Pros and cons of jailbreaking or rooting phones

Users of smartphones running Android and Apple’s iOS sometimes are unable to agree on whether it is better to “root” or “jailbreak” their phones or not.

In mobile technology lingo, both jailbreaking and rooting are methods to give you unrestricted access to your mobile device’s entire file system.

The difference between jailbreaking and rooting is that jailbreaks refer to Apple iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch), while rooting refers to Android devices. These are basically the same thing but different terms for the mobile operating systems.

By rooting or jailbreaking your mobile device, you have greater control over it. For example, you can install apps blocked in the App Store or Google Play, such as tethering apps to turn your phone into a modem for your computer.

Some people also confuse jailbreaking and rooting with unlocking phones.

Many phones, particularly those that come subsidised with a contract, come “locked” to a specific service provider. The phone is set up so that it can only be used on that service provider’s network.

Unlocking a phone allows you to use it with a different SIM card — either to use a different network or to take your current phone with you while switching to a new service provider.

If you insert a SIM card from a competing mobile service provider into the phone, you will see a message indicating that the phone is locked and cannot be used with the SIM card.

Many phones that are locked to certain services in US and Europe sometimes find their way into Africa, are unlocked and used locally. You will generally need an unlock code to unlock the phone.

Many mobile phone service providers will unlock phones once your contract is up, while phones bought outright without a contract may not be locked to a service provider at all.

There are ways to unlock phones without a carrier’s permission, too. Of course unauthorised unlocking of phones is illegal in many countries, including Kenya.

There are certain reasons why people want to jailbreak or root a phone. These include upgrading phone’s mobile operating system version before it’s available through an over-the-air-update, loading a custom ROM (Read Only Memory) on phone, and completely changing the overall look of the device with custom themes.

Rooted and jailbroken devices also often have better performance and battery life.

Jail breaking and rooting has some weaknesses too. First, these technically void your warranty, so if something goes wrong with your phone after you jailbreak or root it, the manufacturer won’t honour the warranty to fix it.

Another issue is that during the rooting or jailbreaking process, your device can be more vulnerable to malicious apps and you can possibly harm your device.

Applications for rooted or jailbroken smartphones are typically created by small amateur groups, so they are very likely to contain sloppy code with its own vulnerabilities. That vulnerability could be exploited by a seemingly-legitimate app, handing over administrative rights of the phone.

A number of changes introduced into the phone’s configuration during rooting/jailbreaking may be a gift for a hacker as jailbreaking makes most iPhone models remotely controllable, since the same password is valid for all devices. Naturally, the password can be changed, but very few users do so.

The solutions to these issues is to be careful about what you install on your phone and only use rooting and jailbreaking methods that have been thoroughly tested for your device and operating system.

Sam Wambugu is a monitoring and evaluation specialist. Email: [email protected]