Should I root my phone?

Something you may have heard about is ‘rooting’ your Android phone. You may have seen apps in the Android Market that only work in ‘rooted’ phones or seen a guide on the internet that requires root access for your phone. What is root access? Should I get it? How do I get it?

Rooting basically gives you or an app ‘superuser’ access to your Android software which may allow you to install custom ROMs or themes, increase performance or battery life and allow you to install software that mobile companies would prefer you not to install (WiFi tethering, making phone calls over data). In the iPhone world this would be known as ‘Jailbreaking’ and Apple do not like it, in fact the vast majority of phone companies will invalidate your warranty if you rooted your phone.

If you read all of that one thing may puzzle you, what exactly is a ROM? Basically a ROM is the phone’s operating system that is stored in the read only memory (ROM). You may be unimpressed with what your phone came with or you may just want the latest and greatest, with a rooted phone you are now able to load a new ROM. There are literally thousands of programmers creating their own flavours of Android for you to put onto your phone, you do need to be careful as these programmers may have put viruses or key-loggers into their software. However if you are trusting and able to thoroughly research you may find the flavour of Android to suit you with optimised battery life and extra functions. If not you’ll end up with a brick or a device that transmits your passwords or ‘pictures’ of your partner back to the programmer!

So if you value your phone’s warranty and security the easy answer is a big NO. However if this isn’t an issue and you are able to trust the swathes of guides available on the Internet, most of the time written by people the age of 14 and under, the answer is... maybe?