How hard is rooting? I want to but scared

[xxventanaxx]

so jailbreaking an iphone is so simple but rooting my lg g2 seems a lot harder to do. Is rooting kind of like jailbreaking? Does it have an app like cydia where you can download programs? Is there anyway someone can give me a step by step flawless way to root my phone without bricking it? I want to extend my battery even farther on my g2 and i just want to customize it to the max.

 

[sropedia]

It seems like you're relatively new to the Android rooting scene, so before you dive in and root your g2 I would go onto XDA Developers, find your device and do a LOT of reading. Learn about rooting in general and try to familiarize yourself with some terminology (rooting, custom recovery, kernel, dalvik, dalvik, etc.) after you feel you've got a good understanding on the subject you can dive right in. Luckily for you the LG g2 is one of the easiest phones to root at the moment, but it does take some know how, plus the process differs slightly from model to model (Verizon, sprint, AT&T, etc.) good luck!

Sent from my G2

 

[UJ95x]

I agree with the poster above. Do a lot of reading on the topic. Once you do it won't sound like a foreign language anymore, and you'll find that it's actually a lot easier to do than you think once you actually get down to it

Posted via Android Central App

 

[garublador]

I want to extend my battery even farther on my g2 and i just want to customize it to the max.

That's a really vague requirement. I'd think about what you specifically want to customize and then figure out if you need to root or not. You may be able to get everything you want done without rooting.

 

[UJ95x]

That's a really vague requirement. I'd think about what you specifically want to customize and then figure out if you need to root or not. You may be able to get everything you want done without rooting.

Battery improvements can be made without root access, but they're mostly a combination of very small beneficial tweaks. With root you can freeze apps or greenify them, as well as flash custom ROMs and kernels. Both of which can drastically improve battery life

Posted via Android Central App

 

[someguy01234]

Before you do rooting on your phones, you should consider:
-What you're trying to achieve
-Warranty
-Knowing how to restore factory image to the phone
-Software updates
-How root friendly is your device
-Understand the risk

Sometimes you may not need to root. If you want to remove bloatwares, you can disable apps instead. There are lots of apps that may be able to do what you want without root required. There are many apps to customize the phone without needing root as well, Android is great at that.

If you don't know how to restore factory image, tread carefully. Before you root a device, you should read about how to restore it. A lot of people can run toolkits to root a device, but then get stuck reverting to previous state or restoring the phone when it can't boot.

Also other things to consider is do you need to unlock the bootloader or not to root and/or to restore factory image? And do unlocking the bootloader void your warranty (most of the time it does unless you have a Nexus or Google / Developer Edition). Also some companies may also void your warranty for rooting.

Rooting may cause issues with receiving updates. For some phones, the software update may simply remove the root. For some, the update will not work or will soft brick the phone. You should always assume that things can go wrong when applying over the air updates on a rooted phone and have a way to factory restore it.

If you don't want to deal with things like locked bootloader, system partition lock (S-ON / S-OFF), and all that, consider buying a developer friendly device. Devices like Nexus, Google or Developer edition are easier to unlock the bootloader and root, they generally support "fastboot" so is much easier to restore and therefore more difficult to permanently brick. I would not buy something other than these devices in the first place if I am planning to root at all.

You should know the risk as well. Rooting give you full access to the phone, malware apps may utilize root to do the same, you have to be more careful with what apps you install with root and get them from the right sources.

To answer the original question, how hard it is depend on what device you are using and how much research effort you put into it.

 

[garublador]

Battery improvements can be made without root access, but they're mostly a combination of very small beneficial tweaks. With root you can freeze apps or greenify them, as well as flash custom ROMs and kernels. Both of which can drastically improve battery life

Posted via Android Central App

Is there any data to back that up? Exactly how much different is "drastically" compared to "combination of very small?" Here's a thread where someone, using Llama, one of the most intuitive automation apps that's also free, saw a 400% improvement in idle time battery consumption:

http://forums.androidcentral.com/ge...omation-apps-save-battery-one-works-best.html

That's actual, measured improvement.

That seems like a much better improvement than "very small." Using real world data, show me how much better could you do with rooting.

 

[Paul627g]

Is there any data to back that up? Exactly how much different is "drastically" compared to "combination of very small?" Here's a thread where someone, using Llama, one of the most intuitive automation apps that's also free, saw a 400% improvement in idle time battery consumption:

http://forums.androidcentral.com/ge...omation-apps-save-battery-one-works-best.html

That's actual, measured improvement.

That seems like a much better improvement than "very small." Using real world data, show me how much better could you do with rooting.

While rooting may not be everyone's cup of tea that's fine. I'm also not going to sit here and try to shove rooting,ROMs and kernels down anyone's throat but there is significant advantages to rooting which can't always be done via a non root app. If you start dabbling into custom kernels you can control things that many apps just can't touch, things that you can only alter by modifying the kernel.

I've rooted and hacked my devices for years and I've never been one for " stats or benchmarks " because its proven those can vary and/or be gamed to show a desired result. My gut has always been what your own personal needs are and how you perceive your device to handle your daily routine.

I've had benchmarks in the past show that a device runs X amount better with this setting but then have dozens of people turn around and say differently when they actually ran a different or lesser setting and saw how the device responded to their usage. This comes from varying tolerances in production runs of a processor and associated hardware in a device. I've seen much proof of this with custom kernels, where a certain group of people can run the same exact setup at a particular setting (error free) and then there is another percent that can't come close and end up with (FC's/errors) and have to dial things down. Why? Obviously not all processors and hardware is created EXACTLY the same, it maybe just a few 1000's of a percent off in whatever direction but its enough to cause a noticeable change in the outcome of my device verses his device running the same.

I guess to sum it up.. Everyone's mileage may vary when it comes to battery life and their experiences with trying to get the most out of their device. How you achieve that via non rooted apps or diving into rooting and custom ROMs/kernels is your choice. They both have their pros and cons.

I don't want to over shadow the fact that you are all giving different perspectives for the OP to look at, that is awesome and what I want to see when I come to a forum.. Choices with discussion to back it up.

Carry on!

Paul
Moderator Team Leader @ Android Central.

 

[Golfdriver97]

While setting up schedules for disabling some apps may save battery use, flashing a battery friendly kernel and under clocking the CPU is more of a battery saver.

Since the OP stated he wanted to customize to the max, that to me implies rooting. Some apps and customizing needs root access. Xposed framework is one.

From a Sprint Moto X using AC Forums app

 

[Golfdriver97]

An example of what Xposed can do..

Note the red shading of my status bar and nav bar.

From a Sprint Moto X using AC Forums app

 

[UJ95x]

While setting up schedules for disabling some apps may save battery use, flashing a battery friendly kernel and under clocking the CPU is more of a battery saver.

Since the OP stated he wanted to customize to the max, that to me implies rooting. Some apps and customizing needs root access. Xposed framework is one.

From a Sprint Moto X using AC Forums app

Kind of what I was getting at. Using profiles with apps like Llama or Tasker keeps the phone from waking up, which improves idle drain, but that's about it.
Using custom kernels and ROMs or freezing apps with TBP, prevents the CPU from ramping up in the first place since there are less apps/processes running in the background. There's a reason people use custom kernels like Franco when using CyanogenMod
I'm with you on the last part, customizing can be done pretty well without root, but if you want something other than a different icon pack or launcher. Things like xposed and gravity box are the way to go

Posted via Android Central App