Pros and cons of jailbreaking or rooting your smartphone








Is it legal?



Why the handset makers and carriers hate it

Don't call up your cellular carrier and ask for help jailbreaking or rooting your phone -- the carriers and the phone makers hate the entire idea. That's because it takes control away from them and gives it to the phone's owner.




The benefits of jailbreaking and rooting


  • Some custom ROMs add support for proxy and VPN.

How many smartphone owners are jailbreaking and rooting?

According to Jay Freeman, the founder of Cydia -- software that aggregates repositories of "unofficial" apps for jailbroken iPhones in a sort of alternative App Store -- about 10 percent of iPhones are jailbroken.




The drawbacks of jailbreaking and rooting






How to jailbreak or root your phone










The article says that jailbreaking is the first step to unlocking a smartphone. I would like to unlock an Iphone. Do I have to jailbreak it first? I did not think so.


if an app is running with root privs, it can completely destroy the system if it's exploited. No app should be running as root by default. they should all be written to not require such privs.


In Australia "Rooting" = having sex! Why would anyone want to have sex with a phone?


It has been my burden to support smartphones as IT administrator and so far it is the lazyness and cumbersome carriers which is the reason I have had to use a Custom ROM, or root all of our phones. Windows Mobile: Phone was released with 5.1 and had security issues resolved with a service pack. Carrirer released a new phone rather than a software update. We had 2 years to wait till that could happen, and the new phone was worse hardware than the old. Within a week the custom rom developers had built a updated rom and we had it running nearly a month later after the carrier account rep verified that a patch would not be released. Nearly every phone revision we have had suffered greatly security wise because the CARRIER failed to update the phones. The third party commuinity has almost always patched security holes faster than the carriers have. If carriers want users to not have to root or run third party roms they must have a development team willing to support the phone for the 2 year contract life with "timely" updates then many users would not feel the need to go off on their own. There are those who are cheap and want new features or never to be availible features now, but those power users will always want it "my way", built themselves.


Thats why I bought a Nokia, with an very stable OS whith its all features completely unlocked. Many times my friends who have a iPhone envy my freedom... I don't understand why pay so much for a gadget with so many restrictions...


Phones are sold in the shops owed by mobile operators. People usually buy the phones for symbolical price (say 1 euro), and sign a contract of staying with the operator for the specified time, usually a year or two. Phone sold that way are programmatically tied to the operator in question, or "locked". If you decide to pay the full price for the phone, however, it's unlocked (or "jailbroken") for you by the salesclerk.


It's just great to be able to break free. And the fact that it is now less and less likely that you can brick your phone, it is very attractive. Who says that only unauthorised apps can spread malware? I personally hate that sense of control that comes with iPhones and the like. Your blog post will play to much hilarity here downunder. (Root me!) Hahaha.


True, Cuz, in NZ we also would say

"Root the Boot" (or the Brick, perhaps).

Lends a whole new, slightly disturbing

meaning to the term "phone-sex".

God bless the geeks and LEGAL hackers,

they strip back all the BS from the latest fare

the device and network giants serve us up.

What was tsk tsk and taboo last decade is now the product norm.

The internet, IT, mobile networks and their devices: the last vestige of democracy accessible to the common people. Cling to it and treasure it while you can, friends.

Jagshemash !!


Why else would they make the new models so sensual? ;^)


Just remember, when you're done, use DIAL SOAP...


... under conditions I've described in my previous post. That's fair enough, though, because it's not entirely yours until it's paid for. Basically, it's like a leased car.


There is a difference between jailbreaking and unlocking an iPhone. Carriers lock phones to thier own networks to protect their return on investment for subsidies phones on contracts. Jaibreaking bypasses the manufacturers security controls, enabling the install of apps not purchased via the Apple AppStore, but at the expense of security (the "walled garden"). In Australia you can buy an "unlocked" phone from Apple to connect to any carrier, but it is certainly not jailbroken. Whether one needs to jailbreak their iPhone to gain acces to the carrier restriction locks is another matter, to that question, I don't know the answer.

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