Trying to understand advantages to Roms and rooting...

[Malathan]

I understand that rooting gives admin rights to do things on the phone that normally is locked down and Roms are basically OS's that allow you to change the phones functionality/operating system. but I am trying to understand the advantages (and disadvantages) of such actions.

In the past, I rooted my droid x simply for wifi tethering. I also installed TB, though never did much with it. I know at one point I did a clean and restored from TB, but not all my data (game saves and such) were restored, so tossed it up to user error, but never bothered with TB after that. Now that I have the S3, with so many 3rd party wifi tether apps, there doesn't seem to be a need for rooting any more, unless I am missing something.

As far as Roms goes, main reason behind roms for me was Jelly Bean, but with VZ coming out (fingers crossed) JB soon, then that doesn't seem to be a driving force. I have looked at the CleanRom and don't understand the stance it provides. Supposedly it gives you a clean OS, with bloatware removed? Can't you do the same using the app manager in stock and disabling the apps? I know many load different roms for different themes and launchers, but can't you do that with 3rd party launchers (I use Go Launcher Ex exclusively)?

I am curious in what drives others to root/rom, what advantages and disadvantages they see and have experience, and if doing so outweights voiding the warranty (and how hard to restore back to stock should have to send back to VZ)?

Thanks

 

[anon(94115)]

Clean ROM also adds in a few performance tweaks and takes away all the little pieces of code that even an uninstall wont get rid of.

Some ROMs do more than just theme pieces here and there. They theme the whole thing. A launcher theme will not change the clock, status bar icons, toggle look and feel, number of toggles, order of toggles, etc etc.

Some Custom Roms will let you change things totally the way you want it. There is a ROM called wicked sensations (for sprint, not sure if it is on VZW) that gives you a ton of options initially, but then I can change a ton more by flashing a few add ons or "themed" icons. The ROM itself also themes some of the apps (mostly inverts the colors and icons). See my screenshots below Not the signal bars, battery, clock centered. I also have a different set of icons for the toggles and have 22 different settings there.

Restoring back to stock is easy. I do it in my sleep, almost literally.

 

[anon(94115)]

Sent from my X-Band Modem... TY Genesis

 

[epidenimus]

Bloatware: The stock ROM has all sorts of apps you may never use. You have may have no idea what they do, have no use for them. But they are still there, hogging space on your device, often running in the background, pulling data and using system resources (including battery). The only they may not seem as big of an issue on the S3 is that the S3 actually has enough power to handle more of this junk. "Disabling" an app often just hides the icon from your app drawer; as far as I know it does not rename it or move it. Rooting allows you to drop in your replacement and move the stock app to your SD card as a backup and never have it run (I find TB to be useless, personally).

Carriers and OEMs are known to botch things with updates on occasion; Users are known to botch their phones up on occasion (yes, with stock ROMs). You can update or chose not to on your terms. Rooting allows you to install a custom recovery and back up your working install routinely. Most custom ROMs disable that troublesome "Factory Reset" in the Privacy menu that meddlesome hands so easily find.

Having lousy data connectivity? You could experiment with different radios to see which gives you the best results. But only on a rooted device.

Many developers build in additional features and functionality that would be a chore to implement in the stock ROM, unless you really know what you are doing. Theming is usually included and also becomes much easier to tweak with Custom ROMs.

Custom ROMs also tend to come with custom kernels that allow improved intuition, faster response, longer battery life and other cool modifications. It's all built in!

ROMs like Paranoid Android allow you to resize and change the interface on a per app basis. The S3 is a mini tablet, why not use it as such when you can make use of the larger screen space?

The other thing that many users will never care about, but some of us do, is that the S3 is a hell of a Linux box in the palm of your hand. There is some much you can do with that, if you know how. Proprietary VPN clients, CLI tools like bash and nano can all be added manually with root privileges. Lots of hacking possibilities waiting to be explored. You could even make it into a full on desktop computer and VNC into it.

I won't sit here and type out feature lists for all the ROMs available for this device, because they should be on each ROM's respective page.

There are more, but I must end this post for now.

 

[Paul627g]

Key points I look at when rooting and running custom ROMs.

1. Bloat is gone. As said in other responses it frees up resources regardless if they are sitting dormant or not.

2. I judge a good ROM developer on the basis of fixing any or most bugs left behind by Google or the OEM & carrier. Trust me there are always things they let slide by due to time restraints, personel resources to track down and squash bugs and promised release windows. Custom ROMs & custom kernels that accompany them usually clean 99% of these up making even a stockish custom ROM more attractive than stock when it runs as expected.

 

[Malathan]

Thanks everyone. Good info.

Which do you recommend, CleanRom, CM10, "other", or stay with stock, for someone who is focused more on the following:
- Stability
- Battery life
- Wifi tethering
- Stability!!!

The launcher is irrelevant to me as I will most likely keep using Go Launcher Ex.

Also, would you recommend doing any of this before or after the ota update? Since doing the ROM will overwrite the OS, I am guessing it doesn't matter, other than doing a backup prior (if I want the backup to be prior to the OTA or after).


Thanks again everyone for your input.

 

[anon(94115)]

Most rom makers use the latest ota as a base so the ota is not relevant.

With root you have a ton of options for tethering.

I have been off vzw so I cannot really comment on which one is best anymore

Sent from my X-Band Modem... TY Genesis