Wednesday, August 03, 2016

Should You Root Your Smart Phone , Generally the Answer is No

I wanted to Root my Samsung android smart phone, however the AT&T network does not allow this.
Most people do not even know what Rooting means, so below is a good explanation.

Rooting is a process that allows you to attain root access to the Android operating system code (the equivalent term for Apple devices id jail-breaking). It gives you privileges to modify the software code on the device or install other software that the manufacturer wouldn't normally allow you to.

The risks of rooting your Android phone – BullGuard
www.bullguard.com/bullguard-security-center/.../android-rooting-risks.aspx



http://lifehacker.com/top-10-reasons-to-root-your-android-phone-1079161983

http://lifeatsamsung.com/root-samsung-galaxy-j3-2016/
This will not work if you are on the AT&T unlimited plan.

I figured out a way to work around this AT&T limitation without needing to root my phone and without voiding my warranty. 

So now I can do tethering with the AT&T network and my Samsung smart phone. I will not explain how to do it as AT&T may read my blog.
I am on the AT&T unlimited data plan with DirecTV. 
AT&T set it up so you cannot do tethering like you say below. They only want you to use unlimited data to watch DirecTV, not for unlimited data via tethering.

The tethering apps in Google Play require rooting for their apps to work and many thousands of people do it, however only a small percentage know how to root, especially if it is a new phone model.
Just like only a very small percent of people in the world are SEO experts.

The phone costs $150 so if the warranty is void it is okay with me. If the phone cost $900 then I might have a different answer.

So I still want to root in order to use tethering, which in my case with my phone and ATT limits is the only way I can do it. In my case we are working around an artificial limitation that ATT put on me.

Tom

From Ariel:
Rooting a phone would totally void the warranty. Rooting will also mean you will loose getting updates from the official android repo. I’ve rooted my devices before but unfortunately there is no good benefit I recieved from it aside from being able to use it to edit android system files, manager files using file explorer but this I could also do without rooting. Rooting will just mean you get the super user activated on the phone and often this is just used for maintenance purpose or development. If your concern is to tether your internet connection you could do that easily under settings->More-> Tethering&portable hotspot. For faster connection and less heating of phone, select USB tethering.
No need to install 3rd party software it would just waste resources on your phone.
Another thing, since you cannot update the OS anymore, if you want to update it to the latest android, you will have to wait on the hacker communities to release a hacked firmware. That’s going to be a problem. Which is the same thing I had problems with before. Here’s a good article for “Reasons not to root your phone” https://www.androidpit.com/5-reasons-not-to-root-your-device I really do discourage rooting especially for an executive like you. You won't need the tinkering values of rooting. It will just be a waste of time and loose value of your phone.