Database Users

Is Galaxy S6 worth rooting?

Hi guys!
I'm writing this thread to anyone who is considering rooting his own S6. Well I wasn't sure for 5 month because I was afraid of losing my warranty. Like 3 days ago I decided to end with bloatware. This was one of the best thing I did in my life with my phone. Flashed XtreStoLite and custom kernel (arter97) and this device is now crazy fast... Damn I didn't expect these results. Also my battery is now much improved than it was before.
I know it's XDA forum, but maybe there are people like me, who are still waiting to root their phones. This thread will help them to take their decision.
Also you guys with rooted phones - write your feelings when you did it.

I've always rooted my phones and used custom ROMs, but I've become more and more reliant on my mobile banking apps recently. As they don't work on rooted phones, my S6 is staying unrooted.

Is Samsung Pay the only function you lose when rooting and/or installing a custom TW ROM?

HKSpeed said:
Is Samsung Pay the only function you lose when rooting and/or installing a custom TW ROM?
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Hmmm... In my country Samsung pay is not available yet. So I don't care about this one. Also I don't know about any other disadvantages of root or custom ROM.

HKSpeed said:
Is Samsung Pay the only function you lose when rooting and/or installing a custom TW ROM?
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You also lose Knox, warranty (depending upon your country) and OTAs.

I've always rooted my phones starting back when the galaxy s fascinate came out, been on this forum a long time and rooted lots of tabs and phones thru here. You can always flash back to stock if you don't like root.

I actually rooted my Nexus 5 but don't feel the need to root my S6. The only thing i used it was to change the dpi on nexus but with the screen grid option i don't even need to on S6. Phone is working perfectly fine and unrooted gives me peace of mind of safety and OTA updates.

Since Adblock Fast is available for M6.0.1, I don't need to root my SGS6. Web advertisements and banners was main reason for rooting my phone, because i was using Adaway, which is "root only" app. Adblock Fast is working like Adaway (except adcvertisements in free apps, of course - i don´t mind of that, I'm willing to pay for good app) and without root. Yes, with root I can have more functionality (exposed framework, tweaking stock apps, ...), but I can live without that. And I'm happy that my Knox is not tripped and have automatic OTAs.

I'm incredibly glad I didn't jump straight into rooting mine... The camera started to occasionally play up after a month, sometimes making a noise when focusing. This progressed over the months to becoming more frequent, and sometimes I'd have to literally shake the phone to get it to focus.
Two months in I handed it in but they couldn't find anything wrong with it. Five months in it was so bad that they couldn't deny it and repaired it there and then when I read the newspaper with a coffee (kudos to Samsung: only some stores offer that service).
So yeah, I wouldn't root my phone again within six months for that reason.
I'll still root it though - I'm just waiting for official TWRP compatibility at the moment.
As a side note, I asked the guy who handed my phone back if they check KNOX routinely. He told me yes for software issues, and occasionally for hardware issues (especially for screen issues). He didn't bother checking mine apparently.

2ZE said:
I'm incredibly glad I didn't jump straight into rooting mine... The camera started to occasionally play up after a month, sometimes making a noise when focusing. This progressed over the months to becoming more frequent, and sometimes I'd have to literally shake the phone to get it to focus.
Two months in I handed it in but they couldn't find anything wrong with it. Five months in it was so bad that they couldn't deny it and repaired it there and then when I read the newspaper with a coffee (kudos to Samsung: only some stores offer that service).
So yeah, I wouldn't root my phone again within six months for that reason.
I'll still root it though - I'm just waiting for official TWRP compatibility at the moment.
As a side note, I asked the guy who handed my phone back if they check KNOX routinely. He told me yes for software issues, and occasionally for hardware issues (especially for screen issues). He didn't bother checking mine apparently.
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Just so you know there is official twrp support

552eden said:
Just so you know there is official twrp support
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Not for MM bootloader. TWRP on MM at the moment can only be installed via Chainfire's or Arter's modified version

Big_Rich_1983 said:
I've always rooted my phones and used custom ROMs, but I've become more and more reliant on my mobile banking apps recently. As they don't work on rooted phones, my S6 is staying unrooted.
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Rootcloak fixes this.
I rooted mine mainly for adaway and xposed, but I have to say that not getting OTA is annoying - however Samsung is too slow with the updates that I don't care anymore (still no marshmallow in my country).

I had problems with mine I was on 5.1.1 rooted updated to marshmallow my phone came up with emergency calls only back on 5.1.1 after repair funny thing is the repair shop rooted my phone to make sim work again weird

Hi guys (and gals)
I've always rooted my phones because I wanted to have more powerful, flexible device. I did this with my old HTC Wildfire, HTC Desire HD and Nexus 4 but with S6 I don't feel I need this anymore. The device is just as good as-it-is – without root, Xposed, mods and so on. And 6.0.1 update gave it new shine and powers. Of course it's my personal opinion only but I must repeat – Galaxy S6 is the first Android phone I'm pleased to use without any modifications (maybe except for Nova Laucher ).
Have a great day!

I am happier with my marshmallow now that it's 6.0.1 rooted with xposed mods to tweak with it. I'll always root if I can just because I can't stand not messing with it, lol.

Hoccco said:
Rootcloak fixes this.
I rooted mine mainly for adaway and xposed, but I have to say that not getting OTA is annoying - however Samsung is too slow with the updates that I don't care anymore (still no marshmallow in my country).
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I got Marshmallow 6.0.1 about 2-3 weeks ago, and I've had two minor updates (around 13-15Mb each) since then. Can't fault Samsung in my country.

Rooting and warranty?

I just purchased a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge today and I'm already inclined to start customizing it. I am the type of people who get obsessed with the variety of custom ROMs, tweaks, modifications, etc. and I was a die-hard development fan on my M7 and M8. I went for an iPhone 6 Plus for a while but now I am back and more eager than ever!
I had a Galaxy S5 for a little while (one of the worst phones I've owned, to be quite honest) and I remember there was something called "knox" or similar, which is triggered whenever you use ODIN to root or install a custom ROM, therefore voiding your warranty; is it the same case with the S7? I'm currently doing research about its development and how things work with it, but it's just an important question I haven't found an answer to yet.
With the HTC, for instance, you could do everything then just run a RUU and go back to fully stock without voiding anything.
And by the way, are there any custom ROMs you'd recommend? I was a huge fan of Viper ROM on all my HTC devices (One X, M7, M8) but I don't see that team developing for the S7.
Thank you for your time!

I can only give you info from my experience. I rooted my S6 the day I got it but after a few weeks had issues with reception. It was sent to samsung for repair who promptly returned it as the Knox counter was tripped and would not repair it under warranty. Even tried using the old EU Directive and sales of goods act but they would not budge. This was in the UK. I would say here its completely hit and miss if they will repair it so just be cautious.

Marshall1975 said:
I can only give you info from my experience. I rooted my S6 the day I got it but after a few weeks had issues with reception. It was sent to samsung for repair who promptly returned it as the Knox counter was tripped and would not repair it under warranty. Even tried using the old EU Directive and sales of goods act but they would not budge. This was in the UK. I would say here its completely hit and miss if they will repair it so just be cautious.
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Although I'm a huge fan of rooting and customizing, I'd rather be on the safe side in case anything happens. I doubt the Samsung service center technicians are actually very 'savvy' over here, however I don't think I'd like to take the risk. Am I going to be missing on a lot if I just remain stock? I'm curious.

TarekElsakka said:
Although I'm a huge fan of rooting and customizing, I'd rather be on the safe side in case anything happens. I doubt the Samsung service center technicians are actually very 'savvy' over here, however I don't think I'd like to take the risk. Am I going to be missing on a lot if I just remain stock? I'm curious.
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Ad-less Youtube, Viper Audio + Dolby + Bests Audio, Xposed and if you're into learning about how it all works; rooting will only improve your understanding and overall enjoyment of your phone!

Voiding your warranty can be very country dependent. Where I live, if I root my phone, then if I have a hardware issue then legally they have to honor the warranty. Samsung will still try and tell you that it's not covered but will fold when pressed. On the other hand if I rooted and bricked the phone permanently, then I am on my own.

Evil-Santa said:
Voiding your warranty can be very country dependent. Where I live, if I root my phone, then if I have a hardware issue then legally they have to honor the warranty. Samsung will still try and tell you that it's not covered but will fold when pressed. On the other hand if I rooted and bricked the phone permanently, then I am on my own.
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Thanks for your replies, gentlemen. I'm assuming the way to go would be either TWRP > CF-AutoRoot (or whatever is available right now) to root stock ROM or TWRP > Custom ROM, correct?
And is Xposed fully compatible with the latest firmware? 6.0.1 that is.

TarekElsakka said:
Thanks for your replies, gentlemen. I'm assuming the way to go would be either TWRP > CF-AutoRoot (or whatever is available right now) to root stock ROM or TWRP > Custom ROM, correct?
And is Xposed fully compatible with the latest firmware? 6.0.1 that is.
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Most of samsung phones are rootable using twrp>cf auto root.
Flash xposed.zip from twrp.
Sent from my SM-G925F

Evil-Santa said:
Voiding your warranty can be very country dependent. Where I live, if I root my phone, then if I have a hardware issue then legally they have to honor the warranty. Samsung will still try and tell you that it's not covered but will fold when pressed. On the other hand if I rooted and bricked the phone permanently, then I am on my own.
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Hey,
I noticed your in Australia. I used to have the same understanding as you.
I have an interesting thread on Whirpool on the exact subject, and have a current pending NCAT case before the court against Samsung for this exact same issue! They have refused to fix my S7 Edge display with what they have admitted to being a manufacturing defect, because the knox counter is tripped. And no, they haven't folded....Yet

MementoM said:
I'm not so much worried about the warranty as I'm worried about these mobile games. A lot are specifically looking for the root access in your phone and blocking it or simply just banning you based on having root even if you don't cheat. Xposed, Xprivacy, Root Cloak no longer work to hide it. It's depressing especially if you pay some of these game companies and log in one day to find you've been banned for nothing. It's their game you agree to their ToS but it really sucks because I've always loved changing my phone up. Now my hands are tied /sigh and it looks like my rooting days are over if I want to continue playing these root detection games.
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That's really weird, though. What if you're a developer who roots their device for development or whatever other purposes that are 'legal'? Do they still have the right to block your access? I've honestly never heard of that before. However, on iOS you cannot really play Pokemon Go if your device is jailbroken, unless you install a masking tweak like Masterball, so you may be right.
I'm not much of a gamer on mobile phones so I am not really focused on that, however I am thinking about the warranty issue.

ih8un said:
Hey,
I noticed your in Australia. I used to have the same understanding as you.
I have an interesting thread on Whirpool on the exact subject, and have a current pending NCAT case before the court against Samsung for this exact same issue! They have refused to fix my S7 Edge display with what they have admitted to being a manufacturing defect, because the knox counter is tripped. And no, they haven't folded....Yet
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It was some time ago that I dealt with Samsung and Knox was not involved so their stance might have changed. Still was not a pleasant experience.
Are you taking the case to court directly yourself or is it going via the ACCC?
Let us know how it goes. I'm interested to hear the results.

Is losing the warranty worth rooting? Is it ever not a good choice?

I have been rooting my phone ever since my first Android years ago (HTC Incredible). I'm not too wild with the customizations, basically root it to make minor GUI changes, overclock at times just out of mere curiosity and boredom for when I want to have fun, and to remove the bloatware. So basically, I never really have used a custom ROM. Whether it was the Note 4 with the one click root app, or using a program on my PC with the original rom for the LG G2.
My question though... Is there much to worry about when I trigger Knox in my S7 edge and lose warranty? I pay for Asurion insurance* (yes, it's overpriced but it's a luxury I like to retain) but would there be a scenario where having a valid warranty would be beneficial? I remember back years ago there were times when my phone broke and I got a brand new phone through warranty* (avoiding insurance - which means not having to pay a deductible).
Is what I use root for worth the loss of warranty?
Thank you for your time guys!

One aspect to keep in mind is Samsung pay. From what I understand, Samsung Pay will not work once Knox is tripped. This mat not matter to you if you dont care to use Pay, but it may affect resale of the phone if someone interested did want Pay. Thats a negative I can think of. Just my 2 cents.
Sent from my SM-G935W8 using XDA-Developers mobile app

kabreu said:
I have been rooting my phone ever since my first Android years ago (HTC Incredible). I'm not too wild with the customizations, basically root it to make minor GUI changes, overclock at times just out of mere curiosity and boredom for when I want to have fun, and to remove the bloatware. So basically, I never really have used a custom ROM. Whether it was the Note 4 with the one click root app, or using a program on my PC with the original rom for the LG G2.
My question though... Is there much to worry about when I trigger Knox in my S7 edge and lose warranty? I pay for Asurion insurance* (yes, it's overpriced but it's a luxury I like to retain) but would there be a scenario where having a valid warranty would be beneficial? I remember back years ago there were times when my phone broke and I got a brand new phone through warranty* (avoiding insurance - which means not having to pay a deductible).
Is what I use root for worth the loss of warranty?
Thank you for your time guys!
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We can't tell. That's your own decision. We don't know your financial situation, we don't know how you would benefit from a rooted device. So; If you can afford to repair the device with your own money + if you'd benefit a lot from rooting it, go ahead. If both scenarios are not applicable to you, the don't.

I've always rooted my phones except this last one because there was no root. But after using it as is for 1/2 year I'm actually ok with it. Samsung pay and a couple of other things that never worked on rooted devices work ok. I already used the warranty once so that's good. And my main reason for rooting it was adaway and titanium backup. But now there are a few apps that block ads in the browser and don't require root. And they work ok for the most part. Lack of backup is not great but I learned to work around this using samsung and google. And only needed to use it once when changed the phone. Otherwise I am enjoying it. It updates itself while not loosing any data, everything works, warranty is there and I don't get too many ads. I hardly have 1-2 apps that give me ads and that I use maybe once a month so that doesn't bother me anymore.

Its a personal choice... I dont use custom roms mainly because they dont work, the only one I used was a a stock rom for the note 4 that was deodexed, the rest of the roms alwas have some sort of problem, cam doesnt work, led doesnt work, battery drain, crashes, etc, etc, etc, just read every rom thread, no one is fully working.
I rooted the phone to make the battery last longer. Some days ago I unrooted the phone to play pokemon go with my kid and android poped up an alert notifying that my device was slow... and ofcourse iit was slow because of the stupid apps that im not using that are running in background alone.

Going back to the early years of Android, there were many compelling reasons to root your device.
As time has passed, the "stock" experience has got better and better, and the number of reasons to root has definitely got smaller.
Personally, I've not rooted any of my devices since the Note 3, and I've had many since then.
I know some people like to root as soon as a device leaves the box, but my advice these days is to use a device stock for a period before making any decisions on rooting.
Regards,
Dave
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

Need help updating a device that has been physically modified (fixed a broken screen)

Hey guys, I haven't been on XDA for years but I'm really in the need of some help... I wounder if you guys have some solutions!
I used to have a Sony SP, the thing broke and I decided to look for a replacement. Buying a new phone wasn't in my budget so I went and looked for a Samsung S4 that had a broken screen, bought the replacement OLED (I think it's an oled display), and took it to a technician to repair it. It was a good buy but little did I know that fixing the hardware on the device will disable my ability to update it! I've wanted to stay stock and not flashing any ROMs on it because I just want a phone that works. I don't want the hassle of having to worry about the latest firmware, and flashing new kernels, I just want a laid back experience. My phone was already rooted when I got it, in fact I had the SuperSU app already installed (which I thought was pretty weird but I didn't think much of it), everything else is stock. Is there any options so that I can update my device that don't require any flashing on my PC?
I have another phone with the same issue, my mothers Samsung S3. Full story, I live in Venezuela and smartphones here are extremely expensive, so obviously if something happens to them you much rather repair it then buying a new one because it's unthinkable to afford one, besides a Samsung S3 is still a good device. So one day the phones screen starts fading black, and it stops accepting touch input, we had to replace the digitizer (Touch Screen), and it functioned like normal! Problem is we needed to restore the device because it was getting a bit bogged down, low and behold, same issue as my Samsung S4. Now I can live without having my firmware updates, but I'd really like to at least help my mom get hers sorted out!
I want to thank everyone who took the time to read this, and that can help me fix my devices!

The reason you can't update your S4 is because you're rooted.
As for the S3, maybe there aren't any updates available.
Samsung stopped updating the S4 like two years ago at Android 5.0 and I don't think the S3 ever got Lollipop.
I'm also pretty sure that replacing a screen won't magically prevent your phone from receiving updates; The restore may have caused that.

Oneplus 5 rooting/roms and warranty

Got myself a Oneplus 5 a little while back, so far i have been quite impressed with the phone, only real downside i have found so far is the latency, i am in no way a fast typer, yet it still lacks behind when i type a message. Thats kinda besides the point tho, i really wanted to know what Oneplus standpoint is when it comes to rooting etc, would love to try out some roms. My last phone was a Galaxy S6 and basically if you even googled the word root Samsung would void your warranty.

Hemanse said:
Got myself a Oneplus 5 a little while back, so far i have been quite impressed with the phone, only real downside i have found so far is the latency, i am in no way a fast typer, yet it still lacks behind when i type a message. Thats kinda besides the point tho, i really wanted to know what Oneplus standpoint is when it comes to rooting etc, would love to try out some roms. My last phone was a Galaxy S6 and basically if you even googled the word root Samsung would void your warranty.
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As long as the rooting doesn't cause hardware damage as a result (e.g overclocking/undervolting too much) then they actually support it with warranty. Even if you soft brick your phone (e.g you install the wrong firmware to it) they will still cover warranty and/or help you recover it. Nothing to worry about with oneplus

manor7777 said:
As long as the rooting doesn't cause hardware damage as a result (e.g overclocking/undervolting too much) then they actually support it with warranty. Even if you soft brick your phone (e.g you install the wrong firmware to it) they will still cover warranty and/or help you recover it. Nothing to worry about with oneplus
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Oh, cool. Been holding back even rooting the phone, but guess ill give it a go.