Just how risky is rooting to security?

[ncreptile]

I jailbroke my iphone and after the stale crackers with a new number that apple keeps sending out, I abandoned them and went to android.

Now I have the galaxy s4 and the main downside I see(im a neat freak.. I could have a 1tb hard drive and have 20mb of junk files and It would still bug me until I got rid of them). are the junk bloatware from voice recorder to tmobile movies.

SO I want to root using chainfires rooting tool to rid this crap from my device and SIMPLY my apps pages. But everywhere I go I keep getting warned "Watch out for the malware after rooting".

I do EVERYTHING with my phone.. literally everything. And while I am savvy and know my way around computer programming/security, android is new to me and I cannot afford to be hijacked.
Yes of course I have a couple anti malware programs, but that will not keep the bad stuff out that is accidentally downloaded by myself(the user) or backdoor entry(OOOH baby lol) by the more hard core malware.

Yes I know im at risk.. Im at risk right now, I could walk out my front door and get hit by a car. But thats about a 0.1% chance. I calculate everything.. I like to have numbers to give me "chance". A roll of the dice if you will.

To sum it all up
Am I at THAT much more risk by rooting my phone than I am if I kept it stock?
Another question I pose to you.. People say "If you root you have to constantly update and maintain!" What does that mean? Brilliant but lazy is a perfect description for me.. I didnt buy a $600 phone to have to "maintain" it as I would a garden. I didnt "maintain" my jailbroken Iphone, I just changed things when it suited me.


Thanks for reading and answering.

 

[roaztb33f]

Rooting your device in and of itself does not make your phone more susceptible to outside intrusion. What it does it is allow you administrative privileges to your device. So as long as you are mindful of what you do beyond rooting you are perfectly fine. It's just like having admin rights on a network computer. And if it's the rooting process your concerns about rest assured it is fairly simple these days, most requiring a few clicks.

 

[Bizzle69]

Also, you can install Avast if you are concerned about viruses/security... it's free in the Play Store.

 

[lalec]

I jailbroke my iphone and after the stale crackers with a new number that apple keeps sending out, I abandoned them and went to android.

Now I have the galaxy s4 and the main downside I see(im a neat freak.. I could have a 1tb hard drive and have 20mb of junk files and It would still bug me until I got rid of them). are the junk bloatware from voice recorder to tmobile movies.

SO I want to root using chainfires rooting tool to rid this crap from my device and SIMPLY my apps pages. But everywhere I go I keep getting warned "Watch out for the malware after rooting".

I do EVERYTHING with my phone.. literally everything. And while I am savvy and know my way around computer programming/security, android is new to me and I cannot afford to be hijacked.
Yes of course I have a couple anti malware programs, but that will not keep the bad stuff out that is accidentally downloaded by myself(the user) or backdoor entry(OOOH baby lol) by the more hard core malware.

Yes I know im at risk.. Im at risk right now, I could walk out my front door and get hit by a car. But thats about a 0.1% chance. I calculate everything.. I like to have numbers to give me "chance". A roll of the dice if you will.

To sum it all up
Am I at THAT much more risk by rooting my phone than I am if I kept it stock?
Another question I pose to you.. People say "If you root you have to constantly update and maintain!" What does that mean? Brilliant but lazy is a perfect description for me.. I didnt buy a $600 phone to have to "maintain" it as I would a garden. I didnt "maintain" my jailbroken Iphone, I just changed things when it suited me.


Thanks for reading and answering.

Avast and Lookout Mobile are both good apps to maintain security on your Android mobile. But as previous posters have stated, rooting by itself does not make you more susceptible to malware. For example, you can allow 3rd party apps and disable Google verification of apps without rooting your phone at all. Also, the people who told you that you need to update your phone often after you root were probably talking specifically about what happens when you install a custom ROM that is still being developed/perfected. When a new phone first comes out it takes a while for the ROM developers to finish their product but they are kind enough to let those of us who want to do so to install their ROM and help them test and perfect it. If you like doing that you can go for the newest ROM and download daily updates. If you want something stable that you don't have to update every day many of the custom ROM developers will have a stable version that you can install.

If I understood the primary intent of your question, you are concerned with bloatware using up storage space, memory and battery life and may not be looking for a custom ROM. In that case you can root using CF-Auto-Root and then use a mixture of Titanium Backup Pro, System Tuner and Greenify to achieve your goals (all on the stock ROM and stock recovery).