Rooted Android - You really don't need to do this anymore

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Rooted Android - You really don't need to do this anymore

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ClassActionFursuit: Mar 15, 2006

revolther posted:

Wait, how does an arbitrary e-fuse help them land business accounts? When your job gives you a company phone you just don't tamper with it because your job is worth more than a 500 dollar phone.

If the employee can have system level control of the device then you can't trust any data you're putting on the device.

# ? Apr 18, 2014 08:53

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# ? May 13, 2024 22:57

Chill Penguin: Jan 10, 2004; you know korky buchek?

It looks like rooting is by and large obsolete now, but I just bought a rooted Galaxy Note 1 on Swappa and was wondering if I should leave it or reset to factory settings? Anybody have experience with rooting this device that could weigh in either way? I'm mostly going to be using it for business, i.e. productivity and creative apps, if that's a factor.

# ? Apr 19, 2014 01:57

hooah: Feb 6, 2006; WTF?

Well, I had Google Play Music cause my phone to be unable to wake up again today. Still have Xposed "uninstalled" (that is, the app's still there, but if you open the it, you have to install the framework), so that's two strikes for GMP. I've used a little Songza in the interim, and it's been fine thus far. This is really disappointing for GPM.

# ? Apr 19, 2014 02:02

sourdough: Apr 30, 2012

hooah posted:

Well, I had Google Play Music cause my phone to be unable to wake up again today. Still have Xposed "uninstalled" (that is, the app's still there, but if you open the it, you have to install the framework), so that's two strikes for GMP. I've used a little Songza in the interim, and it's been fine thus far. This is really disappointing for GPM.

What happens when "Google Play Music causes your phone to be unable to wake up?" You're streaming it with the screen off and then can't get the screen to turn on? Have you seen anyone else online mention this problem? In the app thread, people have complained about Play Music a few times, but nobody has ever mentioned that, that I recall.

# ? Apr 19, 2014 05:00

hooah: Feb 6, 2006; WTF?

RVProfootballer posted:

What happens when "Google Play Music causes your phone to be unable to wake up?" You're streaming it with the screen off and then can't get the screen to turn on? Have you seen anyone else online mention this problem? In the app thread, people have complained about Play Music a few times, but nobody has ever mentioned that, that I recall.

I hit the power/sleep button, and I can tell that the backlight turns on, but it just displays black. I have to hard-reset the phone. I'm about to do a Google search for this, but I'm not really sure what to call the phenomenon.

# ? Apr 19, 2014 11:48

brc64: Mar 21, 2008; I wear my sunglasses at night.

Chill Penguin posted:

It looks like rooting is by and large obsolete now, but I just bought a rooted Galaxy Note 1 on Swappa and was wondering if I should leave it or reset to factory settings? Anybody have experience with rooting this device that could weigh in either way? I'm mostly going to be using it for business, i.e. productivity and creative apps, if that's a factor.

If you don't have a specific reason to root, I wouldn't bother. I never rooted my Note 3 and it hasn't really caused me any real grief. I use my phone way too much to keep changing ROMs all the time, and I have little need for the other things that root access brings. Honestly, the only thing I really miss is the ad blocking.

# ? Apr 19, 2014 17:58

the kawaiiest: Dec 22, 2010; Uguuuu ~

Yeah, I only root to block ads. If there was a way to do it without root I wouldn't even think about it anymore.

the kawaiiest fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Apr 19, 2014

# ? Apr 19, 2014 19:41

Athanos: Sep 19, 2006

The fact that KitKat stops me from using my external SD card has me thinking of rooting. If I'd know this was the case I wouldn't have upgraded; it would be nice if there was an easy way to downgrade your firmware.

# ? Apr 20, 2014 20:28

Tunga: May 7, 2004; Grimey Drawer

What exactly are you trying to do with your SD card?

# ? Apr 20, 2014 20:55

Athanos: Sep 19, 2006

I can't download directly to it, or use my file manager to move things to it. I would possibly be ok with either solution, but if I am not near a computer I can't add or move anything out of my internal memory which is pretty annoying. It doesn't break the core features of my phone, but I bought my phone because it came with the ability to use an SD card, so not being able to use one fully irks me.

# ? Apr 21, 2014 04:36

ScarletBrother: Nov 2, 2004

Athanos posted:

I can't download directly to it, or use my file manager to move things to it. I would possibly be ok with either solution, but if I am not near a computer I can't add or move anything out of my internal memory which is pretty annoying. It doesn't break the core features of my phone, but I bought my phone because it came with the ability to use an SD card, so not being able to use one fully irks me.

What phone are you using?

# ? Apr 21, 2014 04:38

Athanos: Sep 19, 2006

An S4.

edit: It seems like ES File Explorer will allow you to move things on to your SD card in the new version provided you create a folder on the SD card with that program first.

Athanos fucked around with this message at 04:46 on Apr 21, 2014

# ? Apr 21, 2014 04:39

melon cat: Jan 21, 2010; Nap Ghost

I have a rooted Android phone (Samsung GT S5830 running Cyanogenmod) with some tar.gz files that I want to install. It's my understanding that I need to install them via terminal. How the heck do you run terminal for an Android device? I have a terminal emulator already installed on my phone- is this the best way to go about doing it?

# ? Apr 21, 2014 04:40

sourdough: Apr 30, 2012

Athanos posted:

I can't download directly to it, or use my file manager to move things to it. I would possibly be ok with either solution, but if I am not near a computer I can't add or move anything out of my internal memory which is pretty annoying. It doesn't break the core features of my phone, but I bought my phone because it came with the ability to use an SD card, so not being able to use one fully irks me.

Apps can download to the SD card, but they can now only download/modify their protected folder on the SD card. What are you trying to do that requires moving files on your phone using a file manager? It looks like the way Google wants you to move data between apps is to "share" from one app to another. You may be familiar with this from doing something like hitting "share" on a photo in the gallery and choosing a different photo editing app. Everything probably still works and you aren't prevented from using your SD card, you just can't easily manually organize it from your phone anymore. Apps will store data where they are allowed to and will have more restricted access to each other's storage, but you should still be able to share the data.

Athanos posted:

An S4.

edit: It seems like ES File Explorer will allow you to move things on to your SD card in the new version provided you create a folder on the SD card with that program first.

Yeah, I think this is right. Apps that have updated to support KitKat should be able to create an arbitrary file structure within their protected folder, I think. So if ES File Explorer wants to, it should be able to mostly recreate the old organization you used to have, provided you always and only use that app to deal with your SD card contents.

I was curious about Google's take on this so here's an interesting little exchange (here, and the response it the next message)

justin tipton posted:

Justin Tipton here. Creator of iSyncr and Rocket Player. Two top ten music applications with several million active users. One application allows syncing your iTunes music to your phone's SD card over USB or WiFi. The other, Rocket Player, allows for a great listening experience, including the ability to edit music tags and delete songs.

If I understand you correctly, under KitKat, iSyncr should sync all music over WiFi that the user wants on the SD card to "<SDCard>/Android/data/com.jrtstudio.iSyncr".

Then, when someone uses my Rocket Player app to delete a song, I should toast and say "The Android team doesn't want you to be able to delete this song", because Rocket Player can only access "<SDCard>/Android/data/com.jrtstudio.RocketPlayer", and not "<SDCard>/Android/data/com.jrtstudio.iSyncr".

I'm I understanding this correctly? Apps that sync data wirelessly are confined to a single directory on the SD card that no other apps can access without APIs being built into app that synced the files?

I hope I'm wrong. I really really do.

(P.S., Users are playing files that the media scanner doesn't pick up. Formats not natively supported Android. Do not suggest the MediaStore as a work around for music applications. It isn't.)

jeff sharkey posted:

First, thank you for all the hard work you've done to create excellent apps for Android users. I hear your frustration, so bear with me as I offer some general background before digging into your specific question.

Before KitKat, public APIs only supported a single primary external storage device, which on some devices can be emulated and backed by internal storage. Primary external storage devices continue to work the way they always have since API level 1; if you request WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE you have full read/write access across that entire device.

We've come a long way since API level 1, and looking back we found that some apps would scatter their files across external storage. If an app was uninstalled, these files would be orphaned, and users had to manually scavenge through all these files to free up disk space. This was a bad user experience, and something we wanted to avoid repeating.

So when we added APIs for secondary external storage devices in KitKat, we carefully limited write access to directories belonging to the running app. This gives us the best of both worlds: apps can take advantage of the extra storage space, and users have better visibility into and control over how apps are using their storage space. (These package-specific directories are surfaced to apps through Context.getExternalFilesDirs(), etc.)

Before KitKat, some OEMs chose to leave external storage devices unprotected, where apps could write if they guessed a special filesystem path. These were never part of any platform public API; they were an internal implementation detail. We've always maintained that internal details like this can (and will) change without warning, and that apps should not depend on these hidden behaviors.

Now, on to your specific question: there are many ways that your two apps could coordinate to share/manage files between themselves. One way would be to use a ContentProvider to offer access from the first app to the second. We've encouraged the use of ContentProviders like this because they support granular access controls through temporary Uri permission grants. FileProvider is a good place to start, since it already handles the details related to sharing files, including support for deleting:

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/support/v4/content/FileProvider.html

FileProvider may not be a perfect fit, but it's a good starting point for writing a custom provider. Using a provider creates a cleaner contract between the two apps, offering an abstraction layer around where/how the files are actually stored, and a place to surface metadata such as download progress, etc.

If you'd like to keep things simpler, another approach would be to define an internal protocol between your two apps, where the second app could request that the first app delete a specific file, perhaps through a broadcast that you protect with a permission.

Hopefully the details above shed more light on why these behaviors exist, and hopefully one of the strategies described above can help improve the interaction between your two apps.

# ? Apr 21, 2014 04:50

GWBBQ: Jan 2, 2005

the kawaiiest posted:

Yeah, I only root to block ads. If there was a way to do it without root I wouldn't even think about it anymore.

AdBlock Plus runs as a proxy at localhost:2020 that you can redirect web traffic through. I run it on my Nexus 7 because I don't want to root it until it's out of warranty.

# ? Apr 22, 2014 03:15

the kawaiiest: Dec 22, 2010; Uguuuu ~

GWBBQ posted:

AdBlock Plus runs as a proxy at localhost:2020 that you can redirect web traffic through. I run it on my Nexus 7 because I don't want to root it until it's out of warranty.

Doesn't that only work on wifi?

# ? Apr 22, 2014 03:36

GWBBQ: Jan 2, 2005

Is there any good sandboxing solution that can isolate apps from the rest of the system, block permissions, and the like? I see this Xposed module that can revoke permissions, is it any good?
http://repo.xposed.info/module/de.robv.android.xposed.mods.appsettings

the kawaiiest posted:

Doesn't that only work on wifi?

Oh, right.

edit:

quote:

WARNING: MOTOROLA STRONGLY RECOMMENDS AGAINST UNLOCKING THE BOOTLOADER AND/OR MODIFYING OR ALTERING A DEVICE'S SOFTWARE OR OPERATING SYSTEM. DOING SO CAN HAVE UNINTENDED, UNFORESEEN, AND DANGEROUS CONSEQUENCES, SUCH AS RENDERING THE DEVICE UNUSABLE, VIOLATING APPLICABLE LAWS, OR CAUSING PROPERTY DAMAGE AND/OR BODILY INJURY, INCLUDING DEATH.

Moto X Developer Edition: Live Dangerously.

GWBBQ fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Apr 22, 2014

# ? Apr 22, 2014 18:42

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

GWBBQ posted:

Moto X Developer Edition: Live Dangerously.

A phone, rooted or not, shouldn't really be able to cause death when otherwise used in an expected manner. Exploding batteries is the greatest risk I can imagine, and there really aught to be hardware protections to keep batteries exploding (hammers aside).

That said, a buggy phone could be a contributing factor in someone's death if say, emergency calls can't be placed when they otherwise should be able to, delaying the arrival of emergency services in a critical time. That much is entirely plausible, especially given that there have been issues with emergency calls in ROMs (e.g., CyanogenMod) in the past, and we should expect that they will still come up from time-to-time in the future.

I don't know if that statement comes from an engineer who truly believes that smartphones are non-user-serviceable appliances and that nobody should be mucking with them ever, or if it comes from a lawyer who is avoiding lawsuit from a recognized risk. Could be either, but the caps suggests lawyer.

# ? Apr 23, 2014 07:16

Gyshall: Feb 24, 2009; Had a couple of drinks.
Saw a couple of things.

What is the best ~~~ rootable ~ phone on Verizon right now? Moto X?

# ? Apr 23, 2014 14:52

Dr. Video Games 0050: Nov 28, 2007

I have a Galaxy S4 l337 Canadian version running the newest software. In order for me to do something I need to get into /data. I'm not rooted so that folder is empty. How do I root this drat thing? Apparently there's no such thing but wondering if you guys had any idea.

# ? Apr 23, 2014 17:46

THF13: Sep 26, 2007; Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

Gyshall posted:

What is the best ~~~ rootable ~ phone on Verizon right now? Moto X?

If you MUST have root, get a full price Developer edition phone. Motorola sells both the Droid Maxx and the Moto X in Developer edition versions. Samsung announced a Developer edition S5 but not a price or date for it.

# ? Apr 23, 2014 19:55

GWBBQ: Jan 2, 2005

Gyshall posted:

What is the best ~~~ rootable ~ phone on Verizon right now? Moto X?

Moto X or Droid Maxx Developer edition. You can unlock the bootloader, root, and do all the things those allow without voiding your warranty, plus they provide a stock image that you can flash back onto it with adb if you brick it. Dev edition of both comes with 32GB of storage and is the same price as the base phone with 32GB, so the only thing you're giving up is the Moto X cosmetic stuff (presumably if you're buying a Dev edition you're planning on doing all the software customization yourself.)

I got mine last night and it took me maybe 20 minutes to unlock and install TWRP + root, including the time it took me to download the newest Android SDK.

# ? Apr 23, 2014 20:53

Mesothelioma: Jan 6, 2009; Your favorite mineral related cancer!

how do I get regular-rear end android on my Kindle Fire HD?

# ? Apr 24, 2014 08:00

ScarletBrother: Nov 2, 2004

Mesothelioma posted:

how do I get regular-rear end android on my Kindle Fire HD?

Try this.

# ? Apr 24, 2014 16:27

Vin BioEthanol: Jan 18, 2002; by Ralp

I love cyanogenmod on my att s3 but I'm getting real tired of how poo poo the amoled looks compared to my lovely work blackberry or my kids lovely 4g ipods.

I've not been reading any android stuff in months. I want cyanogenmod and I want it to be as good as it is on the s3. A removable battery + sd slot would be really really nice but I suppose I can live without.

I have an upgrade at ATT, anything they have I should be checking out? Anything upcoming?
Should I take my upgrade flip it and buy something ATT doesn't have? N5?

# ? Apr 24, 2014 17:06

Syrinxx: Mar 28, 2002; Death is whimsical today

Vin BioEthanol posted:

I love cyanogenmod on my att s3 but I'm getting real tired of how poo poo the amoled looks compared to my lovely work blackberry or my kids lovely 4g ipods.

I've not been reading any android stuff in months. I want cyanogenmod and I want it to be as good as it is on the s3. A removable battery + sd slot would be really really nice but I suppose I can live without.

I have an upgrade at ATT, anything they have I should be checking out? Anything upcoming?
Should I take my upgrade flip it and buy something ATT doesn't have? N5?

There are official CM11 nightlies for the LG G2 and HTC One, which have IPS/SLCD displays. Also there's the Moto X and Nexus 5. Not sure what your complaint is with SAOMLED+ but I personally think it looks significantly better than most displays.

# ? Apr 24, 2014 17:28

Vin BioEthanol: Jan 18, 2002; by Ralp

Syrinxx posted:

There are official CM11 nightlies for the LG G2 and HTC One, which have IPS/SLCD displays. Also there's the Moto X and Nexus 5. Not sure what your complaint is with SAOMLED+ but I personally think it looks significantly better than most displays.

Thanks, as for amoled when my wife had a samsung and I had an htc I always thought the amoled display on hers looked real neat and the colors really popped. But now that I have one I'm getting tired of it, especially out in sunlight, the blackberry or kids ipods are like 5x brighter and 5x easier to read.

# ? Apr 24, 2014 17:42

dentata: Mar 29, 2012

Does anyone know of a way to stop an app from showing an update in the Play Store?

I'm using an old version of the T-Mo My Account app that I will never update (the later updates make the app a steaming pile of crap) and I'd like to have my "update all" button back in the Play Store. I think that TiBu Pro is supposed to have a feature like this but all I see in my TiBu menu is "attach to to market." :confused:

# ? Apr 25, 2014 18:32

ClassActionFursuit: Mar 15, 2006

dentata posted:

Does anyone know of a way to stop an app from showing an update in the Play Store?

I'm using an old version of the T-Mo My Account app that I will never update (the later updates make the app a steaming pile of crap) and I'd like to have my "update all" button back in the Play Store. I think that TiBu Pro is supposed to have a feature like this but all I see in my TiBu menu is "attach to to market."

The "Detach from Market" option stopped working some time ago so it wouldn't surprise me if the option were removed. The best you can do is set that particular app to not auto-update in the Play Store and when you manually hit Update All, hit the Skip button to preserve the app version you have.

# ? Apr 25, 2014 21:52

dentata: Mar 29, 2012

that's what I was afraid of. Thanks for that! Thought I was going crazy or :downs:

for not being able to find that option!

# ? Apr 26, 2014 06:49

ClassActionFursuit: Mar 15, 2006

dentata posted:

that's what I was afraid of. Thanks for that! Thought I was going crazy or for not being able to find that option!

I just looked on mine and where yours says "Attach to Market (forced)" mine says "Detach from Market" so you've already toggled it. The bad news is that I was right that it apparently still doesn't work if you still see the update in the Play Store.

# ? Apr 26, 2014 08:03

datajosh: May 3, 2002; I had the realization these aren't my problem!

LastInLine posted:

I just looked on mine and where yours says "Attach to Market (forced)" mine says "Detach from Market" so you've already toggled it. The bad news is that I was right that it apparently still doesn't work if you still see the update in the Play Store.

Yeah, it hasn't worked since the last major Play Store revamp. At one point I tried uninstalling an app on my wife's phone and sideloading it to see if that would work but the Play Store found it again after a day or two and listed it as having an update available.

# ? Apr 26, 2014 15:05

dentata: Mar 29, 2012

Bummer. Thanks for looking guys. I'll check some other apps out and if any of them do the detach thing I'll report back!

# ? Apr 26, 2014 17:31

travisray2004: Dec 2, 2004; SuprMan

I've been using CM11 nightlies ever since I got my Verizon Galaxy S3, however, lately it's been becoming somewhat slow and unresponsive. Does anyone have a ROM they prefer over CM? I tried slimrom but the higher resolution makes everything too small for my poor eyes.

# ? Apr 28, 2014 14:34

dentata: Mar 29, 2012

What is it about CM that you like?

Stock + GravityBox replaced my love for CM/PA/PAC-ROM/etc as it has/does just about everything that I liked from the custom ROMs.

Here's the gist of Gravity Box: http://lifehacker.com/gravitybox-adds-a-ton-of-tweaks-to-android-in-one-custo-1502250290

Here's the Gravity Box XDA thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/xposed/modules/app-gravitybox-v2-9-1-tweak-box-android-t2554049

Edit: Also if you truly liked SlimROM despite the resolution issues, that may be fixed with an app like LCDDensity: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=lv.n3o.lcddensity

# ? Apr 28, 2014 16:45

ClassActionFursuit: Mar 15, 2006

dentata posted:

What is it about CM that you like?

Stock + GravityBox replaced my love for CM/PA/PAC-ROM/etc as it has/does just about everything that I liked from the custom ROMs.

Here's the gist of Gravity Box: http://lifehacker.com/gravitybox-adds-a-ton-of-tweaks-to-android-in-one-custo-1502250290

Here's the Gravity Box XDA thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/xposed/modules/app-gravitybox-v2-9-1-tweak-box-android-t2554049

Edit: Also if you truly liked SlimROM despite the resolution issues, that may be fixed with an app like LCDDensity: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=lv.n3o.lcddensity

GravityBox isn't available to him as he does not have an AOSP phone.

# ? Apr 28, 2014 16:52

dentata: Mar 29, 2012

LastInLine posted:

GravityBox isn't available to him as he does not have an AOSP phone.

Can't he just flash an AOSP based ROM and use that with GravityBox instead? I mean, if he *really* wanted to use GravityBox. Though then at that point he might as well just flash whatever ROM with the custom stuff he wants baked in instead of messing with Xposed. drat there's a lot to know between all of the Android/phone variants.

Well, I really liked CM, then Paranoid Android, but then found PAC-ROM which trumped them all since it was a smorgasbord of everything: http://www.pac-rom.com/#Download ...but I don't know if it's available for Verizon's SGS3 and am too lazy to look up the model name.

# ? Apr 28, 2014 17:10

nimper: Jun 19, 2003; livin' in a hopium den

dentata posted:

Can't he just flash an AOSP based ROM and use that with GravityBox instead? I mean, if he *really* wanted to use GravityBox. Though then at that point he might as well just flash whatever ROM with the custom stuff he wants baked in instead of messing with Xposed. drat there's a lot to know between all of the Android/phone variants.

Well, I really liked CM, then Paranoid Android, but then found PAC-ROM which trumped them all since it was a smorgasbord of everything: http://www.pac-rom.com/#Download ...but I don't know if it's available for Verizon's SGS3 and am too lazy to look up the model name.

The US SGS3 series was unified under the "d2lte" branch a little while ago.

http://pacman.basketbuild.com/index.php?dir=main/d2lte/nightly/

# ? Apr 28, 2014 17:17

ClassActionFursuit: Mar 15, 2006

dentata posted:

Can't he just flash an AOSP based ROM and use that with GravityBox instead? I mean, if he *really* wanted to use GravityBox. Though then at that point he might as well just flash whatever ROM with the custom stuff he wants baked in instead of messing with Xposed. drat there's a lot to know between all of the Android/phone variants.

GravityBox has features break on phones as "stock" as the Moto X and G and Xperia models. The developer (rightly) refuses to fix anything that works fine on a Nexus device on stock software. On TouchWiz it doesn't work at all.

And as you say, if you're going to flash an AOSP-based ROM (which is really just a CM-based ROM in reality) they're going to have the features anyway.

Not that it stops any of the xda idiots from doing exactly that and constantly making GBS threads up the thread asking why x is broken in CM or why z doesn't work on their Galaxy 2.

# ? Apr 28, 2014 17:26

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# ? May 13, 2024 22:57

tjones: May 13, 2005

I'm not sure about the S3, but I was able to flash the stock Google rom on my model of S4.

# ? Apr 28, 2014 17:38

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Rooted Android - You really don't need to do this anymore

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