To root or not to root?

[Durzel]

Since Lollipop became available for the OnePlus One a few days ago and I needed to do a full wipe (stupidly encrypted it, didn't realise it wasn't reversable, didn't get on with it) I thought I'd root it at the same time.

The actual rooting process was simple enough, and worked first time, but I'm left wondering why I bothered to be honest.

For starters the Barclaycard app that I had previously been using flat out refuses to work on rooted phones (NatWest app does, bizarrely), so I can't check my credit card easily anymore.

Next up - Adblock. This was principally the reason I thought it would be worth rooting, as it doesn't work properly otherwise (WiFi only if memory serves). Install it, am told "ads are blocked on all connections", great!.. except they aren't hidden so you get big voids on websites that look as ugly as the ads themselves. Oh, and it doesn't block YouTube ads at all, which the desktop version does perfectly. Pretty underwhelming to be honest.

So I'm left now wondering why I've bothered with rooting. Anyone have any good reasons for doing it?

[JimbobVFR]

Once you've installed the Xposed framework and added some modules you'll soon be wondering why you didn't root earlier.

Barclays is a pain though, it's entirely their choice to disallow rooted phones and IMO entirely unnecessary.

[SystemParanoia]

I just root to allow me to do geeky crap like tunnel my poxy data through multiple ssh tunnels.
as well as run python programs that need root access to do their job etc

admittedly its possible to do it a vpn but thats no fun

[Durzel]

JimbobVFR said:

Once you've installed the Xposed framework and added some modules you'll soon be wondering why you didn't root earlier.

Barclays is a pain though, it's entirely their choice to disallow rooted phones and IMO entirely unnecessary.

I agree. They don't (as far as I know) prevent people visiting their website on PCs running with administrator privileges, which is essentially the same thing. Could just as easily be keyloggers or man-in-the-middle malware sat on their computer.

Not the end of the world, but a bit annoying.

[AJB88]

I would root and custom ROM my HTC One M8 but I use Barclays and SkyGo and they refuse to work.

All my previous phones have had custom ROM's.

[FlossyThePig]

I have read that there are more security issues with rooted android phones so it is hardly surprising that Barclays won't allow installation. It's an indication of the RBS/NatWest attitude to security that they allow installation.

[cornet]

Personally I'd never run an Android phone rooted unless you know exactly what you're doing.

You're effectively giving any application full access to do what the hell it wants. So that innocent looking game you installed could install a key logger to nab your bank login details.

[Fletch79]

cornet said:

Personally I'd never run an Android phone rooted unless you know exactly what you're doing.

You're effectively giving any application full access to do what the hell it wants. So that innocent looking game you installed could install a key logger to nab your bank login details.

Why would you grant that innocent game root access

[rossmc88]

I used to like rooting my phones but like you say mobile banking apps don't work

One of my main reasons for getting a Oneplus One was that I can run cyanogenmod without the phone being rooted.

I keep looking into flashing CM12 onto my Oneplus, but after running 5.1 on my moto g for a few weeks, your not missing much with 5.1 vs 4.4.4

You get all the material design Google apps on 4.4.4 and better battery life too I've found.

My upgrade-itus seems to be wearing off these days, 4.4.4 on the Oneplus is super stable and cyanogenmod gives you more customisations than 5.1 vanilla android

You can even activate the ART runtime in 4.4.4 Cyanogenmod 11

If you really want 5.1, I'm sure you can install Oxygen OS on the Oneplus without rooting, but I've not tried it myself as I'm waiting for Oxygen OS to mature

Edited by rossmc88 on Monday 20th April 23:50

[4737Carlin]

Fletch79 said:

cornet said:

Personally I'd never run an Android phone rooted unless you know exactly what you're doing.

You're effectively giving any application full access to do what the hell it wants. So that innocent looking game you installed could install a key logger to nab your bank login details.

Why would you grant that innocent game root access

Exactly. Rooting your phone still asks you whether to allow an app root privilege when it requests it. It's a non-issue.

rossmc88 said:

I used to like rooting my phones but like you say mobile banking apps don't work

Some do, some don't. Nat West's app works fine on rooted phones.

[Durzel]

As above.

Rooting is no more dangerous than having "sudo" available on a Linux box when you're logged in as an unprivileged user. I don't think it's any more dangerous than running Windows with Administrator privileges (which pretty much everyone outside of a business environment is likely to be doing), and I don't imagine Barclays are doing much to stop browser hijacking or whatever when people are on their site.

I must admit it grates a bit that Barclays app doesn't work. Funnily enough it tries to get elevated permissions (which SuperSU blocks) when it starts, I guess it's one of the root checks it makes, but obviously not the only one.

[Shaoxter]

Screw Barclays, they're a crap bank anyway.
Xposed Framework, Tasker and Titanium Backup are my main reasons for rooting. And also getting rid of Touchwiz.

[MarkRSi]

couple people have said:

Xposed Framework

I've heard of this and it suggests you can modify your phone/ROM without flashing/using recovery etc., but what sort of modifications are we talking about here?

[cornet]

Durzel said:

Rooting is no more dangerous than having "sudo" available on a Linux box when you're logged in as an unprivileged user. I don't think it's any more dangerous than running Windows with Administrator privileges (which pretty much everyone outside of a business environment is likely to be doing), and I don't imagine Barclays are doing much to stop browser hijacking or whatever when people are on their site.

I don't believe this is correct. Rooting an Android phone means installing the "su" binary and making sure it is suid . Also the root user does not have a password set so anything can run without a password.

This is different to sudo and the like that require a password in order to elevate permissions.

SuperSU is a rewrite of the su with various extra features (and no doubt bugs). From what I can tell it only appears to prompt you to grant access to an app - you can't actually see what command it's actually going to execute.


If you want to trust it then be my guest but not a chance I would. I can see various things relating to LD_PRELOAD in release notes on the google play store so my guess is someone found a way round it by injecting a custom library.

[Gren]

It adds elements that you would normally only get through flashing a custom rom. So youget to mix and match which modules you install/activate.

[Shaoxter]

MarkRSi said:

couple people have said:

Xposed Framework

I've heard of this and it suggests you can modify your phone/ROM without flashing/using recovery etc., but what sort of modifications are we talking about here?

Whatever you can think of really, you can pick and choose which modules to install. So for example the Wanam module can change your notification panel, get rid of annoying popup messages, skip tracks with volume keys, etc.

[Durzel]

cornet said:

I don't believe this is correct. Rooting an Android phone means installing the "su" binary and making sure it is suid . Also the root user does not have a password set so anything can run without a password.

This is different to sudo and the like that require a password in order to elevate permissions.

SuperSU is a rewrite of the su with various extra features (and no doubt bugs). From what I can tell it only appears to prompt you to grant access to an app - you can't actually see what command it's actually going to execute.


If you want to trust it then be my guest but not a chance I would. I can see various things relating to LD_PRELOAD in release notes on the google play store so my guess is someone found a way round it by injecting a custom library.

Fair points well made.

[MarkRSi]

Shaoxter said:

So for example the Wanam module can change your notification panel, get rid of annoying popup messages, skip tracks with volume keys, etc.

This - http://repo.xposed.info/module/ma.wanam.xposed ? Seems interesting...

[Shaoxter]

MarkRSi said:

Shaoxter said:

So for example the Wanam module can change your notification panel, get rid of annoying popup messages, skip tracks with volume keys, etc.

This - http://repo.xposed.info/module/ma.wanam.xposed ? Seems interesting...

Yep, that's the one.

It allows you to change a lot of settings which you can do with Cyanogen while still running a stock/relatively stock ROM.
For example if I ran CM12 on my Note 4 the S Pen wouldn't work so this gets rid of a lot of the annoyances of the stock Samsung ROM while keeping the good features.

[130R]

4737Carlin said:

Rooting your phone still asks you whether to allow an app root privilege when it requests it. It's a non-issue.

So I guess you went through every line of code in each app you granted access to su ..

There are serious security implications in rooting your phone, anyone that says otherwise is misinformed.