low power consumption and ability to shut down processes completely—while retaining them in RAM for quick access or removal—is one reason ARM-based architectures became popular on Android devices.
Apple's iPhones use custom CPUs that probably manage power consumption and mobile functionality in similar ways, but I don't know as much about iOS devices (e.g. iPods, iPads, iPhones) as I do about non-Apple products.
Intel has developed many lower-power CPUs for use in its small, fanless NUC ("New Unit of Computing") devices and entered the portable market in its own way, but with relatively-inexpensive competition like Raspberry Pi (which uses versions of ARM CPUs for its at least three-so-far available models) and many similar small computing devices, Intel will probably have a lot of competition for some markets. I think the NUC boxes use CPUs with more capabilities and incorporate more RAM (hence their higher price tag), but they might be overkill for something one of the $9 to ~$80 devices can be hacked or modded to do if nothing more is required.
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I understand that, but thank you for the explanation. I know that most apps use GPS and whatnot almost all the time, and that is my main problem. I don't want the apps doing that unless I'm specifically using them. All of the apps that I have constantly running have no need to be running all the time. I can see that there are some that might need to be, but I'm not using any of them currently.
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I have a couple of android phones and I've rooted all of them. Rooting itself does not brick the device unless the instructions you find are not from a credible source.
Let me know if you need to know anything specific.
I've rooted Motorola, Samsung, Xiaomi, SWIPE, Huawei and LG! :D
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I do not even know what that means. lol wow I feel old and I have an Android device. Now if I could only remember where I stored it.
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I did once for my Nexus 5. For science.
But they're releasing quite rapid builds right now so I can't be bothered anymore.
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Download kingroot and root your phone easily no brick
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Where is the "Hell yes!" option? :P
My current phone is a Nexus so bloatware isn't an issue but I root for various reasons such as: Titanium Backup, AdAway, Xposed Framework, CF.Lumen, BetterBatteryStats, and custom kernels.
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I just wanted to confirm because I thought I read on a forum earlier that you can use it without rooting your phone but maybe I'm mistaken. It definitely seems like a handy tool to have that's for sure.
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It won't work without root cause restoring app data requires access to a protected folder.
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Perhaps it was a different app such as Helium Backup? It can work without root; you have to setup adb on your computer and then connect your phone to the PC.
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Not sure, I'll have to go back and find the page I was reading, thanks though :)
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It's a common misconception that rooting is required for a full backup as most of the apps that do it do need root for at least some functions.
It is possible to do a full backup with just the Android SDK though - see here for the process I've used personally
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Rooting a phone is a matter of two clicks nowadays. Back in times you had to do a lot of stuff to get it working.
I was also never using a stock firmware on my phone, I flashed it to a custom time everytime with no bloatware, better RAM management, overclocking, just better performance overall (includes recovery flashing).
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That depends on your phone. My current one needed to be unlocked from the manufacturer first.
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Not true, you can override anything. In the end it's Linux.
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No.
http://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_is_now_locking_the_bootloaders_on_redmi_note_3_mi_4c_and_mi_note_pro-news-16133.php
http://forum.xda-developers.com/mi-note-pro/general/bootloader-locked-xiaomi-to-form-t3293581
http://www.ibtimes.com/xiaomi-locks-bootloader-redmi-note-3-mi-4c-mi-note-pro-unlocking-requires-user-wait-3-2270174
http://www.androidauthority.com/xiaomi-bootloader-unlocking-process-668116/
http://www.ghacks.net/2016/01/19/xiaomi-locks-bootloader-for-all-mi-devices/
http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/xiaomi-starts-locking-bootloader-on-some-smartphones-makes-unlocking-difficult-791710
http://xiaomitips.com/guide/unlock-redmi-note-3-bootloader/
http://www.gizchina.com/2016/01/17/xiaomi-will-lock-more-boot-loaders/
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Always root cause I don't like stock ROMs. So I go for any well known custom ROM that provides nightly updates.
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Root? That's for pussies.
I'm making my own operating system.
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Both phones and tablet, all rooted. Why? Why not. (bcs lucky patcher, wifi kill and other apps like this) and remove stupid apps. (bloat)
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I did that with my dumbphone before Android was a thing and before it was cool. #hipsterface
But with Android, haven't found a reason for it, and seeing my phone more as a casual tool than some kind of serious thing I need to minmax in every way.
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So, I've been debating rooting my phone mostly just to remove all the bloatware that comes on it but I'm not sure if it is worth rooting just for that. I was hoping to get other people's opinions and was also wondering how many other people root their phone as well as why they root it.
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