This is shitty, but genuinely I have no idea why people root or run custom ROMs these days. I haven’t found an actual use for it since about 2015
Edit: plenty have people have given me fair enough reasons now, thanks
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Less bloat ware/spy ware - custom ROMs don’t come prepackaged with random shady games from shady companies or random shady social media apps from shady social media companies.
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Better privacy and security implementations along with DeGoogling - a lot of ROMs offer Gappless ROMs which is really important since Google is way to big and has too much influence on android OEMs and its easily the biggest ad company in the world and constantly refused to respect peoples privacy. e.g GrapheneOS https://grapheneos.org/features and DivestOS https://divestos.org/
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Long term software support to help against e-waste e.g LineageOS supports so many phones who’s manufacturers have stopped supplying software updates. https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
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Customization e.g Crdroid includes loads of custom settings from a variety of other custom ROMs and OEM ROMs that rarely get implemented by any stock ROMs. https://crdroid.net/
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Rooting android phones gives users the ability to access system files that they may not have been able to backup if the apps don’t support it. It also allows for a full system backup and restore
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It also allows users to block ads and unwated connections without using a local VPN e.g adaway
Enabling Google to dictate what a user can do with their own device by limiting features is a slippery slope and the last thing we want to happen is for Android to end up like iOS with its walled garden approach.
The walled garden is something that grows fast everywhere. Users should have the rights over their devices. Maybe its time to get the EU on this train, their last approaches like the GDPR or the DSA are from near the same spirit.
Yes, OS supported root should be mandatory, it shouldn’t have to be some sort of hack.
Its unlikely that they’d get involved, RCS might be default on Googles messenger app but people still mainly use alternatives like WhatsApp so there’s not a big enough user base that would be affected and since Google is pushing RCS as interoperal, DSA won’t apply.
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