While jailbreaking iOS is the only way to install apps that aren’t available from the official App Store, Google Android is a bit more open. Most phones and tablets running Android let you install apps from “unknown sources” simply by checking a box. But if you want to access settings and files that are normally hidden from users, you’ll need to root your device.
Unfortunately, while a variety of tools have been developed over the last few years that make rooting easy, they tend to become outdated rather quickly. That’s because rooting tools usually rely on exploiting a security hole in the operating system — and once Google is made aware of that hole, there’s a good chance the company is going to try to patch it.
That means, among other things, that if you update your device to run the latest version of Android, you’ll lose root access and you won’t be able to use the same tool to re-root your device.
The good news is that independent developers keep coming up with new methods for rooting — and while some can be rather complex, every now and again someone comes along and packages the tools into an incredibly easy to use package.
And that’s what DooMLoRd’s Easy Rooting Toolkit is.
Here’s how simple it is to root a device with this new utility.
- Download and unzip the toolkit from the xda-developers forum.
- Connect your phone or tablet to a Windows PC PC with a USB cable.
- Double-click the “runme.bat” file that you unzipped.
That’s it. A box will show up on your screen and give you some instructions, some text will fly, and at the end hopefully your device will be rooted, Busybox will be installed, and so will SU.
There is a little more to it. First, this tool only works on a Windows PC. Second, you’ll need to make sure you have adb drivers for your device installed on that PC. And third, you’ll need to enable USB debugging from the Applications\Development settings on your device and “unknown sources| from the Applications settings.
There’s no guaranty that DooMLoRD’s Easy Rooting ToolKit will work on all Android devices, but it’s been confirmed to work on a number of Sony Xperia, Samsung Galaxy, and Motorola devices as well as the Google Nexus One smartphone. I also just tried it out on the Velocity Micro Cruz T408 tablet with Google Android 2.3 Gingerbread and it worked flawlessly.
The toolkit relies on the zergRush exploit — so once Google gets around to patching that exploit you may have to find yet another tool to root your device.
DooMLoRD has also made a tool for unrooting a device — but it only works if you used his toolkit to root in the first place.
via xda-developers
