Database Users

Can you all give me advice on custom rom decisions please?

Ok I have the Note 2 GT-N7100 on O2 UK.
I previously had the S2 and rooted the phone fine.
I have never installed a custom rom on any phones before.
What I need is advice on what I need to do for me to get rid of bloat ware, free up loads of space and customize my phone with a different look.
I'm aware a custom rom is personal preference but I just need anyone to guide me or give me advice on what needs to be done to get my phone working faster and better with more space.
Thanks,
Aaron.

If your happy with your rom you could just use titanium back up to uninstall any unwanted bloatware. For customisation there are lots of xposed mods that can really customise your phone
Sent from my GT-N7105 using xda premium

You don't have to do anything, really. Just always do a full wipe that's all.
To get rid of bloatware, I suggest ROM Cleaner head over to the Original Android Development section.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note II

Will I be able to remove all the apps that come with the phone?
I need root also don't I?

aaronjunited said:
Will I be able to remove all the apps that come with the phone?
I need root also don't I?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well of course you need to root. If you need any help with that you could hit that root info tab on the note 2 main forum page. Also, if you are considering on flashing a ROM, I highly recommend Hawkish extreme ROM mainly due to the great battery life it gives and in your case, you can get rid of all the bloatware through the AROMA installer. But you could always get rid of bloat without flashing any ROMs by using those apps 'sawdoctor' & 'Simone' suggested.
Hawkish: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1983626

I'd suggest to root it and then use Titanium, not to REMOVE the apps you don't need but to FREEZE them. Then use the phone for a couple of days and if you don't experience any problems, you can remove the frozen apps. Much safer that way.

Thank you for the suggestions and advice.

If u like the stock rom, then go for AliianceRom. Its similar to the stock Samsung ROM with some extra features
Or else there are many other custom ROMs if u wanna try new stuffs and experiment.

dalanik said:
I'd suggest to root it and then use Titanium, not to REMOVE the apps you don't need but to FREEZE them. Then use the phone for a couple of days and if you don't experience any problems, you can remove the frozen apps. Much safer that way.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I second this opinion. :good:

Go for omega rom it's good
Sent from my GT-N7100 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

Please please please, once rooted, before flashing anything, backup the EFS.
Then as stated, use titanium to freeze apps before deleting them just in case.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda premium

I recommend Wanamlite.

I recommend rooted stock. More reliable than any custom rom or kernel.
Sent from my GT-N7100

[Q] Is it safe to uninstall AT&T bloatware on rooted I337UCUAMF3?

Given that there's no way to reflash the factory image, is it still safe to remove all the AT&T bloat using Titanium Backup? Right now I have all the AT&T bloatware frozen and it doesn't impact anything, but I just want to if it'll change if I completely uninstall the AT&T programs i.e. My Locker, Blurb Checkout, etc. Would this impact my ability to receive firmware updates or unroot and reset the handset? I should mention I'm probably going to be selling the phone when the Nexus 5 comes out so I still want to be able to unroot and factory reset (as long as it can reset, it doesn't bother me if the AT&T bloatware is gone).

I guess that depends on what you mean by "safe."
I removed almost all of the AT&T stuff except for the update service and the hotspot app, and I know I'll never miss them even without a recovery option.
If you need a recovery option, then probably best to not remove anything and use Safestrap to experiment with other roms.

Don't delete it, freeze it. That way if you mess something up you can defrost it.

If your on MF3 I wouldn't touch anything and just use safestrap.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Tapatalk 5

There is always risk.

I learned the hard way... I touched too much stuff with Tibu on my stock ROM and it doesn't even work anymore. I can't do anything with it... luckily I have safestrap still until they release an mf3 factory image for Odin or kies I can't do anything with my stock ROM.
Sent from my SGH-I337 using xda app-developers app

jd1639 said:
Don't delete it, freeze it. That way if you mess something up you can defrost it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

I removed all att and samsung bloat except for watch on and several services. We should put a list together of safe package to remove.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

re: safe to remove bloatware
[email protected] said:
I learned the hard way... I touched too much stuff with Tibu on my stock ROM and it doesn't even work anymore. I can't do anything with it... luckily I have safestrap still until they release an mf3 factory image for Odin or kies I can't do anything with my stock ROM.
Sent from my SGH-I337 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
About the time you posted this last night I was freezing apps. Apparently too many. Phone will not boot past the at&t logo now. I can still boot into my custom rom slot 1 so I'm not at a total loss, but would really like to know if there is anyway to replace/defrost those frozen apps on the stock ROM via the ADB terminal running on my custom ROM. Seems like you could just copy and overwrite the package files on the stock ROM... Which leads me to my ultimate question of what does TiBackup Freeze option actually do? Uninstalling would remove the app and files from the system completely so since they are still present it seems there would be some sort of a control file that you could edit manually to defrost the app(s) in question.
Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated.
I've read a few times that best buy can do a factory restore, yet every time someone says they are going to ask their "friend" at best buy for the method/procedure for the restore they drop off the grid... Is this a possibility?
---------- Post added at 11:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:26 AM ----------
jd1639 said:
Don't delete it, freeze it. That way if you mess something up you can defrost it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As long as you don't reboot it =)
Can you defrost it if you have rebooted and now you can't get past the at&t boot logo?

colbur87 said:
I removed all att and samsung bloat except for watch on and several services. We should put a list together of safe package to remove.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't recall the urls but there are already a few in-depth lists of safe bloatware to remove from our phones..

@xda_n I'm not too sure I'm still researching on this, but haven't really been actively looking for it. Not in a rush really because I'm not going to sell my phone or anything so I'm just going to wait on Samsung to release the mf3 file via Odin or kies. I'm just using vision-x and shostock which is giving me better battery and performance than stock and still have stock feel so I'm not in too much of a rush to fix my stock ROM yet. My stock ROM would boot but it would say com.android. something and it'll freeze. I accidently tried to do a factory reset after deleting all the apps via tibu so I couldn't recover any files I saved and froze so i learned my lesson and don't want to deal with best buy right now.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using xda app-developers app

MD5.tar!!!
I'm not sure if you guys found this thread or not, but I'm so thankful, I decided to pay it forward and share it. PERFECTO.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2502003

Unroot after rom flash?

I'm interested in flashing the Google Play Edition Rom to my Galaxy S4 I9505.
The walk throughs seem simple enough.
I've noticed that you need to root your phone it install the roms. After install is it possible to Unroot your device once your running the GPE rom? As I know some apps such as banking apps don't run on rooted devices.
Thanks
Sent from my GT-I9505 using xda app-developers app

grifflee said:
I'm interested in flashing the Google Play Edition Rom to my Galaxy S4 I9505.
The walk throughs seem simple enough.
I've noticed that you need to root your phone it install the roms. After install is it possible to Unroot your device once your running the GPE rom? As I know some apps such as banking apps don't run on rooted devices.
Thanks
Sent from my GT-I9505 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you need to lock ur phone back I mean unroot
Just use triangle away app then flash the stock odin version of your phone with specific region.
And you can get it from sammobile
Sent from my SM-N900 using Tapatalk

You don't necessarily have to run stock to run "unrooted", because even some custom ROMs come without superuser priviledges. If you're talking about a specific ROM that comes stock rooted (which most are), then you might be able to get by if you simply disallow root access to that specific program. Otherwise, there are apps like Hide My Root which are supposed to help you do what you're trying to accomplish. If I were you, I would set it up and try it out on the actual program(s) you're worried about. It would be a shame to stay on stock just because you weren't sure if it would work.

You can temporarily unroot your device using super user app itself.. check it out in settings

Thanks a lot for all of the replies, you've been a great help.
I've not got round to rooting or flashing the GPE rom yet might do it this week.
This is my 1st time doing this so a little uncertain on some little things.
I know about uprooting, getting TWRP running, using Odin, then flashing the ROM. but just read that the ROM needs a new modem file flashing. Can you do this through TWRP or as I'm thinking do it through Odin after I've got the ROM up and running?
Thanks again for all your responses guys, been a great help
Sent from my GT-I9505 using xda app-developers app

New to Custom ROMs

Hey,
I'm new(ish) to using custom ROMs for my Galaxy Note 3 and I have a few questions, and questions pertaining to previous custom ROM expieriences.
For starters, my Note 3 is already Knox 0x1 (or whichever one means void).
I'm using a Canadian Galaxy Note 3 (Rogers) and I am trying to find a Custom ROM that can suit my needs.
Previously I've used xnote (I think that's what it's called) and it was great, except that trying to re-stock my Note 3 has led to problems with the LTE as LTE service is fairly unavailable since.
So, what I'm looking for is a ROM much like xnote that doesn't require me to change my device from the SM-N900W8 to some other modem or whatever, or atleast can repair the issue with my current stock firmware.
That aside, the features I need are fairly basic. I need something that doesn't hijack my device. I don't like seeing that Facebook starts itself after I close it, I don't like seeing that I can't remove stock applications. So I need something that is free of bloat-ware and gives me full access to my phone and the applications that I've installed. If possible I'd like to limit the permissions they require to be used.. Nothing frustrates me more than seeing that my "clock" app needs to access my phone call history, browsing history, bank info, can install other apps, delete apps, remove the password, create a password, etc. It's absolutely ridiculous that google has allowed these apps to exist with such permissions.
Basically. I am looking for freedom, with a ROM that supports Canadian modems rather than forcing me to mess up my extremely expensive signal. (trust me, Canadians pay $43 more than the rest of the world)

LostKeys said:
Hey,
I'm new(ish) to using custom ROMs for my Galaxy Note 3 and I have a few questions, and questions pertaining to previous custom ROM expieriences.
For starters, my Note 3 is already Knox 0x1 (or whichever one means void).
I'm using a Canadian Galaxy Note 3 (Rogers) and I am trying to find a Custom ROM that can suit my needs.
Previously I've used xnote (I think that's what it's called) and it was great, except that trying to re-stock my Note 3 has led to problems with the LTE as LTE service is fairly unavailable since.
So, what I'm looking for is a ROM much like xnote that doesn't require me to change my device from the SM-N900W8 to some other modem or whatever, or atleast can repair the issue with my current stock firmware.
That aside, the features I need are fairly basic. I need something that doesn't hijack my device. I don't like seeing that Facebook starts itself after I close it, I don't like seeing that I can't remove stock applications. So I need something that is free of bloat-ware and gives me full access to my phone and the applications that I've installed. If possible I'd like to limit the permissions they require to be used.. Nothing frustrates me more than seeing that my "clock" app needs to access my phone call history, browsing history, bank info, can install other apps, delete apps, remove the password, create a password, etc. It's absolutely ridiculous that google has allowed these apps to exist with such permissions.
Basically. I am looking for freedom, with a ROM that supports Canadian modems rather than forcing me to mess up my extremely expensive signal. (trust me, Canadians pay $43 more than the rest of the world)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you don't need custom ROM just for that.
a root access will be good enough

If you need something super responsive with great battery life, I'd recommend Vision X N3. They just released a great update. You mix that with the Compulsion KK 15 kernel and you have a beast in your hands.
I have a Telus Note 3 and I wouldn't want anything else. Maybe the Note 4 soon

Bibz0r said:
If you need something super responsive with great battery life, I'd recommend Vision X N3. They just released a great update. You mix that with the Compulsion KK 15 kernel and you have a beast in your hands.
I have a Telus Note 3 and I wouldn't want anything else. Maybe the Note 4 soon
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you experienced any connectivity issues with this? It seems awesome but I don't want to jump the gun and flash this as I'm not a big fan of setting everything up over and over since Titanium Backup is about as useful as a potato for backing up important information / data.

LostKeys said:
Have you experienced any connectivity issues with this? It seems awesome but I don't want to jump the gun and flash this as I'm not a big fan of setting everything up over and over since Titanium Backup is about as useful as a potato for backing up important information / data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have screwed up my modem firmware once because of a bad flash but that's because I was careless. If you follow a tutorial properly and read on the subject (this forum is a great place to learn), you should not have any issues. You'll see that the advantages of a custom ROM will, by far, surpass all the trouble to get there.
I have to agree about Titanium Backup... The thing that I hate the most is re-creating folders and re-arranging widgets. I know that if you use another launcher (ex: Nova Launcher) you can save the layout but personally, I like the stock launcher.

Sorry for the invadence, i have two questions before doing the "damage", i am on the latest NF4, stock rom, i would like to root and install custom recovery and custom rom (i don't care about knox), can i just root with cf auto root, install latest TWRP and then custom rom as usual or, at cause of the locked bootloader, could i have some problems? In the case i want to return "stock", do i just have to flash stock rom with Odin? I already backed up my EFS just yo be sure...
Thank you in advance!
Sent from my SM-N9005 using XDA Free mobile app

sapphire88 said:
Sorry for the invadence, i have two questions before doing the "damage", i am on the latest NF4, stock rom, i would like to root and install custom recovery and custom rom (i don't care about knox), can i just root with cf auto root, install latest TWRP and then custom rom as usual or, at cause of the locked bootloader, could i have some problems? In the case i want to return "stock", do i just have to flash stock rom with Odin? I already backed up my EFS just yo be sure...
Thank you in advance!
Sent from my SM-N9005 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly!
Root > TWRP > Custom ROM
If you need to flash back to stock, use Odin with the stock firmware file from SamMobile.
Let me know if you require more information.

thank you, so i will not have any problem with the locked booloader? do i have to backup anything else more tha the original EFS?

I just flashed Assassin ROM and LTE etc.. are working just fine on that

Over a stock nf4 and locked bootloader?
Sent from my SM-N9005 using XDA Free mobile app

HELP! Samsung galaxy s4 i9505 4.4.2 ROOTED RANDOMLY REBOOTS

Im new to rooting and stuff so please explain things in detail. I have samsung galaxy s4 i9505 on android 4.4.2 XXUGNG8. I rooted it yesterday using cf autoroot. I had to disable knox because of supersu. I also removed youtube.apk which was a system app so i could install another YouTube apk which had more features. Everything seemed to be working well untill i pressed the power button to just switch off the screen and then my phone just went to the samsung rebooting screen. The song didn't play and the screen that says samsung galaxy s4 gti9505 never came up. Just the screen saying samsung. Then it went to my lockscreen. The reboot is like a quick reboot. It doesnt take as long as a normal reboot. This doesn't always happen. It had happened 5 or 6 times since last night when i press the power button. However its annoying. It also happened after someone called my phone. After i finished and they put the phone down it just rebooted again.
Please can someone help me? Someone else already said to flash the latest firmware for my device. But will that remove the root? Also, i cant find the right version. For my phone the:
AP: I9505XXUGNG8
CP: I9505XXUGNG8
CSC:I9505BTUGNG2
Please can someone help asap. Thanks.
Sent from my GT-I9505 using XDA Free mobile app

Based upon the information provided, the most current version of your ROM is here. And yes, you will lose root when you flash the firmware through Odin. It will be as if it came new out of the box.

If i flash the firmware again should i stay unrooted?
Sent from my GT-I9505 using XDA Free mobile app

Btw thanks for the firmware link. Right now the knox thing is 0x1 on my phone. After flashing this firmware, will it go vack to 0x0?
Sent from my GT-I9505 using XDA Free mobile app

Root and debloat the stock ROM using the tools and guides in the forums. Whether you want to install a custom ROM or not is of course your decision. I tried a couple, namely EchoeROM and Imperium ROM. I personally found Imperium ROM to be more pleasant to use. I also thought it had a more professional appearance. There were a couple things in EchoeROM that took me back to web page interfaces of the 1990s. This time around, after replacing my phone's SIM card tray and removing the SIM lock with RegionLock Away, I focused on debloating the stock ROM instead of installing a custom ROM.
I chose to debloat because the only real selling point to the two ROMs above is that they are Galaxy S5 ports, and I found that the features they added were ones I didn't need. Even the S4 feature list is a bit overkill, but while there are more than a few gimmicky features in the S4 firmware, there are things to like in there. Yes, a lot of people complain about Touchwiz and how heavy it is. They're right, but in my experience taking the time to debloat the ROM and then installing a launcher from the Play Store to use in place of the Touchwiz launcher goes a long way to make the ROM pretty damn snappy. Is it ever going to be as snappy and responsive as an AOSP ROM? No, but in day to day usage I really believe you're not going to notice it.
I mentioned before about replacing the launcher with one from the Play Store. There are a ton of launchers available on the Play Store. I personally use Google Now Launcher, but I think I'm in the minority there. Most people use Nova or Apex launchers.
Regarding Knox, once set to 0x1, that's it. There's no going back.