Is Rooting still worth it?

A

anelevilakazi12

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Back on android & inspired to nerd into tech after about 8 years.

How much has the rooting/jailbreak community advanced.. is it enough to be worth it considering the vast advancements in the more legitimate side of things android.
 
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some worthwhile things like advert blocking at the host level, navigation bar graphic equalizer,
also some other cool stuff like wifi attacks and sniffing

I ran rooting for years and loved it, but sometimes it became a bother with certain apps working and then not, and then working again slowly.

best idea I found is run rooting on a older phone not in daily use, and use another phone daily, so it doesnt impact you too much,

I still have my copy of lineage 11 on a S4 Mini I9190 with REMOVABLE battery.
only way whatsapp can work, as originally its depreciated.
 
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An emphatic NO from me.

Almost always causes Netflix Widevine issues. Almost always causes Google Pay/Wallet issues. Almost always voids warranty. Almost always causes OTA update issues.

Add to that the risk of hard/soft bricking your device and it's simply not worth the effort.

I must say, all the reasons I used to root have become mostly moot!

Adless Youtube - I'm a premium subscriber and happy to pay as I use YouTube extensively
Viper4Android - my number 1 reason for rooting. Now use, Poweramp Equalizer, nowhere near as good as V4A but an alternative none-the-less
Custom Fonts - OnePlus theme store has a few options, 1 of which I absolutely love and is similar to the one I used on my rooted devices
Gcam camera modules - really don't need root to get them working
Custom Roms - used xXx for many years and it was superb. Miss custom roms but as good as some are, they usually come loaded with unpleasant caveats. Also for the OP12, they few and far between.

I really can't think of a compelling reason to root... there probably is one, just nothing glaringly obvious....

My 2 cents...
 
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sand_man said:
An emphatic NO from me.

Almost always causes Netflix Widevine issues. Almost always causes Google Pay/Wallet issues. Almost always voids warranty. Almost always causes OTA update issues.

Add to that the risk of hard/soft bricking your device and it's simply not worth the effort.

I must say, all the reasons I used to root have become mostly moot!

Adless Youtube - I'm a premium subscriber and happy to pay as I use YouTube extensively
Click to expand...
Go Revanced: https://github.com/KobeW50/ReVanced-Documentation/blob/main/YT-ReVanced-Guide.md#before-you-begin
sand_man said:
Viper4Android - my number 1 reason for rooting. Now use, Poweramp Equalizer, nowhere near as good as V4A but an alternative none-the-less
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Interesting, forgot it used to be a thing I cared about, but e.g. Google Pixel buds have an equalizer via app, and I think Samsung has it built in. Back on LG was an issue.
The main non-rooted recommendation seems to be Wavelet: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pittvandewitt.wavelet&hl=en which allows for per headphone EQ, and is from the same creators as the newer, material v4a. This is definitely than built-in for most.
sand_man said:
Custom Fonts - OnePlus theme store has a few options, 1 of which I absolutely love and is similar to the one I used on my rooted devices
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Odd, didn't think of that, I think I changed it on my old OnePlus as well, on Pixel haven't.
For most, e.g. launcher side, you can use something like Nova Launcher and have it different for it.
sand_man said:
Gcam camera modules - really don't need root to get them working
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https://www.gcamports.com/# -> recommend you only use them if you have a phone specific one
sand_man said:
Custom Roms - used xXx for many years and it was superb. Miss custom roms but as good as some are, they usually come loaded with unpleasant caveats. Also for the OP12, they few and far between.
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That would be unlocked bootloader, not necessarily rooted, but this is mostly arguing semantics.
sand_man said:
I really can't think of a compelling reason to root... there probably is one, just nothing glaringly obvious....

My 2 cents...
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Workaround where you can take advantage of Google's unlimited Photos back-up that doesn't count toward storage space for older pixels if you used that setting. Think that's over soon though if not already.

Revanced without MicroG, and then use phone as mic while also using BT device as mic (this is literally the only reason I am thinking of it). Also for some, call recording.

AdGuard stuff got "solved" by running it via a VPN with DNS blocking, nowadays I would recommend someone uses tailscale and have it set up on their own home net, but that's probably too much for most vs just pay for VPN that has it.

Can't think of anything else.
 
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I still run LineageOS without google but its getting quite hard to find devices you can unlock the bootloader on.

At this point I guess the pixel phones make the most sense which is quite ironic. Xiaomi also made it impossible recently which was one of the main reasons I bought their devices.
 
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Imagine asking an Aussie if rooting is still worth it.
 
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Johnatan56 said:
The main non-rooted recommendation seems to be Wavelet: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pittvandewitt.wavelet&hl=en which allows for per headphone EQ, and is from the same creators as the newer, material v4a. This is definitely than built-in for most.


Revanced without MicroG, and then use phone as mic while also using BT device as mic (this is literally the only reason I am thinking of it). Also for some, call recording
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Will definitely check Wavelet out

Completely forgot about call recording, something I use extensively too. I use Call recorder SKVALEX https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.skvalex.cr&hl=en&pli=1 it works better with root but works fine without too, so another tick for non-root...
 
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sand_man said:
Will definitely check Wavelet out

Completely forgot about call recording, something I use extensively too. I use Call recorder SKVALEX https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.skvalex.cr&hl=en&pli=1 it works better with root but works fine without too, so another tick for non-root...
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Thanks for linking it, I no longer contract though so that need went away. Everything private I keep asking for confirmation via e-mail, plus larger companies here if they record, can get the recording via GDPR request, so stopped bothering.

It's interesting how cultures are so different from place to place, and how it influences how business is handled quite a bit.
 
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Johnatan56 said:
Thanks for linking it, I no longer contract though so that need went away. Everything private I keep asking for confirmation via e-mail, plus larger companies here if they record, can get the recording via GDPR request, so stopped bothering.

It's interesting how cultures are so different from place to place, and how it influences how business is handled quite a bit.
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Oh right, GDPR, didn't realize you were in the UK although it's probably been mentioned countless times, in conversations, on the forum.

I learnt about GDPR from watching auditing videos on YouTube. There stacks of guys doing it in the UK. Quite entertaining, the interactions will front line security, police and general members of public.

Have you encountered auditors in the UK? I see plenty saffa's on their videos. Amazing how many are other there (Saffa's).
 
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sand_man said:
Oh right, GDPR, didn't realize you were in the UK although it's probably been mentioned countless times, in conversations, on the forum.

I learnt about GDPR from watching auditing videos on YouTube. There stacks of guys doing it in the UK. Quite entertaining, the interactions will front line security, police and general members of public.

Have you encountered auditors in the UK? I see plenty saffa's on their videos. Amazing how many are other there (Saffa's).
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I'm in Austria, not the UK, location is Vienna, the capital of Austria. :)
The UK has the data protection act, which is basically the same as GDPR.

I have never encountered someone asking about GDPR in person here, I only know of it. I used to work for a government owned company here, colleagues talked about it. Basically everyone requested their info in the first weeks of GDPR, so the company basically took every single office worker, including interns, to just go through physical files and sort every person a file affected, and some of the stuff goes back pre "company" / government side.

In the end, someone found out that they made a list of likely political affiliations based on public information, had nothing to do with info the company itself actually had, but the company made money off it, so the fine ended up being 18m EUR, and the original complainant got 800 EUR (revenue was ~2bn EUR, fine was 1% of revenue, profit margin is usually around the 4-5% mark).

Fine was later lowered to 9.5m EUR.

You can get a list of all fines here, company and country included, and links to sources and stuff if you find it interesting: https://www.enforcementtracker.com/
 
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Moeshau said:
Stock Android’s so good now, you might not need it. I rooted my old Pixel for LineageOS, but my main phone’s stock, less hassle.
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Actually no stock Android sucks.
Even the pixel series isn't using stock android.
The base OS is great for customisation, plus oems have gotten the custom launchers so much better now.
 
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I enjoyed Pixel experience and paranoid android builds for my S9,
there are worthwhile things with Rooting, when I had a oneplus X I went nuts with rooting,
unfortunately didn't survive past a year, was able to hard brick it, luckily I managed to return it and get refunded)

actually how I started was back in the days on my Galaxy pocket S5300 where the Motherboard got replaced twice, but I kept getting nonsensical error messages.
samsung eventually told me its out of warranty, and thats where I rooted that phone to a later Android version,

was fun times as you finally see what Android is capable of, the options and settings were amazing, really enjoyed playing with all the options you got.

been on a rooting journey with most of my phones actually, only recently with my S21 FE have I left it well alone,
as tempted as I am to go back to pixel experience or lineage or some fork of ROM,

last phone I had, the S9 had, but I saw the hobby isnt as useful as it once was,
sure you got your Magisk hide modules and its possible to hide things like banking apps from Rooting,

you also got get Google Wallet/Pay to work, briefly and then stop working,
samsung health, will work and then stop, as they update the app to pick up the rooting,

do miss my Adguard and adaway though😢
do also miss some of the wacky apps you get on F-droid, some were a real hoot to play around with.

will I go back to Rooting? possibly, if Samsung does a backtrack and says older phones aren't supported with latest O/S,
or if my S21 goes out of software support and I still have it, might give it another go, when its not a daily driver anymore and got some horsepower to handle mods and kernels and all the fun stuff you can load.
 
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