Why would anyone want to root their Android device?
Get full control of your phone, be able to alter system files, run more specialized and detailed apps, make better backups (see Titanium Backup ), have better power/battery control, open up "super user" capabilities of many apps.
There are a lot of reasons why rooting your Android phone is useful, but you're probably here because you've already decided to do it.
There are now utilities that root your phone in one click. Chainfire's one-click rooting utility worked for me without any problems.
5 Easy Steps to Rooting Your Android Phone
1. Go to the Chainfire website.
2. Search for the model of your phone. In my case, I searched for "nexus 5" and easily found it.
3. Click on the download link which brings you to a page with some details about the file and a link to the zip file.
4. Make sure your phone is in developer mode and USB debugging is turned on. You can tell if you have dev mode on by opening up your phone settings and scrolling down to the bottom where the "About Phone" option is. If your developer options are on, it will say "Developer Options" just above "About Phone." Go into dev options and look for "USB debugging" and turn it on.
How to turn developer mode on in Android:
Go to the settings menu, and scroll down to "About phone" and tap it. Scroll down to "Build Number" at the bottom. Tap "Build Number" seven (7) times. You'll see some messages about becoming a developer to work through. 5. Next, unzip the file you downloaded and run the batch/sh file for your operating system. I'm on Windows, so I ran the root-windows.bat file.
At that point I followed the on-screen instructions which resulted in my phone being rooted.
Read the Warning Screen Carefully!
This can wipe your data. If you don't know what's going on behind the scenes, back everything up first.
Enjoy your rooted phone!
Note: you are solely responsible for anything that happens to your phone. I had good results with Chainfire but there is no guarantee anyone else will. Always back up your phone before doing ANYTHING like this!
