Hi all,
I found that Kitkat 4.4.4 for me was absolutely perfect with no issues, so I'm considering going back to it. I'm just concerned about the security updates for it and if they're still a risk or if updates and patches through the play store resolves those issues? Could anyone give advise regarding this or if there's a way I can stick with 4.4.4 without the security issues?
Thanks
if you arent an advanced user and are concerned about security, just use the phone on 4.4.4 but dont root it . As long as the phone does not have access to the system partition, you should be just fine.
Note : I been using 4.4.4 and rooted . To be safe, i dont use any banking or other financial related apps. I use my nexus 7 2013 for all those sensitive things.
i would also like to know what can be done to stay safe on the 4.4.4 rom . dont wanna upgrade to lollipop and marshmallow is not available for xt1064 yet(dont wanna use the unofficial way since mms and gps does not work)
Related
So I've recently unlocked the bootloader thanks to SunShine. I previously froze the Moto updater app in Titanium so as not to continually receive prompts to upgrade. Since I'm not unlocked, rooted and have TWRP running.. Would it be worth my time to upgrade to 4.4.4?
1. What are the benefits or drawbacks of upgrading or is it so minor I'm barely going to notice a difference?
2. I don't want to screw anything up. I want my Xposed apps and everything I have now running great.
3. If I do upgrade is it difficult to re-root (assuming I will indeed lose root) or is it as simple as reinstalling SuperSU?
4. Is "okay Google Now" any faster? I'd use it more if it wasn't so incredibly slow.
5. I assume there will be no data wipe if I upgrade, correct?
6. Is it even worth it to upgrade? Better cell service? Faster or slower os?
Side Question: Can anybody recommend good WiFi Hotspot app now that I'm unlocked and rooted?
Sent from my Moto X
You can upgrade and flash custom recovery and root on any Android version now.
Will 4.4.4 change much? No. But there's no reason not to. You may need it for future X feature updates perhaps. Not sure.
Supposedly 4.4.4 lowered Android O/S battery usage, though my wifes 4.4.2 is fine... So again, up to you.
I don't see how updating will hurt anyway. But... Once you do, there's no going back.
Also on 4.4.2 AT&T unlocked through Chinese, have been planning to update to 4.4.4 now that it's rolled out to AT&T, mostly to see if the supposed camera improvements are better, and though I don't use the video recorder, I like that they added the pause (I was surprised when I couldn't find it)
I believe I just need to uninstall xposed, unfreeze any system apps, flash stock recovery, take the update, and reinstall TWRP
looking around i can not find anywhere that exactly states what versions of android and on what devices towelroot supports. My question specifically being for the S5 SM-G900A att phone. I am right now on lollipop and i realise i have to downgrade, but I only want to downgrade as little as possible to get towelroot to work. (the end goal being root access of course)
On another note I have two other questions i will ask here so as to not clutter the forum.
1. is there anyway to downgrade my android version without wiping all my data?
if not, any advice on backing up all my data before it gets wiped? mainly my photos, apps, and appdata.
2. I see the only custom recovery i can use is safestrap, i have read is some places that it can not backup your user data (videos, photos, etc.) and nowhere mention it does. question being if this is true and if so how can i back up all my data? i really like the idea of just doing weekly rom backups and being able to restore all my apps and all my data with very little lost (less then a week is good enough for me).
brazblue said:
looking around i can not find anywhere that exactly states what versions of android and on what devices towelroot supports. My question specifically being for the S5 SM-G900A att phone. I am right now on lollipop and i realise i have to downgrade, but I only want to downgrade as little as possible to get towelroot to work. (the end goal being root access of course)
On another note I have two other questions i will ask here so as to not clutter the forum.
1. is there anyway to downgrade my android version without wiping all my data?
if not, any advice on backing up all my data before it gets wiped? mainly my photos, apps, and appdata.
2. I see the only custom recovery i can use is safestrap, i have read is some places that it can not backup your user data (videos, photos, etc.) and nowhere mention it does. question being if this is true and if so how can i back up all my data? i really like the idea of just doing weekly rom backups and being able to restore all my apps and all my data with very little lost (less then a week is good enough for me).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you took the OTA update to 5.0 their is currently no way to safely downgrade and root.
Towel root only worked on 4.4.2 kernel.
Safestrap no longer works in 5.0 either.
Just have to hang tight till someone figures out root for stock 5.0.
Thank you for the help, i did not realize it was for 4.4.2 only. (why no list of working versions) as well you say no safe way to downgrade.....are there options or is it impossible? I just got the phone recently and I wasn't the one to update it, I got it second hand and well i can't control what has happened to it before me. sadly it was updated to 5.0
I may attempt a unsafe downgrade if possible, it really depends on what risk levels and if it's risk of doing something wrong and bricking or if there is a risk out of your hands and it may or may not work. else i will just wait and not update my phone in the time being.
nutt_case said:
If you took the OTA update to 5.0 their is currently no way to safely downgrade and root.
Towel root only worked on 4.4.2 kernel.
Safestrap no longer works in 5.0 either.
Just have to hang tight till someone figures out root for stock 5.0.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
brazblue said:
Thank you for the help, i did not realize it was for 4.4.2 only. (why no list of working versions) as well you say no safe way to downgrade.....are there options or is it impossible? I just got the phone recently and I wasn't the one to update it, I got it second hand and well i can't control what has happened to it before me. sadly it was updated to 5.0
I may attempt a unsafe downgrade if possible, it really depends on what risk levels and if it's risk of doing something wrong and bricking or if there is a risk out of your hands and it may or may not work. else i will just wait and not update my phone in the time being.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=3077652
The above post is the unbrick/downgrade thread for the g900a.
You'll notice it says not to attempt if you've taken the OC4 ota...I'd read through their first. At this point it looks pretty risky.
Good luck either way you go!
First of all, hi everyone owo/
Well, as the title says, my dad bought two unlocked S5's from Amazon and both of them come from AT&T and we use them here with Personal which is an Argentinian network carrier
Everything works fine, 4G works great, but one of the issues is this one
Since it passed 3 years when KitKat got the latest update (4.4.4, on the phone is 4.4.2 .-.) some apps do not want to upgrade at the Play Store since sometimes on Android when is not upgraded, some apps lose compatibility with the device (On this I doubt, I'm not 100% sure) and I want to ask to you guys if you can help me with steps to at least upgrade my mom's phone and mine (since my dad is getting a new one and gives me his S5) to Lollipop without rooting the device, because here on XDA I saw a post on how to do it but it requires root and I'm not going to do it just to be safe, so I was curious to see if there's a possibility of upgrading the system through Odin, which I do have a little bit of experience (I did have it with an older Sammy phone, not the newest ones) without losing the carrier unlock thing
If you guys can remember there was a code to let you know if the network was unlocked or not but sadly it does not work anymore so I don't have any idea if it is permanent or not other than switching the cards, so my question is, I will lose the unlock if I update the system through Odin??
Also I don't have a AT&T specific SIM card to do the upgrade (Which for me is BS having only the AT&T card to do system updates) and I saw some posts on XDA on how to update it but only I saw the root method to update fom KK to Lolli and I don't want to root it, I want to do it just normally through Odin saving me some time
I'm not against root, is fine but I always prefer a much safer way instead of tinkering with some important system stuff and also I'm new into this forum (And I visited XDA since 2012)
Have a good day
Rodoko (my username is old, so I use this one written here, my account was made in 2013 so... I am unable to modify it u.u )
Meipuru Kuurisu said:
First of all, hi everyone owo/
Well, as the title says, my dad bought two unlocked S5's from Amazon and both of them come from AT&T and we use them here with Personal which is an Argentinian network carrier
Everything works fine, 4G works great, but one of the issues is this one
Since it passed 3 years when KitKat got the latest update (4.4.4, on the phone is 4.4.2 .-.) some apps do not want to upgrade at the Play Store since sometimes on Android when is not upgraded, some apps lose compatibility with the device (On this I doubt, I'm not 100% sure) and I want to ask to you guys if you can help me with steps to at least upgrade my mom's phone and mine (since my dad is getting a new one and gives me his S5) to Lollipop without rooting the device, because here on XDA I saw a post on how to do it but it requires root and I'm not going to do it just to be safe, so I was curious to see if there's a possibility of upgrading the system through Odin, which I do have a little bit of experience (I did have it with an older Sammy phone, not the newest ones) without losing the carrier unlock thing
If you guys can remember there was a code to let you know if the network was unlocked or not but sadly it does not work anymore so I don't have any idea if it is permanent or not other than switching the cards, so my question is, I will lose the unlock if I update the system through Odin??
Also I don't have a AT&T specific SIM card to do the upgrade (Which for me is BS having only the AT&T card to do system updates) and I saw some posts on XDA on how to update it but only I saw the root method to update fom KK to Lolli and I don't want to root it, I want to do it just normally through Odin saving me some time
I'm not against root, is fine but I always prefer a much safer way instead of tinkering with some important system stuff and also I'm new into this forum (And I visited XDA since 2012)
Have a good day
Rodoko (my username is old, so I use this one written here, my account was made in 2013 so... I am unable to modify it u.u )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is highly suggested that you root with towelroot and upgrade with flashfire. You can't root on Lollipop and you can't downgrade back to KK. May as well root now just in case you ever need it. Root doesn't modify system files on its own, the end-user does that.
I bought this device (TA - 1012) a couple months ago, and knowing that it won't get the android 10 update (based on HMD's update schedule), i'd like to root it. I don´t need help about how to do it, i've rooted and flashed custom ROMs from 2013, but, do the security updates really matter? 'cause my last phone (Moto X 2014) still had rooted Android 6.0, and it was still working perfectly.
If you are a careful user, then security updates are not that necessary.
By that I mean not logging in with sensitive data on public wi-fi, not visiting suspicious websites, not clicking suspicious links and not installing apps from unreliable sources. Also, checking app permissions.
Exploits can be everywhere, that's why those fixes are released, but being careful is, usually, a good enough security.
Hey there guys,
I just received my s21 ultra (G998B) and planning to root it. I had a few questions since I’m new to this and wanted some clarifications:
1) If I root the phone can I update it OTA through the settings or do I have to update it by another method? Will I lose root/data/apps if I do that?
2) If I lose root when updating it, can I just root again and be all set? Or do I have to follow another procedure for that?
3) I am planning to debloat a few apps and services that I won’t be using, if I update the system/software will the stuff that I debloated come back and will I have to do the debloat again?
Thank you for all the help.
paul_cherma said:
Hey there guys,
I just received my s21 ultra (G998B) and planning to root it. I had a few questions since I’m new to this and wanted some clarifications:
1) If I root the phone can I update it OTA through the settings or do I have to update it by another method? Will I lose root/data/apps if I do that?
2) If I lose root when updating it, can I just root again and be all set? Or do I have to follow another procedure for that?
3) I am planning to debloat a few apps and services that I won’t be using, if I update the system/software will the stuff that I debloated come back and will I have to do the debloat again?
Thank you for all the help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1- Probably not usually the root or recovery will block OTA updates from installing, even if they download.
2- If you lose root, you can USUALLY re-root assuming the same root method wasnt patched. If it was patched, a new root method (though probably still through magisk) will be needed. If this is the case, its up to the dev to find that method, you might be without root for a while.
3-if you debloat, and receive an OTA, your will probably need to de-bloat again, thought I havent personally had experience with this.
Why are you rooting? Just to de-bloat? If so, root isn't really necessary...
As someone who's been in the rooting stage for many years, i can answer your questions.
1. You can not update your phone through OTA updates after rooting the device, as the device was modified in an unauthorized way. And since you own a galaxy phone, the e-fuse within the motherboard will blow and knox will be permanently blown. You can no longer use samsung pay, google pay, and any other app that uses the safetynet api, even after you unroot the device.
2. You will lose root every time you update. You will need ODIN on your PC in order to properly update your firmware and to re-root your device by following the procedure again that you used to root your device, unless samsung patched the method you used to root your device. You can always check what bootloader version you're on within the firmware. For example, on the galaxy S8, the firmware version is N950U1UES5CRG9. The 5th to last number of the firmware will tell you. In this case, N950U1UES5CRG9 is the 5th bootloader version. Keep this in mind once samsung starts to update your phone often.
3. You will have to debloat again from scratch. In order to fully update your device through ODIN, you need to download the full firmware file containing an AP (Firmware), BL (Bootloader) , CP (Modem), and CSC (Carrier File) and manually flash them.
Do keep in mind, it is possible to soft brick or even hard brick your device, so back up your data frequently if you decide to tinker with your device.
Thank you for the detailed answer. I just updated my software to the latest official one by Samsung (April 1st security patch) but I am not rooted yet. I guess I could live with the fact that I can root the phone now and stay on this software version/security patch until I upgrade, since I would have to go through a lot of hassle to set-up the phone the way I wanted. But the main reason why I want to get the official updates is because of the camera improvements that Samsung does, since the main reason of me getting this phone is the camera. And there are some root-required tweaks that I absolutely need such as Viper, and some xposed tweaks also. I like the Stock ROM of Samsung, it really has come a long way at least imo throughout the years, as I have been a Samsung user since day 1 but:
Would it be a good idea to install a custom ROM then? I am reading the description of a few custom ROMs and it seems like I can “retain everything” by simply dirty flashing the ROM and following the dev’s instructions on how to retain root whenever the developer updates it. Is that a better route to take you think? I can keep my device rooted, and still get the updates through a custom ROM.
paul_cherma said:
Thank you for the detailed answer. I just updated my software to the latest official one by Samsung (April 1st security patch) but I am not rooted yet. I guess I could live with the fact that I can root the phone now and stay on this software version/security patch until I upgrade, since I would have to go through a lot of hassle to set-up the phone the way I wanted. But the main reason why I want to get the official updates is because of the camera improvements that Samsung does, since the main reason of me getting this phone is the camera. And there are some root-required tweaks that I absolutely need such as Viper, and some xposed tweaks also. I like the Stock ROM of Samsung, it really has come a long way at least imo throughout the years, as I have been a Samsung user since day 1 but:
Would it be a good idea to install a custom ROM then? I am reading the description of a few custom ROMs and it seems like I can “retain everything” by simply dirty flashing the ROM and following the dev’s instructions on how to retain root whenever the developer updates it. Is that a better route to take you think? I can keep my device rooted, and still get the updates through a custom ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That really varies depending on the custom rom you go for. Usually when you dirty flash a rom, you would need to re root your device, but some (not all) roms are persistent with root after system updates. Do keep in mind if you switch to a custom rom, your system might be more buggy and crash more often. One thing i will say though is that xposed is outdated. The last android version xposed officially supported was either 8 or 9. When it has to come down to certain mods you'd wish to have with root, take that into consideration too, as it might make your device really unstable if it's too outdated or if there's a buggy port available. I've dealt with that issue too many times on my phones.
HighOnLinux said:
That really varies depending on the custom rom you go for. Usually when you dirty flash a rom, you would need to re root your device, but some (not all) roms are persistent with root after system updates. Do keep in mind if you switch to a custom rom, your system might be more buggy and crash more often. One thing i will say though is that xposed is outdated. The last android version xposed officially supported was either 8 or 9. When it has to come down to certain mods you'd wish to have with root, take that into consideration too, as it might make your device really unstable if it's too outdated or if there's a buggy port available. I've dealt with that issue too many times on my phones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if xposed is outdated, what is the new thing the comunity is migrating to? All the privacy, security, and customizability tools available through xposed must go somewhere, right?
Twodordan said:
if xposed is outdated, what is the new thing the comunity is migrating to? All the privacy, security, and customizability tools available through xposed must go somewhere, right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's buggy ports thats flashable on magisk. While you still can get xposed, it'll be an unofficial version, and more likely to run into issues within your rom and daily use into your device.
HighOnLinux said:
There's buggy ports thats flashable on magisk. While you still can get xposed, it'll be an unofficial version, and more likely to run into issues within your rom and daily use into your device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I mean xprivacy on xposed was the must have killer feature for any android device to turn your device into anything other than a privacy nightmare. If we can't do that any more we are f'd.
[EDIT] Looks like the new version of xprivacy, xprivacyLua is still supported for android 11, with magisk and EdXposed or LSPosed:
[CLOSED][APP][XPOSED][6.0+] XPrivacyLua - Android privacy manager [UNSUPPORTED]
XPrivacyLua Really simple to use privacy manager for Android 6.0 Marshmallow and later (successor of XPrivacy). Revoking Android permissions from apps often let apps crash or malfunction. XPrivacyLua solves this by feeding apps fake data...
forum.xda-developers.com
XPrivacyLua/README.md at master · M66B/XPrivacyLua
Really simple to use privacy manager for Android 6.0 Marshmallow and later - XPrivacyLua/README.md at master · M66B/XPrivacyLua
github.com