An endorsement of a program for people who have an Android phone and a Windows computer.

[xiphias]

I'm going to presume that everybody who has an Android phone would prefer to have root access to it, if it was easy enough to do.

Kingo One-Click Root is just that. Launch Kingo, plug in your phone, click the button, and it checks what your phone and Android version are, downloads appropriate files, and just automatically does the entire thing. You might have to unplug and replug the phone a couple times, and maybe reboot once or twice, but it tells you exactly when to do it -- and this time, when I re-rooted the phone after AT&T pushed the latest version of the OS, I didn't even have to do any of that, because it already had gotten some of the stuff it needed for my phone.

Comments

[yardlong.livejournal.com]

That's very interesting, and I'd probably do it for my phone - except I forgot the reasons for root access. Awhile back, I wanted to do something that required having root access, but had no easy way to do it and I've since forgotten why I wanted it. Maybe you can refresh my memory - what will I be able to do that I can't do now?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Probably the most obvious benefit is that it allows you to uninstall the pre-installed "bloatware" -- the things that Samsung, or Verizon, or AT&T, or whomever, install on the phone that you never use and are basically useless and just taking up space.

Another thing is that there are a few programs that I really like that require root access -- I've got an ad blocker that uses root access to bypass some of the channels that different programs use to serve ads, or something like that -- I don't exactly follow how it works, but I don't HAVE to -- I just know that the people who WROTE it know how it works. I just know that it DOES do what I want it to, and it requires root access to do it.

Then there's a backup and restore program called Titanium Backup which is all kinds of useful, and requires root access. My most recent phone upgrade was the easiest ever, because I used Titanium backup to do just a full backup of my phone onto my external memory card, put the card on the new phone, told Titanium where the backup file was, and restored it, getting my entire phone back exactly the way it was on the OLD phone, without hardly having to do anything at all.

[yardlong.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I think I'll use the program. There are definitely annoyances from Verizon, things that I'll never use, and Titanium Backup sounds good. And I'll likely run into something I want that I wouldn't otherwise be able to have without root access. It's great that there's an easy enough way to do this.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

(Sigh.) Anybody know a way for Mac OS X?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Not sure. It seems as if people tend to assume that if you have ONE Apple product, you're going to have ALL Apple products.

[dandelion-diva.livejournal.com]

Very useful. Thank you! :)