[Android General] offspin2040:
I love Android, but rooting your phone can give you the opportunity to do so much more than your phone can do out of the box—whether its wireless tethering, speeding it up with overclocking, or customizing the look of your phone with themes. Here's how to root some of the most popular phones with minimal effort.

First, for the newbies, let me clarify what rooting is. Getting root or rooting your phone is the process of modifying the operating system that shipped with your device to grant you complete control over it.

This means you can overcome limitations that the carriers and manufacturers put on your phone, extend system functionality, and even upgrade it to a custom flavor of Android.

The name root comes from the Linux operating system world, where the most privileged user on the system (otherwise known as Administrator on Windows) is called root.

Now, I'd like to take a moment to dispel a common misconception and clarify one thing: rooting does *not* mean installing a custom ROM (a ROM is a modified, "aftermarket" OS).

Installing a ROM may require rooting first, but just rooting can be usually done in only a few minutes, keeping your stock OS otherwise completely intact.

Usually rooting is fairly simple - in most cases you can find several videos and articles on the web that explain how to do it on your specific phone model - just Google "YOURPHONEMODEL root".

Rooting is not something manufacturers or carriers approve of but they can't really prevent it from happening because the rooting process usually exploits a vulnerability in the operating system code or device drivers and allows the "hacker" to upload a special program called su to the phone. This program is the one that provides root access to programs that request it.

Contrary to popular belief, su stands for "switch user" and not "superuser."

Another program called Superuser Permissions is usually bundled with all root methods. It gives you a chance to approve or deny requests from any application that wants to utilize root. Superuser Permissions essentially replaces the conventional root password with a simple Approve/Deny prompt, which isn't as secure as having a password, but is far more convenient on a mobile device.

Now an obligatory warning: rooting your phone does run the risk of potentially bricking it (i.e. your phone could become nonfunctional) – so do your homework before attempting anything, unless you're a fan of $500 paper weights.

Benefits Of Rooting

Let’s check out some of the benefits of rooting your Android phone.

Full Control Over Android

You have access to alter any system files, use themes, change boot images, delete annoying stock apps, such as Sprint's NFL Mobile live and Nascar Sprint Cup Mobile, and other various native applications that might drive you crazy (Footprints, Voice Dialer, etc).

There is plenty of information on the web on how to accomplish this, but our favorite way is by using Titanium Backup and freezing/deleting the apps from there (root required, of course).

Titanium Backup

Download Titanium Backup from Google Play

QR code for https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup

Titanium Backup ★ root

UPDATED

by Titanium Track

>250,000 downloads, 129635 ratings (4.7 avg)

Free

Install

Back Up And Restore The Whole System

On most rooted Android devices, you can back up your entire system to an SD card, much in the same way you can image a hard drive. This is great if you’d like to try a new ROM, as you can back up your phone, wipe it completely, flash the new ROM, and if you don’t like it, just restore from your backup to get your device back to exactly how it was before you wiped it.

The easiest way to do this at the moment is by using ROM Manager, developed by famed Android developer Koush.

ROM Manager allows you to easily flash a custom recovery image which is what you will need in order to backup and restore your phone. The recovery image is a special program that can be booted into outside of the phone's main operating system, sort of like an OS recovery console on a PC. By default, the recovery image on most Android phones only gives you a few options, mainly related to wiping the phone. Custom recovery images expand upon these options and usually include scripts that can do things like backup and restore your system, fix file permissions, or allow you to flash custom ROMs that the normal recovery image would otherwise reject.

Normally, flashing a custom recovery image requires some command line work, either on your PC, or on a terminal emulator directly on the phone, but Koush's ROM Manager should automatically flash his custom recovery image (known as ClockworkMod Recovery) for you, provided you're on one of the supported phones ( Applications > Development.

Connect your phone to the PC in charge-only mode.

Launch a Command Prompt window and browse to the location of the downloaded GingerBreak-v1.10.apk file.

Finally, enter this command:adb install GingerBreak-v1.10.apk

Having done this, you should be able to launch the app on your phone and root it using the above instructions.

Unlock root

The main function of this software is to obtain the highest system privileges, thus you can remove, install or update any softwares on your mobile phone freely. Also you can delete all the softwares added by operators and give you a clean system since you use UnlockRoot.

UnlockRoot is one of the most famous ROOT softwares on Android platform. It has powerful functions and strong compatibility, and also it is very simple to operate. Nothing to worry whether your mobile phone would turn to a brick, because this software is stable enough. It supports many brands and mpdels, such as Samsung, HTC, LG, Sony, Motorola, HUAWEI, ZTE, etc.

SuperOneClick

Download Super One Click, make sure you have the Android debugger (SDK developer kit) running, expand the Super One Click zip file and click the SuperOneClick icon to run it. When SuperOneClick launches, you’ll see several large buttons at the top of the screen. Make sure your phone is connected to the computer via USB and that the debugger can “see” it (activity will start logging). Make sure your SD card is not mounted, and go ahead and click “Root” in SuperOneClick.

android root access

You’ll see the scrolling activity as SuperOneClick does it’s job, with “OK” appearing after each task. You may see warnings, but so long as it doesn’t “hang” on waiting for device, things should keep scrolling until it finally returns the “Success!” message.

android root access

At this point, check out the installed apps on your phone and you should see a “Superuser” icon that looks like a Droid skull and crossbones. If you see it, you’re rooted. If you don’t see it, reboot the Droid. In fact, I’d suggest rebooting even if you do see it, as I had some issues getting rooted apps to work until I actually rebooted my own device.

how to root android

When you open up SuperUser, you’ll see that you can configure notifications so that no app can actually run with root access unless you give it permission. Also, according to the folks at Nexus One Forum, SuperOneClick doesn’t actually unlock the Bootloader, so you still retain your warranty. I haven’t confirmed if that’s true or not, but if true it’s a pretty good plus to using SuperOneClick with the SDK approach.

how to root android

Whenever you run an app that requires root (superuser), you’ll see a notification requesting permission. I like this because it also means that if an app gets installed and tries to utilize superuser access without your knowledge, it can’t.

how to root android

If you check off “Remember”, the program gets added to the list of “approved” apps with superuser access. You can see the ones on your list when you click on the “Apps” tab.

how to root your android phone

As you can see, once you have SDK installed and connected to your phone, the process is as simple as installing and running SuperOneClick. The program takes care of rooting your phone from the PC. Finally, you can enjoy a rooted Android phone, and all of the fun and excitement that offers!

Did you give any of the one-click Android root apps a try? How was your experience? Share your rooting adventures in the comments section below.

UniversalAndRoot

Universal Androot is the popular one-click rooting solution that used to be able to root almost any device. Now that it’s in the Android Market it will still root many devices just not all of them.

The handsets that it will work on include the following:

Google Nexus One (2.2)

Google G1 (1.6)

HTC Hero (2.1)

HTC Magic (1.5) (Select Do not install Superuser)

HTC Tattoo (1.6)

Dell Streak (2.1)

Motorola Milestone (2.1)

Motorola XT701

Motorola XT800 (2.1)

Motorola ME511

Motorola Droid (2.01/2.1/2.2 with FRG01B)

Sony Ericsson X10 (1.6)

Sony Ericsson X10 Mini (1.6)

Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro (1.6)

Acer Liquid (2.1)

Acer beTouch E400 (2.1)

Samsung Galaxy Beam

Vibo A688 (1.6)

Lenovo Lephone (1.6)

LG GT540 (1.6)

Gigabyte GSmart G1305

The handset list that it doesn’t cover is much shorter than the one above. The reason it will not work on the following devices because they are equipped with the FRG22D version of Froyo. However, we may see one-click root coming to them in the near future.

Samsung i9000 / i6500U / i7500 / i5700

Motorola ME600 / ME501 / MB300 / CLIQ XT

Motorola 2.2 FRG22D

Archos 5

HuaWei U8220

HTC Desire / Legend / Wildfire (/system 無法寫入, 不過可以靠 Soft Root)

HTC EVO 4G / Aria

SonyEricsson X10i R2BA020

myTouch Slide

Universal Androot is available now on the Android Market.

Sources:androidpolice.com

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