Do people still root android? The Pros and Cons of Rooting Your Android Phone in 2024.

Do You Still Need to Root Your Android Phone?

Yes, some people still root their phones, primarily tech enthusiasts who want more control and customization, despite the associated risks and decreased necessity due to modern Android features.

Do People Root Their Android Phones Anymore?

Once the techie's stamp of authority for Android enthusiasts who loved to have so much control over their devices, rooting brought access to customizations and features that were otherwise out of reach. But times change with Android ecosystems. Do people still root their Android phones? Let's dive into what rooting is, why it was popular, what's changed, and if there's still a reason to root in 2024.

What is Rooting?

Setting the stage for just what rooting really means, let's get going. For an Android phone, then, "rooting" means obtaining a "superuser" or "root" access to the operating system. Otherwise, operating systems like Android are normally locked down at most points, not letting you change any important parts of the software. Rooting successfully removes these locks to confer upon you administrative privileges over your device. It just simply means unlocking the customizations and system-level tweaks, in one word.

With a rooted phone, you can remove bloatware, browse and edit system files, install custom ROMs, and run apps that depend on root privileges to operate. In other words, you are given the keys to the kingdom but such power came with a tremendous burden of responsibility coupled with the risk.

Why Rooting Was Popular

A number of years back, rooting had been the favorite of most Android users who needed to break free from the shackles that manufacturers made. The most common reasons for rooting a phone include the following:

1. Removing Bloatware

In fact, many Android phones ship with applications that cannot be uninstalled other than by rooting them-that is, so-called bloatware. These drink up memory, consume resources, and an abomination to user experience your phone arrives with. You can easily get rid of such a lot of these apps forever with root access, thus cleaning up some space on your gadget and making it a little faster.

2. Personalization

Well, customization was not much of a thing before Android turned out to be the literally very feature-filled platform like it is now. Rooting enabled those user demands to change how the phone looked and felt by installing custom ROMs; in other words, their proprietary version of the Android OS. Take for example CyanogenMod, probably the most popularly used version of ROM at the time of its adoption.

It was a device carrying novel features or better performance or a completely different user interface, existing practically only through rooting.

Rooting also gave users more direct control over the hardware of their device. Users could, for instance, actually overclock the CPU in order to make their phone faster or undervolt in order to save on battery power. Apps with deep access to system level requirements- apps that help you manage your battery consumption a little better, for instance-were a privilege reserved for rooted users only.

3. Root-Only Apps

There existed a whole world of apps that functioned only on rooted phones. For example, Titanium Backup allowed for an utter data backup of any phone's data, while Greenify handled background apps aggressively for saving battery life. These root-only apps did more to allow the user control over their device than non-rooted phones would ever achieve.

4. Early Access to New Features

A custom ROM, for example, usually has the latest Android features well in advance of the time when it hits the street from the official update. For the Android user who has to stick to outdated versions of Android, root enabled fresh features which didn't wait for the manufacturer or carrier to push an update.

Why Rooting Hasn't Fallen Off the Radar Yet

People used to root once in a while in the olden days, but nowadays, it is not that common. There are a variety of reasons responsible for this change. Let's consider them one after another.

1. Android Has Gotten Better

One of the big reasons why people initially rooted their phones was in order to gain access to certain features that were otherwise not accessible through standard Android. However, Android is now quite developed for all those years. Most of the things for which people used to root their phones are now directly baked into the system - such as better battery management, custom app permissions, and ability to customize the UI. Google has taken user feedback onboard and implemented many popular customisations that people rooted their phones for.

For instance, Android natively provides support for custom themes and dark mode since newer variants. Latest variants of Android also offer fine-grained app permissions control, better optimization for your battery life, and robust file management tools. Things that once used to require you to root your phone to enjoy them.

2. Security Concerns

Rooting your phone is a nightmare for security: it opens your phone up to potential security risks. By default, software and writing of the Android keeps applications perfectly isolated from the core system of the device which protects the device from malware and other malicious attacks. Now, if in the process you root your phone, you delete these safeguards. If malware or some malicious app acquired backdoors to sensitive parts of your system, it may steal your data, or worse still, brick your phone.

Most apps-majorly financial and security apps-can never be compatible with root-enabled devices due to all the security issues surrounding them. For example, video streaming apps such as Google Pay, banking applications, and so many others cannot be entertained on a rooted phone in any way due to its security risks.

3. Warranty Issues

Now, when you really go ahead and root your phone, you stand to lose the warranty attached to it. Manufacturers usually have a strict no-breach-of-warranty policy towards such phones, so if problems begin shooting up which were not directly resultant of the rooting process, the manufacturers will repair or service them when they are too busy dealing with someone else's problem. Thus, it's a rather dicey move depending on the device, especially on the newer ones or pricier ones. Most of them find losing their warranty protection much more hassle than it is beneficial to root.

4. OTA Can Brick Root

System updates, or over-the-air updates (or OTA updates), can also be an issue once you have rooted your Android. Android updates often patch the vulnerabilities that rooting exploits, so you might lose root access after an update or even get compatibility issues with all of your rooted apps and ROMs, meaning again, that rooted users must choose between keeping the access or getting the newest features and security updates.

5. Complexity and Bricking Risks

What is unlikely to happen when you root your device is that you flip a simple switch. More commonly, in order to root your device, you may have to unlock the bootloader, flash a custom recovery, then you're flashing something like Magisk as a root file. Each one is risky, and gone sideways, and it "bricks" your device-meaning you lock your device out permanently.

Bricking a phone is not uncommon, and the threat always lurks in the back of most users' minds as something that will eventually happen-at least if they can get most of the functionality they need from unrooted phones. Fewer and fewer users are willing to take these kinds of risks on the more advanced devices.

Who Roots Their Phones?

Although it's rare, some users still experience it. Still, a small percentage of the number uses his phone to flash for the following reasons:

1. Power Users

Tech geeks who like to toy with their devices and push them to the limit still root their phones. For such users, the risk of voiding the warranty or probably experience security issues is a reward in giving back the control of everything about one's phone. Rooting is often for installing custom ROMs, overclocking the CPU, and other applications that require root access.

2. Developers

Developers also root their phones so that they may experiment with apps or work the system in ways the unrooted device does not allow. Developers, thus are better informed regarding the working of Android, they can test their new ideas and examine apps in various types of conditions.

3. Older Device Users

Then, of course, there's rooting, which breathes life into an older phone and, by default, to those whose phones are no longer getting official updates. The user can hence upgrade the latest Android versions on otherwise lagging in old software phones. The feature would also appeal to the users who are not willing to invest in a new phone yet want to access new features and security updates.

Root Your Phone?

So is root still worth it in 2024? For most people, no. The reasons to root have waned with the years. Android has evolved into an operating system that provides most of the advantages for which people rooted in the first place, and the risks at hand—security vulnerabilities, a voided warranty, and app incompatibility—are significant drawbacks.

However, it is fun experimentation, personalization, and stress on the device to its maximum capability or perhaps an old phone which you want to continue using with the latest software. Rooting may still be the thing for a select few, however, to the average Android user, it's not worth the added headache nowadays.