Talk:Why Root My Android

http://www.phonearena.com/news/10-cool-things-you-can-do-with-a-rooted-Android-smartphone_id35360

1. Get rid of bloatware

Most Android smartphones come pre-loaded with software that the owner will probably never need. These apps are called bloatware. Thankfully, there are ways to disable, or uninstall the unwanted software. Gemini App Manager, for example, is perfect for the task. Check it out if you want to prevent any unneeded applications from running, or simply uninstall them, if you think doing so would be safe. Get rid of bloatware

2. Install custom ROMs

Custom ROMs can be pretty cool as they might be faster than your smartphone's stock firmware. Installing one, however, has its prerequisites, and having a rooted handset is one of them, while having an unlocked bootloader is the other. That is because only root can remove and replace files belonging to the operating system. Install custom ROMs

3. Use a Sixaxis controller to play games

Playing River Raid on your favorite Atari 2600 emulator for Android is a lot more engaging if you have physical controls to rely on. Thankfully, you can totally use a PlayStation Sixaxis controller with your rooted Android device. Our guide is here so check it out. Use a Sixaxis controller to play games

4. Overclock your CPU

Overclocking is the process of forcing a processor to run at a higher clock speed than recommended. That could result in increase in performance, but it might lead to stability issues, not to mention that the CPU will definitely get hotter when running on overdrive. No wonder that overclocking apps require root access. Speaking of which, SetCPU is an application one can experiment with. At their own risk, of course. Overclock your CPU

5. Use Wi-Fi hotspot for free

Some wireless carriers don't allow users to freely share their smartphone's internet connection with other devices. Rather, they require a monthly fee for the feature. Yet root users have a way around that limitation, and that is through apps like Wireless Tether. Other devices, such as laptops, tablets, smartphones, you name it, can connect with the rooted handset via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth in order to access the internet. Just don't blame us in case you get caught tethering by your carrier. Use Wi-Fi hotspot for free

6. Record videos of your screen

Currently, the cheapest and easiest way to record a video of your Android smartphone's interface is with an app like Screencast. It can capture smooth recordings of whatever is being displayed and save them in a convenient MP4 format. Audio can be recorded as well using the smartphone's microphone. Record videos of your screen

7. Backup everything

Backing up your data is a lot easier with Titanium Backup, which also happens to be one of the most popular apps for root users on the Play Store. It can keep all your data safe, including installed applications, system apps, and whatever you have stored on your microSD card. Backup everything

8. Remove advertisements

There is this neat Android app called AdFree, and as you might expect, its task is to prevent those annoying advertisements from being displayed. It does that by nullifying requests to a set of host names, which practically stops the ad from being accessed and rendered. It works for both the web browser and ad-supported applications, and it should be able to block the majority of them. Remove advertisements

9. Change screen resolution

If for some reason you need to alter the resolution on your Android device, be it to change the size of icons and text, or just to see what will happen, you can use an app called LCD Resolution. It allows you to reduce or increase the system's DPI, which makes icons, text, widgets, and everything else, bigger or smaller, depending on how you set it. Some manufacturer interfaces look terrible if the setting is tweaked, but there are third-party launchers out there that work just fine. Change screen resolution

Rooting and Jailbreaking are essentially the same things, Jailbreaking is the iPhone users' word for what Android users call Rooting. Rooting is when you gain "Root" access to the phone giving you the power to do anything you want to it (it comes from the Unix Root User, essentially the Unix equivalent to the Windows Administrator account). Normally you're prevented from being Root for your own good, as it's very easy to break your phone once you have root access, and quite hard to break it without. More info: What does “to root a phone” mean? and I've rooted my phone. Now what? What do I gain from rooting?

A Nandroid backup is a backup of your phone that is an exact image of the state of your phone. So you could make an exact copy of your current phone, then do major changes to it, and then restore to your previous backup by flashing the backup back to the phone. Flashing means to copy or to install.... you are essentially wiping the device and restoring a previous state (a backup) or you are flashing a new ROM (see below). NAND is your device's flash storage, which is why copying files there is called "flashing".

The Android operating system is the software that manages the hardware in an Android phone such as the screen, data communications, storage, camera and GPS. It provides a common layer that allows applications the use of and access to these resources on a range of different devices without the app having to know anything special about the actual hardware that it is running on. The Android Operating System also includes a number of standard apps and services such as the Contacts, Camera, Photo Gallery and web browser apps and allows the user to do such things as control the screen brightness or connect to wifi networks.

Although the real definitions are different, in the Android world, ROM, Mod, Custom Kernel and Firmware are all used as if they mean essentially the same thing. They all refer to a customized version of the Android operating system that has been modified to work on a particular brand of phone with a specific set of customizations or changes. This can be done so that an old phone like the G1 can be given a brand new version of Android, such as 2.2 even if the manufacturer has decided not to provide it. Or could be to provide extra functionality not available in the manufacturer's supplied version of Android, or to fix problems in the manufacturer supplied version.

A Driver is what tells the Android software operating system how to talk to all the different hardware that is in an Android phone. When someone is putting together a ROM for a particular phone model they will need to include of all that phone's drivers inside the ROM (for things like the cellular modem, WiFi access, the particular camera type, the specific processor, etc) otherwise the ROM either won't work on that phone, or will only be able to work certain parts of the phone and, for instance, may not be able to use the front-facing camera, or may not be able to connect to a WiFi network. This is exactly the same as when you plug something new into Windows and it runs the New Hardware Added wizard and goes looking for a new driver before you can use it.

An Over The Air (OTA) update is when your phone receives an update to its Android operating system "over the air", ie it is sent the files automatically over the cellular network from either Google or from your phone network without ever needing to be plugged into a PC. This contrasts with the way that, for example, the iPhone is updated where it has to be physically plugged into a computer running iTunes to get its updates.

The bootloader controls how the device boots. Google's PC-side tool for getting into the bootloader and other related tasks is called Fastboot, and running the bootloader interactively may be called "Fastboot mode". A locked bootloader will verify the Android system partition and restore it to stock if it doesn't match, whereas an unlocked bootloader doesn't do the same checking, which is why unlocking the bootloader is required to permanently root a device.

Android Recovery mode is a mode of operation that allows the user to make major changes to the phone. Or recovery could also mean the recovery partition on the phone. Or recovery could also mean the image file (filename.img) that can be flashed to the recovery partition.

It is possible (though this usually requires an unlocked bootloader) to replace the code that executes in Android Recovery mode by replacing the stock recovery image that the manufacturer installed on the recovery partition with a custom recovery image like ClockworkMod. Installing and executing the code in a custom recovery image often allows the user to make many more comprehensive changes to the phone and also often allows the user to make Nandroid backups and restore these backups to the phone.

The bootloader may also play some part in flashing firmware, though this is usually part of recovery. While you normally don't want to mess with the bootloader, advanced users will often flash a custom recovery like ClockworkMod (though a locked bootloader may prevent this). This allows one to flash firmware that hasn't been signed by the manufacturer (such as custom ROMs), since stock recovery usually checks for the signature, and do advanced tasks like complete Nandroid backups. Recovery is a bit like the BIOS boot screen on PCs in that you get to it by pressing a special combination of buttons as the phone starts up. Recovery can also do things like run an update file from the phone's SD card, or let you connect from a PC via ADB (Android Debug Bridge) to manage the device from the command line.

Many mobile phone networks that sell GSM phones on a contract restrict the phone so that it can only be used on their phone network, this is known as a SIM lock, network lock or subsidy lock. This allows a provider to ensure that a phone that they've subsidised can only be used on a network that will help them them recoup that money. The phone reads the IMSI code of the inserted SIM card and checks that it corresponds with the allowed country or network codes that the phone has been programmed with. SIM unlocking removes this restriction from a phone so that any network's SIM card can be inserted and used. This generally involves typing a code into the phone's dialler that removes the lock. There are different ways to get this code depending on your device and network, some networks will give you the unlock code once you reach the end of your contract's term, some manufacturers publish these codes on their websites, some manufacturers embed these codes into their devices in a way that can be extracted by an app and some require use of special PC software to reprogram the phone. The SIM lock is usually implemented in hardware/read-only firmware, so it's generally not possible to unlock your device without a code.