Did you Rootkit your phone ?

[enoy21]

So the company upgraded me a while back to an LG Ally and I instantly wanted to root it to get rid of all those ridiculous apps that come preinstalled from Verizon. I've held off for the warranty to get closer to the end and now want to do it , but being company issued I'm a bit more nervous about the process.



Has anyone really bricked their phone by doing so ?   Has anyone had a Store rep or company bust their chops because they used the root detection software to see if you modified it ?

[keyboardlover]

My friend rooted his iPhone and he said nowadays if you use the right software there's not much risk of bricking your phone.

[alaricljs]

I have a 'company' cell through Verizon and I rooted it within weeks of receiving it.  I also beat the tar out of the data plan with Open Garden wifi tethering.  No one complains, and due to the way my company is billed I don't get yelled at for how much it costs them.

I have made my phone not usable for it's intended purpose temporarily, but never bricked.  I had no problem re-flashing the right way the 2nd time around to bring it back.  I also have bounced back to stock firmware a couple times without issue...


This with a Samsung Fascinate.

[itlnstln]

I've rooted my old Evo and my current Nexus S 4G. It's no biggie, really. All the new stuff you get to do can be a little bit of a time waste, but it's fun.

[hazeluff]

I personally haven't rooted any of my phones. (NEXUS 1 and NEXUS Galaxy). But IIRC a lot of the "skins" and apps that companies put on are hardware accelerated, hence why you wouldn't want to use stock/root.

As for bricking your phone...It's really low probability. Make sure your battery is full and keep it plugged into a power source.

[iindigo]

The term is "rooting", a rootkit is definitely not something you want on your phone (or anything else!)

That said, I've just about always had my iPhone 3GS jailbroken (iPhone equiv to rooting) and nothing ill has ever come of it. If things ever go wrong, just do a restore and you're back in business.

[Malphas]

I root every new phone I get as the first thing I do with it.  It's easy, don't worry about it.

[Mr. Perfect]

The term is "rooting", a rootkit is definitely not something you want on your phone (or anything else!)

Heh, yeah, was about to mention that. I wouldn't be surprised if they do have rootkits for phones these days, but they're not something you want.

[Hydroid]

I bought a Samsung Galaxy S2 a couple weeks back and was pleasantly surprised to find it came pre-rooted because it was previously locked. I'm considering putting Icecream Sandwich on it or possibly wait for the cyanogen ICS mod (CM9) and installing that.

[bienc]

I have an HTC Aria (and an HTC Hero from Europe before it) and have rooted both. Nowadays, rooting an Android phone is as simple as clicking a button. With rooting my Aria, I took out all the useless AT&T apps, got a ROM that supported over clocking the CPU and you can use some special apps that need root.

I think the rooting is the easy part, the installing of custom ROMs and delving deeper into that is where people get into trouble. But "bricking" your phone is ALMOST impossible. You have to severely mess it up to truly brick it. There's lots of resources at XDA Forums on any particular phone you might want to root.

[BiNiaRiS]

I personally haven't rooted any of my phones. (NEXUS 1 and NEXUS Galaxy). But IIRC a lot of the "skins" and apps that companies put on are hardware accelerated, hence why you wouldn't want to use stock/root.

Not rooting a dev phone is like buying a Ferrari and never going past 55

Sent from my EVO

[Grimey]

Rooted my OG droid to gain free wireless tethering.  Not much other reason as this phone came with zero crapware at the time, which is a large part of what has kept me from getting a new phone.

[Balgrog]

I have jailbroken and rooted phones. Rooting it is completely risk free (as long as you are semi computer savi) and it is not against googles ideals. They provide updates for rooted phones, they encourage open source software and hardware. So feel free to do it, and enjoy it (wifi 3g tether FTW!). Now if you get a iphone, you gotta be a bit more on the game with it. Apple does NOT believe in open source, but closed systems, there fore they hate when people try to fiddle with their software!

[Lanx]

rooted my droid, rooted fiance's iphone, do not root company bought blackberry.

[Brian8bit]

Until my phone can't do something I need it to, I won't bother rooting it.

[Quarzac]

I rooted my Nexus S 4G to play with all the custom ROMs. For many phones- from what I understand- there are one click roots. I know there's one for the Nexus S 4G. With something like that, the chance of screwing up is slim. Even if that's not an option, as long as you follow the steps from one of the many guides posted online, you shouldn't have any trouble. I had one little issue when I tried to flash a non-ICS kernel to ICS, but other than that, it's been problem free. Though CM7 was pretty buggy for the Nexus S. Lots of battery pulling and some weird screen issues. And ICS is murdering my battery life, though that'll probably be patched up soon with better ROMs and kernels.