I have about two weeks experience with Android OS and as a software developer I will be interested to know the technical details behind the Android OS.
I have already noticed this is possible to upgrade applications ported with the handset's ROM i.e. the Market app. This raised the question to me why can't I uninstall applications from the ROM without rooting or risking my handset's warranty to achieve this?
Is my expectation as a user of computers for 20 years unreasonable to think in 2010 with all software development and technological advances the uninstall feature should have been in Android OS from day one?
This is not exactly like Google is the first company in the world developed an OS to just the lack of experience with what users would want. From what I have seen so far in world of Android is that, the first thing users would want to know how to root their handset to remove packages that they have no use for.
My guess is that Google doesn't want users removing Systems apps. I'm assuming that they think that these applications are core and thus don't want you removing them. Remove the market, no more apps... or way to get it back etc.
Applications installed by you can be uninstalled, I'm just thinking it is the same as in windows, you can't uninstall the task manager etc (Bad example but meh =P)
Very simple - to prevent lay users from removing critical components.
Can you imagine the service costs involved in reparing devices that that have been damaged by people trying to remove bloatware?
They still give you the option to restore.
OK DISREGUARD THIS AS I MISSED THE PART ABOUT NEEDING TO ROOT!
They can be removed but its not recommended to do so without know EXACTLY what your removing and weather is vital to your phones operating system.
BUT in order to do so your phone needs root access, and root explorer installed. There are several forums on just about all android support sites that explain how to root, install the manager, and which apps/files NOT to remove.
J_HaX said:
They can be removed but its not recommended to do so without know EXACTLY what your removing and weather is vital to your phones operating system.
BUT in order to do so your phone needs root access, and root explorer installed. There are several forums on just about all android support sites that explain how to root, install the manager, and which apps/files NOT to remove.
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Click to collapse
Ye u can remove almost every stock app but this may affect the stability of your phone, modifying your phone always comes with the option restoring it back to default. If something goes wrong with moding (something really hard and extraordinary rare ) u can restore it. Browsing through Xda might solve many questions, we all didn't wanted stock rom (not because it was bad, because we can have s omething better. This community has VERY VERY good developers.
Androids own!!!
One thing I still don't get is...
How can Google upgrade Market app without the su privilage but the rest of the world has to root their phones to remove bloatware such as 'amazon mp3'?
@ftgg99: How much bloatware in Windows cost Microsoft or PC manufacturers? None in fact they get paid to include them with your hardware. However, I see an issue with mobile devices. You have already paid for the ROM storage, the bigger ROM size is the more expensive your handset would be, then the manufacturer uses your already paid ROM to make even more money by installing bloatware. I would be a fool to think manufacturers would pass on a percentage of the bloatware earnings by reducing the cost of their products to the consumers in this model.
The way I see it, the burden has been put on the communities such as xda. Users wouldn't ask the manufacturers how to root their handsets and this is left to the dedicated individuals to overcome the mess compnies normally leave us with. I'm not going to say the mess is a cost saving measure by companies.
The thing is that there are a lot more people buy and use phones than computers. After someone buys a smart phone with intention to use for calls, text, web and to use some apps, they realize the possibilities of the smart phone, they start digging in to the files, therefore Google blocked the root folder from modifying, otherwise Google would have to repair warrantied phones that didn't have to end up there just because people didn't know or care what they did. But if you got passed ROOTING, you must know what you are doing and from this point you can modify files and apps, but now ROOTING becomes too easy.
Basically just because too many juveniles got their hands on the equipment.
CSharpHeaven said:
One thing I still don't get is...
How can Google upgrade Market app without the su privilage but the rest of the world has to root their phones to remove bloatware such as 'amazon mp3'?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm also very interested to read the answer for this one!
CSharpHeaven said:
One thing I still don't get is...
How can Google upgrade Market app without the su privilage but the rest of the world has to root their phones to remove bloatware such as 'amazon mp3'?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
RAMMANN said:
I'm also very interested to read the answer for this one!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The answer, from my point of view, is quite simple: they just upgrade the application on /data/app ON TOP of the /system/app default Market version. So, you can always go back to your "default" version just by "uninstalling updates".
Summary: they do not upgrade the Market form ROM, just install the new version on top.
CSharpHeaven said:
I have about two weeks experience with Android OS and as a software developer I will be interested to know the technical details behind the Android OS.
I have already noticed this is possible to upgrade applications ported with the handset's ROM i.e. the Market app. This raised the question to me why can't I uninstall applications from the ROM without rooting or risking my handset's warranty to achieve this?
Is my expectation as a user of computers for 20 years unreasonable to think in 2010 with all software development and technological advances the uninstall feature should have been in Android OS from day one?
This is not exactly like Google is the first company in the world developed an OS to just the lack of experience with what users would want. From what I have seen so far in world of Android is that, the first thing users would want to know how to root their handset to remove packages that they have no use for.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried to work with iPhone(don't know about iPhone 4)? They build fortress around their system and even the apps you install cannot be uninstalled until you gailbrake it and use 3rd party installer to uninstall. And not talking about the "MONOPLY" they run with AT&T.
Related
I don't want to know how to root, I can find my answer for that on Google, however what I don't get is what it does...
I know it unlocks the device somehow, but can't I simply access everything in the system if I compile android from source and install it on the device?
I have downloaded the android source and I believe I can access every possible thing, so why is rooting needed?
If I install an app as a system app, won't it automatically have the permissions to do what I need it to do?
AFAIK rooting is for the people you'd call the end user/consumer or whatever.
If you have a new phone and want to install one of the many custom ROMs around, you simply need a rooted phone.
A custom ROM is in easy terms a custom made User Interface for the phone.
There is lot more complicated stuff going on under the hood, but in general you change the look and feel of you phone's UI.
The phone has to be rooted, because the manufacturers and net providers around pack a lot of useless crap called "bloatware" (like Samsung Shop and Samsung Play and Samsung Sing and Dance and Music and whatnot) on your phone, which often makes it slower than it can be without it.
But naturally the big corps don't want you to be able to get rid of that **** too easily, which is why you don't have access to the system folders as a normal user.
I guess in your case it's possible that you (if you compiled android from source and installed it on your device) so to say have an already rooted phone, since Android itself is rooted by default. Like I said, the manufacturers are the ones to unroot Android in order to dictate which apps their customers might or might not use.
But I'm a noob and am not sure how you would install Android on your phone if it's new (and unrooted by default?) if you haven't rooted it before?
meh, hope that helped a bit at least...
root- you would love to do it after reading this..
Root? what is it?
it is what i call full access to our phone, flash new roms, have dual boot (example- you can have to os like ics and JB), can access the evasive /data folder which holdes the apk/setups of apps installed from playstore and many other things..
If you are concerned about warranty you can unroot your phone and give in your phone for warranty. i have given my phone for warranty like this.
The most important thing i like about root is that i can fix my phone myself (if it is a software problem). any other question please ask, and i will answer it.
Thanks if helped!
I don't have the time for development anymore. I used to play with stuff like that years ago, but life has taken me away from it. I'd still like to be able to access everything on my phone and play with custom roms, and root lets me do that. The end consumer comment is a good one.
As for to root or not root, I tell most people who ask me to root for them what they use their phone for and explain what they would get out of rooting, and explain the risks involved. Seems that people who understand what rooting does are able to do it themselves, and the ones that ask you to do it for them usually decide against it after hearing "there is a tiny chance that your phone could get bricked" lol
If you just want to play emulators etc, how would you benefit from rooting?
IMO rooting is very useful if you want to keep touching system things in a stock rom, optimizing and debloating it, installing other people ROMs, etc... I believe that if you compile your own flavour of android and find no restriction doing whatever you want, you don't need to.
Android phone without root is nothing
McFex said:
AFAIK rooting is for the people you'd call the end user/consumer or whatever.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
:good:
McFex said:
But I'm a noob and am not sure how you would install Android on your phone if it's new (and unrooted by default?) if you haven't rooted it before?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some phones can just be flashed (for example via usb) which gives you full control, others can be cracked.
I get asked sometimes why root an android device. What is your reasons for rooting and what are the benefits? I'd be interested to hear your views.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
st3vo_1986 said:
I get asked sometimes why root an android device. What is your reasons for rooting and what are the benefits? I'd be interested to hear your views.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most phones come with the operating system "locked" by the manufacturers. They do not want their devices to be meddled with and made unusable by the user. There are valid reasons for them to do this, some I think will be as follows.
1. Maintain integrity of the phone they sell.
2. Lower Helpdesk cost. Users who do not know how, meddled and rendered phone un-usable during warranty and then make claims for repair under warranty terms. This will unrealistically increase the cost of providing repair works under the warranty period.
3. Ease of maintenance. There is one copy of the ROM. If the user brings in a phone that is not working, they will just flash the standard ROM over as a first check. This is easy to do for the first step of troubleshooting.
4. Avoid bad publicity- the word of mouth that there is a high rate of return for maintenance (due to incompetent wannabe phone hackers) spread and this creates a public image of the phone being "unreliable".
Reasons for rooting is mainly to be able to use the phone as how we like to use it. Some examples:
1. Not happy with the phone producer's version of Android user-interface. Same version of Android, but different manufacturers offer their own take on the user interface. By rooting the phone, the user can change to a custom ROM that he finds suitable.
2. Not happy with the manufacturer's choice of apps. For example, the media-player app. Without rooting, you cannot uninstall the media app that came with the phone ROM. Yes, you can install an additional media-player app, but then you will have some bloatware (manufacturer's app) that you cannot uninstall.
3. Change to a newer (or older) version of Android. E.g., Older phones that are rooted can upgrade from Android 2x to 4x, if the hardware is suitable.
4. Change operating system. After having an Android phone, a user might want to change his mind try out a Windows Phone. After rooting the phone, it is possible to change the operating system from Android to Windows and vice versa. A good example are the older WM6x phones, such as HTC Touch HD or HD2, they can be installed and work with Android, and if the user is not happy, revert to WM6x. Without rooting the phone, this cannot be done.
5. Build and install our own tailor-made custom ROM using a Kitchen+ROM of choice. Sometimes, a custom ROM provided by an independent developer may not be entirely suitable for all of us. With the Kitchen+ROM, it is possible to break-down the ROM to components, and select the components to build another ROM (a variant of the original) that meets a specific requirement. For example, it is possible to exclude GoogleMarket, Facebook, Twitter apps and build a ROM without them, if a person wishes.
There are many more other reasons, but I guess the main ones are those.
Hope this helps.
Nokia claims that the phones made by this company contain pure Android software but:
Nokia answers what are dozens of unknown software for?
com.trustsonic.teeservive
smart-divert
com.qti.xdivert
face
com.wos.face.service
sensory
com.sensory.datalogging.dataloggingService
All of these files are systematic
They have access to the phone and cannot be deleted...
ultra2000 said:
Nokia claims that the phones made by this company contain pure Android software but:
Nokia answers what are dozens of unknown software for?
com.trustsonic.teeservive
smart-divert
com.qti.xdivert
face
com.wos.face.service
sensory
com.sensory.datalogging.dataloggingService
All of these files are systematic
They have access to the phone and cannot be deleted...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A lot of phones do contain tracker.
If you don't want that, you need to root your device and remove those apps or you have to flash a custom rom.
Even though a company ships with "pure" Android, they do customize it in regard of looks, feels, features...
For that, they also have to install their apps.
If you want to check how many (and which) permissions those apps can request (android os by far doesn't show them all) and possibly use, you could check it with ClassyShark3xodus which is an offline Android app. With that very same app you can also check for trackers that the app may have.
Playstore for example has 228 permissions if I remember right.
Btw.: Hardware and software isn't the same. Hardware is the thing you can actually touch, software is the thing that you cannot touch.
I don't trust any phone from China...
A batch of Nokia phones were inadvertently communicating with a Chinese server
A piece of software in the phone was intended for devices in the Chinese market. On Thursday, major news firm of Norway, NRK reported about an issue where...
m.gsmarena.com
User699 said:
A lot of phones do contain tracker.
If you don't want that, you need to root your device and remove those apps or you have to flash a custom rom.
Even though a company ships with "pure" Android, they do customize it in regard of looks, feels, features...
For that, they also have to install their apps.
If you want to check how many (and which) permissions those apps can request (android os by far doesn't show them all) and possibly use, you could check it with ClassyShark3xodus which is an offline Android app. With that very same app you can also check for trackers that the app may have.
Playstore for example has 228 permissions if I remember right.
Btw.: Hardware and software isn't the same. Hardware is the thing you can actually touch, software is the thing that you cannot touc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thank you so much
ultra2000 said:
thank you so much
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your welcome!
Exodus, a popular, albeit closed-source, crypto wallet app recently stopped working on my device. After a few days of back-and-forth troubleshooting via support, they somehow realized that my device is both rooted and running a custom, open source, community-supported ROM. They told me this was no longer allowed because it is far less secure than running the proprietary ROM. I countered with both personal testimony (back when I had a Blu phone, and a year later they got kicked off Amazon due to spyware streaming customer data out without consent) and common fact that OEM ROMs are almost always packed full of bloatware and spyware. I countered that installing a reputable open source ROM with only those apps I want and need is better. I argued that root gives me the ability to use AFWall to block outbound access to apps that I don't want having having access to the Internet without my permission. I could have argue that continuing to use a 1-2 year old phone that no longer receives security updates when I could use an open source ROM that does is better. I also provided a few public articles showing how frequently apps from the Play Store and other "OEM" stores are caught abusing their users' trust and performing malicious action. My point was that it's not correct to just automatically assume that having root and using a non-OEM ROM is less secure. That's a falsehood. But that said, I am interested to know what the XDA community thinks about that. And if the XDA community has any facts about custom, open source, community-supported ROMs being more secure than OEM ROMs, I am interested to further arm myself. And of course, I am completely willing to be instructed by the XDA community that indeed Exodus is right and using a custom ROM and having a rooted phone is completely, inherently, automatically more insecure than using an OEM ROM full of bloatware and spyware, not having root so that any rag-tag app can stream data back to home base, and falling behind with security patches because the vendor is either too slow to release or decides my device is no longer worth supporting.
You can't blame them for not troubleshooting unknown firmware. You changed the playing field.
Less mainstream use and support* is one of the disadvantages of custom roms and rooting.
I run stock and use other methods to kill bloatware. Zero brick risk, little down time and they run well.
I'm not saying don't root etc... but you knew the job was dangerous when you took it.
*this can have potentially far reaching and multifaceted implication$
@blackhawk I'm pretty sure it wasn't broken on my phone. One day I opened the app and it said I needed to update to continue using it. So I thought maybe the app just had failed to automatically update from the Play Store. But shortly thereafter I found it wouldn't update. That led to opening support ticket with them which eventually led to them saying it no longer works on rooted devices. Their argument was that they were attempting to protect me. My rebuttal was that I don't want their protection, I want my freedom back. They should focus on making their app as secure as possible and then, if they discover I am running it on a rooted phone, then give me a warning box and force me to accept it but don't just take away my freedom.
The irony of their stance is that they still provide the Linux program. And who doesn't have root access on their Linux computer? Or their Mac or Windows computer, for that matter? I can completely understand if they don't wish to troubleshoot the installation of the Debian package or even the use of the zip on every Linux version out there. I wouldn't either! But that's completely different than saying, "Oh, you have root access to your Linux/Mac/Windows computer? We can't let you use our program anymore." That makes zero sense, and it's the same nonsensical argument they are making for rooted Android phones.
I run stock N10+'s because they're easier to troubleshoot, maintain and it doesn't trip the Knox efuse. I have to add a package disabler and do some optimizing but it's child's play for me to do it at this point.
Unfortunately if you root you're going to have to suck it up and do the work needed to optimize it.
Same thing I do with stock but with more tools at your disposal... after the learning curve.
It's this learning curve, the chance of bricking and the damage that can be inadvertently done to the OS with no access restrictions are some of the downsides. Rooting takes time to learn and perfect. With unlimited power, blah, blah, blah.
I rather just do basic infrequent troubleshooting and have fun... my current load is over 1.5 yo, still fast and stable.
I don't update the firmware because that breaks things. No updates needed once you optimize it and find any needed work arounds... it's good to go. Anything from Pie up is pretty secure; they have some vulnerabilities but in practice this isn't an issue... unless you do something stupid.
My phone is 5 years old, and hasn't had any OTA updates in years and its got no warranty. Apparently my older version of Android 8, isn't recognized as much and I'm starting to encounter more and more Play store apps that want a newer version of android and refuse to load. Hence I had to learn how to sideload stuff which is really annoying.
After a quick google search I learned you can root your phone and there is an Android 11 image called Lineage OS 18.1 ... which sounds pretty sweet. BUT after additional searches, I'm reading so many cons about rooting a phone. If bricking it isn't a concern, and I don't have a warrantee to void. What's at risk? I was probably going to buy a new phone anyways but now I'm intregued with this rooting process and wondiering if it might buy me time on a older phone that still works amazingly well. Why replace it if it still works, it just needs new software.
Questions: If I install Lineage OS 18.1 successfully...
Will the Play Store and Apps continue to update, or will I stop receiving notifications regarding available updates? Or am I forever stuck with sideloading?
If I don't install G Apps is this bad? I don't use stock Google Apps, I've opted to use the Microsoft equivalent like Outlook for email and calendar... or do I still need to install Google Apps to gain the ability to layer Microsoft products on top?
Why is there so much negative talk about malware infection with rooted phones? If I'm not downloading and installing apps constantly, the risk would still be no more threatening than it is now correct?
Are there any apps that would realize the phone is rooted and refuse to run? Some searches told me that security apps may not like a rooted phone. Does rooting it affect Microsoft Authenticator app?
Lastly, if I only want to pick and choose specific G Apps - can you install only the ones you need? or do they come all bundled together?
Thanks in advance,
What's really at stake if rooting an older phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ii is easy to answer:
Pro: Complete Control Over Your Device
One of the most significant benefits of rooting your Android device is the ability to have complete control over it. You can remove any pre-installed apps that you don’t need, customize the look and feel of your device, and control every aspect of its performance. With rooting, the possibilities are endless, and you can make your device truly your own.
Con: Risk of Bricking Your DeviceOne of the most significant risks of rooting your Android device is the potential to brick it. Bricking is when your device becomes completely unusable due to a software malfunction. If you’re not careful, you can render your device useless. However, if you follow the instructions carefully and take the proper precautions, you can minimize the risk of bricking your device.
Speed up older Android hardware with a custom ROM
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Installing a custom ROM ( or a 3rd-party OS ) allows your device to live a second life, provided you can stomach the somewhat lengthy process. Custom ROMs become especially useful once your smartphone’s manufacturer stops delivering software and feature updates. Most ROMs are also based on vanilla Android ( AOSP ), which means you get a lighter and faster experience than default manufacturer skins.
Having said that, it’s worth noting that custom ROMs are completely unofficial. Some work perfectly, while others may exhibit bugs and instability - you’ll need to do some due diligence for your specific device model. But don’t worry, here is a guide on how to install Lineage OS, one of the most popular custom ROMs.