# Root



## ChrisC (Oct 20, 2012)

To root or not to root. That is the question. Hmmmm.


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## Mojofilter (Oct 21, 2012)

I rooted my S3 last night and installed CM10...

It's insanely faster than Touchwiz & you get Google Now err... Now (although you get that very soon anyway if you wait). 

Only downside is that most mobile banking apps won't work on a rooted device. 

On balance I'd do it again because it really is much, much faster.


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## Mojofilter (Oct 21, 2012)

It's probably worth noting that at this point I don't know how much the speed increase is down to project butter (which will come shortly without rooting), or down to the removal of all the Samsung bloatware which will presumably still be an issue with the official update.

Probably a bit of both.


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## dervish (Oct 22, 2012)

I rooted a while ago and originally stuck cm9 on. It was loads faster, then put cm10 on which is a little bit faster. TBH I didn't notice a massive difference, changing the animation speed actually makes much more of a noticeable difference in the real world. 

Google now is awesome though, I use it loads more than I thought I would. 

I would root tbh, not found anything that I want that won't work with a rooted phone, and as you can (I think) temporally unroot there is no real reason not to.


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## Hocus Eye. (Oct 22, 2012)

Google Now looks impressive in its web advert, although as said in post 2 it will come with the upgrade to Jelly Bean. There is a similar app already on the Galaxy 3, that is S Voice if you don't mind having a chat with your phone.

I have a bit of concern that Google Now might become a bit like Big Brother though. You are constantly giving it information about your location, destinations, and activities. This information gets stored by Google who can then use it to deliver advertising to you, or you to the advertisers.

CM10 is obviously a rom. Can anyone tell me about different roms that are suitable for the Galaxy 3 or perhaps other phones of interest to people here.


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## Mojofilter (Oct 22, 2012)

I got my ROM info from CNET (http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/mobile-phones/top-5-samsung-galaxy-s3-custom-roms-50009440/), although I was always going to go with CM10 because I've got CM9 on my HP Touchpad and I'm very pleased with it.
Looking at that article I can't really see that there's much meaningful difference between them all.

Google Now is infinitely superior to S Voice, although you're probably right with the big brother thing.
Some people might find it a little creepy, for instance I just Google searched a shop in Manchester (on my laptop) and when I checked the notification area on my phone it was telling me that traffic is a little heavy and that I should expect an 11 minute delay if I set off now.
On the other hand, it's useful information.

I I'm ok with that but I can see how other people might not be.


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## Hocus Eye. (Oct 22, 2012)

Thanks Mojo, I like the idea of having all that useful information but at the same time I am a person who won't sign up to Google+ because they want my post code. Similarly there was an app that I was about to buy via my phone account but Google wanted my post code again. I backed off. I want to retain my privacy. It looks to me that CM10 is just Jelly Bean ahead of its time. I think I will wait. I am sure Google will have more sweets to serve up after that.


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## ChrisC (Oct 22, 2012)

I'm probably not going to root. Not for now anyway.


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## Hocus Eye. (Oct 22, 2012)

I have just read the review of Jelly Bean on Cnet. I am now impatiently waiting for it. I can see why some want to root their phones.


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## dervish (Oct 22, 2012)

Hocus Eye. said:


> Google Now looks impressive in its web advert, although as said in post 2 it will come with the upgrade to Jelly Bean. There is a similar app already on the Galaxy 3, that is S Voice if you don't mind having a chat with your phone.


 
Google now is not similar to S voice, S voice is Samsungs answer to siri, and is much, much worse. It seems to deliberately misunderstand what you are asking it just to annoy. Google Now is more like a benevolent stalker. It monitors your online life and combines the info from that to give you the info you need at the right time, (ie, I'm standing at a bus stop it will tell me the relevant bus times or if I put an appointment into my calendar with a location, it will tell me when I need to leave with traffic taken into account.)

I've already happily given my online life to google to look after and as such it works very well, I'm hoping that android 4.2 will come with more refinements as Now has the potential to be a killer product.


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## Hocus Eye. (Oct 22, 2012)

dervish said:


> Google now is not similar to S voice, S voice is Samsungs answer to siri, and is much, much worse. It seems to deliberately misunderstand what you are asking it just to annoy. Google Now is more like a benevolent stalker. It monitors your online life and combines the info from that to give you the info you need at the right time, (ie, I'm standing at a bus stop it will tell me the relevant bus times or if I put an appointment into my calendar with a location, it will tell me when I need to leave with traffic taken into account.)
> 
> I've already happily given my online life to google to look after and as such it works very well, I'm hoping that android 4.2 will come with more refinements as Now has the potential to be a killer product.


That of course assumes you leave your GPS switched on most of the time. That must hit your battery quite hard.


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## dervish (Oct 22, 2012)

Not especially. It's available all the time, but it won't ping to find where I am unless something needs it, ie I open now and the gps sometimes pops up for a couple of seconds to get a fix then goes again. TBH it gets a pretty good fix from the wifi anyway, so often doesn't need to, it only needs to be accurate to tens of meters anyway.


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## Radar (Oct 22, 2012)

Be careful if you're a sky head.. Sky block their sky go app on rooted devices. And I'm not sure they support JB either if you're thinking of upgrading


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## dervish (Oct 22, 2012)

Sky can go fuck themselves, never giving Murdock my money willingly.


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## ChrisC (Oct 22, 2012)

Radar said:


> Be careful if you're a sky head.. Sky block their sky go app on rooted devices. And I'm not sure they support JB either if you're thinking of upgrading



There is an app called hide my root. That addresses this issue.


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## Radar (Oct 25, 2012)

Interesting. Have you tried it yourself recently ?

The reason I ask is that I'm pretty sure I tried that app plus OTA rootkeeper and go wouldn't play with either of them active (even though su from a terminal then failed). This was a couple of months back though


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## Crispy (Oct 25, 2012)

Hocus Eye. said:


> That of course assumes you leave your GPS switched on most of the time. That must hit your battery quite hard.


Most "GPS" is actually cell triangulation from the mobile signal. You can tell, because it's much quicker to get a fix. Genuine GPS takes quite a while to get a location.


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## dervish (Oct 25, 2012)

Unless it has GLONASS as well which can take less than 2 secs to get a firm fix.


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## Fez909 (Oct 25, 2012)

The most compelling reason to root for me is to use AdFree Android, which is equivalent to Firefox's Adblock Plus.  Free and updates itself with the latest ad servers, so you shouldn't see many ads on websites and most apps.  It's really good.


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## butchersapron (Oct 25, 2012)

Radar said:


> Interesting. Have you tried it yourself recently ?
> 
> The reason I ask is that I'm pretty sure I tried that app plus OTA rootkeeper and go wouldn't play with either of them active (even though su from a terminal then failed). This was a couple of months back though


Didn't work for me.


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Oct 25, 2012)

Fez909 said:


> The most compelling reason to root for me is to use AdFree Android, which is equivalent to Firefox's Adblock Plus. Free and updates itself with the latest ad servers, so you shouldn't see many ads on websites and most apps. It's really good.


 
Nice


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## ChrisC (Oct 28, 2012)

Radar said:


> Interesting. Have you tried it yourself recently ?
> 
> The reason I ask is that I'm pretty sure I tried that app plus OTA rootkeeper and go wouldn't play with either of them active (even though su from a terminal then failed). This was a couple of months back though



No I just saw it on my travels through Play Store. Not rooted at the moment.


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