Back in the day - rooting Android phones and installing custom ROMs were such a big part of Android. I remember so well using titanium backup and Greenify and Cyanogenmod and the list goes on.
Is it still necessary to root in 2023 though?
I have been on vanilla Android without root access for the past couple of years and at this point most root features have made it into the vanilla Android OS. What are your thoughts?
A lot of the reasons why I used to root simply don’t exist anymore. Personally, I haven’t unlocked the bootloader or installed a custom ROM since maybe Nexus 4. Plus now, as others have said rooting your device makes most financial related apps stop working.
That’s what did it for me. I need to be able to use bank apps, and appreciate the convenience of Google Pay on my Pixel 7 Pro. Can’t do that with a custom rom or root. I loved rom hopping on my older droids, but I guess stock android has all the functionality I need.
I like vanilla Android, but many phone companies has their own version of it with meaningless pre-installed apps. I typically root and install vanilla OS and thats it.
A custom rom isn’t the same as rooting though. I’ve used custom roms without rooting them quite a bit, so my answer to op’s question is that no it really isn’t that essential, unless you need some very specific magisk module or something.
Ah apologies, I have equate rooting same as flashing custom roms, custom roms only requires unlocking the bootloader.
Yes, I also noticed that recently I have little need to root to tweak around the system. But I do use some apps that requires root, and that is the only reason of my continuing doing so.
Even when I’ve done custom roms like lineqgeOS I haven’t rooted. However when it comes to backing up apps root still does feel like the best way to back up specific app data with apps like swift backup.
blocking ads is as close to “necessary” as it gets for me.
rooting gets harder and harder with new android versions and devices - but it’s been worth it for me every time.
lastly FUCK the app developers trying to block rooted devices, it’s for their (sense of) security, not ours, and it’s sad to see so many people in this thread bullied out of rooting by them
Rooting is more security compromising than it’s worth. There are a small set of use cases I could see but for the most part do either or below.
If you have a Pixel you would want to run GrapheneOS for maximum security and privacy.
All other phones you would ADB remove bloatware, run PrivateDNS with NextDNS or an alternative, and turn off as much analytics/permission/features as possible for a functional phone.
Quite to the contrary, my phone doesn’t even support rooting. Neither TWRP or any other alternative bootloader is written for the Motorola G73, and an image file isn’t available to use with Magisk. I would love to root my phone, if I could.
Hold up… So are you saying that I could use Shizuku / Swiftbackup, and it would do backup and restore of app data, just like when I used to have root and Titanium Backup?! That would be a game changer, I never fully trusted Google backups or Samsung Smart Switch to do the full job.
“The private app data in /data/data/ or /data/user/*/ that stores your app preferences, login info, databases, etc. This is the most important part to restore apps potentially with their state preserved.
Requirements: ⚠️ Root required for backup & restore ⚠️ Shizuku mode (ADB access) cannot read/write at these path”
Pixel 6a. That’s why I exclusively use Pixels, they are the only device that offer this. Well, there are a few others but it’s very rare outside of pixels and theirs tends to be very insecure and or outright broken/buggy. Pixels are supported by basically every rom out there.
I still root my phone for Freezing System Apps, reVanced, AdAway(system-wide adblock), Shell automation, circumventing Hotspot restrictions from my Carrier.
I’ve also been a customization junkie before (mainly with audio mods and UI plugins for Exposed). Not anymore.
But since then rooting to me become not only a means to the end, but an essential part of my phone, as in I get to control and choose what and why is installed/active, not the Vendor/Google. I would root my phone even if I didn’t had the need, just cause I like owning things, opposed to modern standard of “everything is a service”.
They require an extra fee to share connection via Wi-Fi.
Essentially, they can detect that your phone sends two types of ttl packets (your own and recipient device’s).
When they detect it, they cut 99% of your connection speed and redirect you to page with “Enable wifi sharing for 1$/day or continue at 60 kb/s”. (airplane mode toggle removes the speed cut-off).
This line is executed at boot by djs magisk plugin. When the default ttl is 63, it’ll match the ttl value of all Linux and Android recipient devices.
But I still haven’t defeated the Windows detection: for a start, Windows ttl is 127, but even if I change it on the recipient PC, my carrier could see windows-related packets and still blocks me out. I even tried the vpn, but that’s still not enough.
Huh, this sounds nice, although I don’t quite understand how to implement it to my scenario, my carrier does not allow hotspot either, that’s why your comment intrigued me, but I am not sure how to achieve this, even when I get the big picture 😅
I used to root all my phones going back to the HTC Incredible. You had to, if you wanted great UI, or locked-out functionally like wifi hotspotting.
These days my phone does everything I want right out of the box.
I guess I’d still consider rooting on order to do a debloat, but with onboard storage being what it is, I really don’t care that I’m only disabling and hiding the bloat.
Most of the features that drew me to root my phone back in the day (2012 to 2015) are now in my phone by default. They’ve been adopted by OEMs as part of their official skins so it’s not really necessary to root anymore.
I haven’t fucked with my daily driver phones for like 5 years. Sometimes I’ll use apps like YouTube revanced or something for music… But honestly I can even do without that and get by with newpipe.
I don’t root anymore, not since I switched to GrapheneOS. It breaks the Android security model. On GrapheneOS it’s like fortifying a castle and then blowing a wide open hole in the wall. Just didn’t make any sense.
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