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I am curious about rooting my S3 when I get it. Is it really that much of a risk? I'm somewhat tech literate but far from an expert. My main reasons would be to:

A) rid the phone of bloat ware
B) speed it up
C) maybe some customization

I'm a little nervous about bricking my phone and/or voiding the warranty. Im curious what you think

6/24 12:55 PM | IP: Logged

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Originally posted by dnole101:
I am curious about rooting my S3 when I get it. Is it really that much of a risk? I'm somewhat tech literate but far from an expert. My main reasons would be to:

A) rid the phone of bloat ware
B) speed it up
C) maybe some customization

I'm a little nervous about bricking my phone and/or voiding the warranty. Im curious what you think

---

You should always exercise caution when you do anything like this to your electronic devices.  You should always do your homework on the risks and methods for tinkering with your devices.

With that said, if you take great care and do your homework, rooting your device isn't particularly difficult to do and opens up a lot of opportunities.  In reality, some of the things you are able to do should be doable without Root, but our carriers want to lock down our devices and force bloat wear on us.

1.  Getting rid of bloat ware is one of the main reasons I love rooting.  You don't even have to uninstall the bloatware, you can just download a program like Titanium Backup (free) and use the FREEZE option to disable those apps and it will automatically remove them from your app drawer.  This is a safer method than just uninstalling the apps just in case you remove an app that shouldn't be removed.  If that occurs when you use FREEZE, you can just DEFROST (reactivate) the app and it's back to the way it was originally.

2.  Usually speeding up the phone is done with custom kernels or ROM's.  While this is certainly doable, this depends on developers and is the riskiest part of rooting your device.  If you flash the wrong kernels or ROM's, you could brick your phone.  The good thing is Samsung has Download mode, which means it's easy to recover your device should that happen.

3.  Customization is definitely doable.  You don't need ROOT, but with ROOT, you can remap your buttons, flash custom ROM's with new added functionality, and also likely give you access to newer versions of Android sooner than you would usually get it.


Read up on your Carrier-specific GS3 Android Development forums on XDA Forums for more info about all the above:

AT&T Galaxy S3 Forums:  http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1629
Sprint Galaxy S3 Forums:  http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1635
T-Mobile Galaxy S3 Forums:  http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1641
International Galaxy S3 Forums:  http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1563

6/24 1:44 PM | IP: Logged

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Originally posted by dmm5157:

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Originally posted by dnole101:
I am curious about rooting my S3 when I get it. Is it really that much of a risk? I'm somewhat tech literate but far from an expert. My main reasons would be to:

A) rid the phone of bloat ware
B) speed it up
C) maybe some customization

I'm a little nervous about bricking my phone and/or voiding the warranty. Im curious what you think

---

You should always exercise caution when you do anything like this to your electronic devices.  You should always do your homework on the risks and methods for tinkering with your devices.

With that said, if you take great care and do your homework, rooting your device isn't particularly difficult to do and opens up a lot of opportunities.  In reality, some of the things you are able to do should be doable without Root, but our carriers want to lock down our devices and force bloat wear on us.

1.  Getting rid of bloat ware is one of the main reasons I love rooting.  You don't even have to uninstall the bloatware, you can just download a program like Titanium Backup (free) and use the FREEZE option to disable those apps and it will automatically remove them from your app drawer.  This is a safer method than just uninstalling the apps just in case you remove an app that shouldn't be removed.  If that occurs when you use FREEZE, you can just DEFROST (reactivate) the app and it's back to the way it was originally.

2.  Usually speeding up the phone is done with custom kernels or ROM's.  While this is certainly doable, this depends on developers and is the riskiest part of rooting your device.  If you flash the wrong kernels or ROM's, you could brick your phone.  The good thing is Samsung has Download mode, which means it's easy to recover your device should that happen.

3.  Customization is definitely doable.  You don't need ROOT, but with ROOT, you can remap your buttons, flash custom ROM's with new added functionality, and also likely give you access to newer versions of Android sooner than you would usually get it.


Read up on your Carrier-specific GS3 Android Development forums on XDA Forums for more info about all the above:

AT&T Galaxy S3 Forums:  http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1629
Sprint Galaxy S3 Forums:  http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1635
T-Mobile Galaxy S3 Forums:  http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1641
International Galaxy S3 Forums:  http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1563

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So you are saying that I can get close to what I want for #1 and #3 without rooting?  I'm assuming that the S3 will also run much faster than my Droid X (which I recently dropped in the toilet) that ran on 3G.  Thanks again

6/24 7:21 PM | IP: Logged

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Originally posted by dnole101:
 So you are saying that I can get close to what I want for #1 and #3 without rooting?  I'm assuming that the S3 will also run much faster than my Droid X (which I recently dropped in the toilet) that ran on 3G.  Thanks again

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You can definitely get #3 without rooting.  For #1, Using Titanium Back-up or a similar program requires root access.  It's not rooting that's the dangerous part, at least with the GS3 (little different story with the One X if you aren't careful).  Flashing custom kernels and ROM's is the dangerous part.

I rooted my One X in about 5 minutes, including the time it took to download the files and read through the instructions a few times.  Took me another 5 to unlock the boot loader (GS3 has an unlocked boot loader, IIRC).  Phones with locked boot loaders (most Motorolas and HTC's) are where the problems can arise quickly.

I'm not sure there's a one-click Root option yet for the GS3, but if there isn't now there will be one very soon.  Rooting the phone doesn't really change anything about the device, it's just like giving yourself full administrative rights over your device. 

Having the phone locked (stock settings) means malware and other malicious apps can't get access to the root directory of your phone.  That's where SuperUser Permissions (a stock program when you root your phone) becomes important.  It will create a firewall that prompts you if an app is requesting root access permission.  As long as you are careful, it's pretty safe.

6/24 8:10 PM | IP: Logged

The Samsung Galaxy S III now comes in Garnet.  I prefer black phones, but it's kind of cool as an FSU fan. 7/18 12:24 PM | IP: Logged

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