What is rooting of an Android phone?

Rooting of a device means getting the root access. It means that you get the developer mode activated for the device. After rooting a device you get the access to make changes in the codes. Moreover, you can add additional features if you want which the manufacturer didn't add in it. Rooting term is generally used in Android devices while we have the similar analogy for Apple devices know as Jailbreaking. Since Android is based on Unix operating system and on it root has the highest level of privileges, so giving your device the same level of privileges in termed as "rooting".

Some of the features of the rooted device is:

Titanium Backup: Using this feature you can permanently delete or hide any app which you are using in your device. For an instance, if you try to delete gmail app from your device in android, your device won't allow you to do it if it is not rooted. The manufacturer will impose restrictions to do it.

Important Note: If you are not very sure about this, please don't root because chances are you may accidentally delete or do something which may be irreplaceable. So take utmost care before rooting. It will void your device's warranty as well, so never root a new device.

Rooting is basically to unlock the device and get control of everything. This gives us privilege to do those things which are forbidden for a common user in normal mode.

Some of the actions which can be done in root user mode are to install unapproved apps, delete unwanted bloatware, update the OS, replace the firmware, select the optional processor speed and customize other such things. In fact, you become a developer in root mode.

Rooting is to be done with care because there is always a danger of committing a mistake and then there is no 'undo' there.

There are some apps available for rooting but their compatibility with the devices is to be seen. These apps are not available in Google Play Store so their reliability and authenticity is also a question. One such app is KingoRoot.

It is advisable to use such apps by installing their Window version in laptop and then use with Android phone in USB debugging mode.

Android Rooting is known to be the process that allows the users of smartphones, tablets and other digital devices run the Android mobile operating system to gain control over multiple Android subsystems.

For this Android makes use of the Linux kernel that roots an Android device to give it similar access to the administrative permissions like FreeBSD or mac OS.

Rooting is done with the purpose of overcoming all the limitations that are applied by the manufacturers of carriers and hardware devices. Hence, rooting provides the ability to the concerned devices the permission to alter or replace the existing system applications and even some primary settings,of the running applications ("apps") that require special administrator-level permissions.

Unlike the iOS jail breaking, Android rooting does not require to run applications that are distributed outside of the Google Play Store that we know as side loading. The Android OS is made to support this feature in two ways: one is through the "Unknown sources" option that is found in the Settings and the other is through the Android Debug Bridge.

In short, Android Rooting lets the user edit and make changes to the system files, in order to make them perform several tweaks and consequently use the related apps through root access.