Rooting, for a long time, has been a mainstay in the Android community, but in the past few years it seems to have fallen out of style. Should you root in 2022?
Rooting Vs Custom ROM
The first thing I would like to make clear is that Rooting and installing a Custom Android ROM/OS are actually two separate things.These things tend to go hand in hand but they don’t have to. Installing a Custom ROM is like installing another whole OS, whereas Rooting is gaining Admin/Root/Superuser privileges.
Now that this is understood let’s go through some common reasons people used to Root and/or install a custom ROM, and see what we can do without resorting to Rooting/ROM’ing.
- Proper APP and System Backup
- Debloating System Apps or starting with many less
- System-Wide Eq
- System-Wide AdBlock
- Spoofing Google Photos
- Improve performance
- Improve battery
- Enabling more advanced features in some apps like Tasker
- Properly use custom launchers with gestures
- Custom Fonts and Emojis
- Faster/More system Updates
- Call Recording
- Backup-The number one reason to root or install a custom ROM is for backup. As explained in my article about Android Backup, most apps do not follow any particular backup schema provided by Google. With a custom recovery (used to flash custom ROMS) you can take full system image-based backups, and with an app like Swift Backup (the best successor to Titanium Backup) you can set up schedules to back up your apps with their APPData, either locally or to multiple cloud services. All your logins and settings will be backed up. Backups are crucial to prevent data loss and the only way to do proper app settings backups is with root. There is no way to do this without root, as far as I’m aware.
- Debloating -In the past, it was necessary to root in order to Debloat System apps or install a ROM without any system apps, however I think it is no longer relevant since many ADB based debloating solutions exist (such as Xiaomi ADB Tool).
- System-Wide Eq – One of the main reasons I originally got into rooting was because it provided an equalizer that would work on streaming apps and not just be an offline music player like Poweramp. Viper4Android and JamesDSP were absolutely Epic.This can now be reasonably replaced with Poweramp EQ using ADB so I would not consider this a massive draw.
- System-Wide App block- Adaway was the reigning king of AdBlock using modified host files. You could always use a VPN-style AdBlock but that would drain your battery. In more recent Android versions you can use a custom DNS provider to block ads. Alternatively,though not as fully featured, I think most users can now use a DNS-based AdBlock instead of needing host files-based blocking.
- Spoofing Google Photos – once again backup. This will tell Google Photos your phone is a Pixel and you will get free unlimited photo backup to google photos.
- Improving performance – A more Optimized custom ROM or lighter-weight custom ROM will give you significantly more performance/Battery,and replacing or tuning your kernel can significantly improve performance or battery. Nothing you can do without a custom ROM/recovery.
- Battery Improvement – I separated this from point number six, as the further battery life improvements can be accomplished by finding and blocking Wakelocks, as well as tweaking doze parameters.
- Enabling More automation – Root will give you more control in apps like tasker and Macrodroid to automate all the things even more. Some can be done with ADB but not all.
- Properly use custom launchers with gestures – If you want to use android gestures you basically have to stay with the stock launcher your phone came with. Unless you root and use Quick-Switch which will let you use a third-party launcher as the recent’s provider. For many users, this should be one of the main reasons to root. I personally don’t use gestures, hence why this is lower on the list. There is no way to replicate this without root.
- Custom Fonts and Emojis – Customizing your phone completely with a new font or emoji-style can only be done with root.
- Faster/More system Updates – Newer Android versions and faster security patches are a great reason to switch ROM’s on your phone.This has nothing to do with rooting.
- Call Recording- Google just announced they are preventing apps from using the accessibility services for call recording. In other words you will need a system level app to record which once again can only be done via root.
Conclusion
So, as you can see, many things have finally been able to be done without root/only with ADB. But a lot of things that can still be deal breakers for many users do still require root.
As of now with multiple ways to still pass SafetyNet,which will allow you to use banking apps.
I hope this can help you make a decision
Let me know in the comments: Are you still rooting/ROM’ing your phone? Why or why not?
