Top 10 reasons to root your Droid

| Thursday, March 11, 2010
A friend from the Droidforums has posted his top ten reasons for rooting your Droid, and so he let me steal his work to make my blogging day a little easier (long day today editing icons, I apologize for the lack of news :( ):

Hey everyone! Just wanted to let you all know that I've been working really hard on my Droid to get it just where I want it. I'm going to be shooting a video very soon on the top 10 reasons why you should root your Droid. It's going to have a lot of great stuff, so keep checking back!



Disclaimer: If you Root your Droid it will void your warranty with Motorola. I, nor the Calebnance team are held responsible for you wanting to make your Droid awesome by Rooting it, only to have it bricked. Enjoy!



Update:

I've had time to compose my thoughts, and figure out exactly what I want to say. I do plan on doing a video soon, but I figured I would give you a taste of what's coming soon. Here are my top 10 reasons to root your Droid, based on my personal experience.
10. Cachemate

This is a great app for clearing up that unwanted cache on your phone. Having the ability to clear your cache can help some apps or even your phone run faster and smoother. The newest version will allow you to clear you market seach history. This was the best thing for me. I just have a pet peeve when I can see everything that I have searched for, that I will never need again.
9. Terminal Emulator

With this app you can push, move, or do basically anything from a command prompt form. As long as you know what you are doing, you can really see how this app comes in handy. (You can use this app without root, but it's basically like having the keys to a Porsche that you don't have)
8. AdFree

Seeing ads while you are browsing is never fun, especially when you are on your beloved Droid. With the AdFree app you no longer have to worry about that. Not only does it take away all those pesky adds, but it does help to load your pages faster, which is always a plus in my book.
7. Boot Animation/Gscript

I love having the ability to have a phone that is fully mine from start to finish, literally. Now, you can change your boot animation without root, but believe me is a PAIN to do. Having root, along with Gscript or a file explorer, will cut off some of the work load you have to do. With Gscript you can simply type in the correct command, and then just launch it.
6. Root Explorer

This is another app for rooted phones only. This app will allow you fully explore your phone without the use of a computer. You can do anything from backing up your apps, to changing fille names for certain hacks or mods. This great app will allow you to keep modding your phone even on the go.
5. Wireless Tether

Every been out with your computer, but didn't have a WiFi around to check us out? This free app will solve that problem in a second. You can use your phone as a mobile hotspot to get online on the go. It may not be the fastest connection, but when you are in a pinch I don't think it really matters. Now before you get worried that someone else might mistake your wireless broadcast as an open network, don't! This app allows you to make a secure connection, setting up your own password, so you get the best speeds possible.

Time for the top 4 reasons to root your Droid everyone!
4. Metamorph

When the guys over at Google were designing the look of the UI for the Droid I know they were all thinking of us, and how we wanted it to look right? Wrong! Don't get me wrong, I think it looks great as it is, but I always like to have things look they way I want them too. Metamorph allows you to do this completly. It can be anything from changing the notification panel, to making your browser icon look like Firefox. Metamorph is very simple to use as well, just download the theme you want to use, move to your SD Card, and select it within the app.
3. Overclock

We all know the Droid is snappy out of the box, but then again we all like to speed things up just a bit. With root access you can do that. The Droid is 550 Mhz stock, but with the ability to overclock it can easily go up to 1.2 Ghz! Speeding up your phone may cause some heat issues, but when you are flying through apps, who cares right?
2. Nandroid (sprecovery/clockwork)

Ever made a mistake on your computer only to be breathing a sigh of relief when you find out you had a system restore point created not too long ago? Sprecovery gives you that same sigh of relief with your Droid with the ability to create nandroid backups. You can use these to restore after a new hack didn't go quite as planned. I've been stuck in a boot loop before, but thanks to sprecovery I was out of it in no time. It will also allow you to apply updates to roms, kernels (for overclocking), and simple patches.

Now time for the number 1 reason to root your Droid... Drum roll please.... I said Drum Roll PLEASE.... Screw it... here we go
1. ROM Use

Roms will basically take everything I have stated above and roll it into one big goodie bag. ROMs can combine a number of things such as: pinch to zoom browsers/gallerys, themes, overclocking, ported apps, and many more. ROMs change the way your whole phone operates, and it's always for the better! I know we all were bummed when 2.1 didn't come in January like we had all hoped, but thanks to some devs like Chevy and Pete, we now have a very official (and stable) build. Roms will even give you those live wallpapers, and 5 screens you have seen around, but could never quite figure out how to do. Right now I am running Bugless Beast V0.6 ESE53 Build, this is the most official, stable build I have used, but there are a few others out that may work for you better. The ability to use a ROM was the main reason I rooted. I no longer had to do all the work to get the live wallpapers, or figuring out how to overclock my Droid, and I think you would all agree when you think about it.

Well, there is my list, and I'm sticking to it. Follow me on twitter here and tell me what made you root your Droid.


The original article link can be found here.

I just wanted to to add my .02 to it though (why else post about it, huh?)...the ability to EASILY take screenshots. A simple program called Drocap2 from the Market allows you to easily take screenshots of just about anything, but you have to be rooted to do so. Also, the ability to use Root Explorer to do things like move Bootanimations and whatnot instead of using ADB to push them to your phone saves countless minutes of my day that I would rather be surfing porn or something else.

If you want more information on rooting your Droid, hacking, installing icons, you name it...check out this article I wrote awhile back: click here

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

thanks for the run down!

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