Rooting of Android

Android rooting is the process of allowing users of smartphones, tablets, and other devices running the Android mobile operating system to attain privileged control (known as "root access") within Android's subsystem.

Rooting is often performed with the goal of overcoming limitations that carriers and hardware manufacturers put on some devices, resulting in the ability to alter or replace system applications and settings, run specialized apps that require administrator-level permissions, or perform other operations that are otherwise inaccessible to a normal Android user. On Android, rooting can also facilitate the complete removal and replacement of the device's operating system, usually with a more recent release of its current operating system.

As Android derives from the Linux kernel, rooting an Android device is similar to accessing administrative permissions on Linux or any other Unix-like operating system such as FreeBSD or OS X.

Rooting lets all user-installed applications run privileged commands typically unavailable to the devices in the stock configuration. Rooting is required for more advanced and potentially dangerous operations including modifying or deleting system files, removing carrier- or manufacturer-installed applications, and low-level access to the hardware itself (rebooting, controlling status lights, or recalibrating touch inputs.) A typical rooting installation also installs the Superuser application, which supervises applications that are granted root or superuser rights.

Root access is sometimes compared to jailbreaking devices running the Apple iOS operating system. However, these are different concepts. In the tightly-controlled iOS world, technical restrictions prevent 

(1) installing or booting into a modified or entirely new operating system (a "locked bootloader" prevents this), 

(2) sideloading unsigned applications onto the device, and

(3) user-installed apps from having root privileges (and are run in a secure sandboxed environment). Bypassing all these restrictions together constitute the expansive term "jailbreaking" of Apple devices. That is, jailbreaking entails overcoming several types of iOS security features simultaneously.

By contrast, only a minority of Android devices lock their bootloaders—and many vendors such as HTC and Google explicitly provide the ability to unlock devices, and even replace the operating system entirely. Similarly, the ability to sideload apps is typically permissible on Android devices without root permissions. Thus, primarily the third aspect of iOS jailbreaking, relating to superuser privileges, correlates to Android rooting.