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LineageOS 20

lineageos.org

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Re: LineageOS 20

#81

Post by chenxiaolong »

meltyness wrote: post #5

Has anyone else ceased rooting their phone? It has begun to seem like an unnecessary risk, with the appearance of Android policies necessitating VPN Hotspot make manipulations to nftables, ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=be.mygod.vpnho... ), trusting Magisk, going without Clockwork Mod on many platforms, eschewing security updates. What benefits are you guys reaping from taking root, these days?

I root my phone for a few reasons (in no particular order):

* Reverse engineering, mostly to satisfy my own curiosity, but also to verify that the few third party apps I install don't do scummy things behind my back. I mostly use frida [1] for this and if I want to change the behavior of something permanently, I make a module for LSPosed [2].

* Get rid of Android's awful app links feature [3]. I despise Android >=12's behavior of always opening deep links in "official" apps (eg. Youtube) by default. To open those links in third party apps by default, the user has to go into Android's settings for the app and manually whitelist domains. This module forces Android to treat every domain as "unverified", which restores the old behavior of prompting the user which app to use when opening a link.

* Call recording [4]. (Or playing audio into a phone call to rickroll friends... [5])

* Raw access to app data, mostly for extracting information from apps with no export functionality.

That said, I don't like increasing the attack surface of my devices, so I do a few things to mitigate that a little bit. I wrote some scripts to sign the Android OTA update images, apply the Magisk boot image patches, and sign the images with a custom key [6]. This way, I can keep the benefits of Android's verified boot with a locked bootloader while rooted. I also don't allow any third party apps root access. My (hacky) local fork of Magisk only allows executing `su` if the app is signed by my own key or with a password if executing via `adb`. My LSPosed build only allows modules signed by my own key as well.

[1] https://frida.re/

[2] https://github.com/LSPosed/LSPosed

[3] https://github.com/Henry-ZHR/KillDomainVerification

[4] https://github.com/chenxiaolong/BCR

[5] https://github.com/chenxiaolong/BCP

[6] https://github.com/chenxiaolong/avbroot

Re: LineageOS 20

#82

Post by doodlesdev »

Dwedit wrote: post #70
meltyness wrote: post #5

Has anyone else ceased rooting their phone? It has begun to seem like an unnecessary risk, with the appearance of Android policies necessitating VPN Hotspot make manipulations to nftables, ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=be.mygod.vpnho... ), trusting Magisk, going without Clockwork Mod on many platforms, eschewing security updates. What benefits are you guys reaping from taking root, these days?

I rooted because I needed an app that would physically prevent the battery from charging past a certain point. Had just replaced a puffed-up battery, and wanted to try to prevent problems from overcharging.

As far as I know default android already has that functionality, or maybe it's just Samsung's ROM?

Re: LineageOS 20

#83

Post by thargor90 »

dur-randir wrote: post #77
meltyness wrote: post #5

Has anyone else ceased rooting their phone? It has begun to seem like an unnecessary risk, with the appearance of Android policies necessitating VPN Hotspot make manipulations to nftables, ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=be.mygod.vpnho... ), trusting Magisk, going without Clockwork Mod on many platforms, eschewing security updates. What benefits are you guys reaping from taking root, these days?

- TitaniumBackup - ability to monitor battery consumption - some dpi evasion apps (they sometimes work where no vpn gets through) - packet capture - Macrodroid - view wifi passwords - edit gps.conf, wifi configs, add custom root certs, change default font, etc - ssl cert unpinner - call recording - install Youtube Vanced over original one - allow screenshots from any app - forbid quick tiles access from lock screen (…

Be careful with Titanium backup. It cannot handle several modern Android things properly. (E.g. proper SE Linux file properties)

I learned the hard way after the fact...

Re: LineageOS 20

#84

Post by commoner »

meltyness wrote: post #5

Has anyone else ceased rooting their phone? It has begun to seem like an unnecessary risk, with the appearance of Android policies necessitating VPN Hotspot make manipulations to nftables, ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=be.mygod.vpnho... ), trusting Magisk, going without Clockwork Mod on many platforms, eschewing security updates. What benefits are you guys reaping from taking root, these days?

Adding to the list of things that you can do with root on Android:

- App Manager[1] has a powerful feature that lets you disable trackers in every single app on the device. (Menu > 1-Click Ops > Block/unblock trackers)

- Neo Backup[2] is the most comprehensive backup app on Android, with automatic scheduling. It lets you back up and restore anything you want, including app data that the developer labeled "no_backup".

- Install and upgrade apps from third-party app stores without needing to manually confirm each installation. Extremely useful for Aurora Store[3] and Neo Store.[4]

- Universal SafetyNet Fix,[5] combined with MagiskHide Props Config[6] and Magisk,[7] allows you to spoof SafetyNet on your device to improve compatibility with apps that check for it, including some banking apps, commerce apps, and games.

> trusting Magisk, going without Clockwork Mod on many platforms, eschewing security updates

I have no problem trusting Magisk[7] as a free and open source Android rooting solution.

ClockworkMod Recovery has been discontinued for years. The most advanced Android recovery is TWRP,[8] and TWRP is not needed to root the device with Magisk.

I don't know what you mean by "eschewing security updates" since rooting Android does not prevent you from receiving security updates.

[1] App Manager: https://github.com/MuntashirAkon/AppManager

[2] Neo Backup: https://github.com/NeoApplications/Neo-Backup

[3] Aurora Store: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aurora.store/

[4] Neo Store: https://github.com/NeoApplications/Neo-Store

[5] Universal SafetyNet Fix: https://github.com/kdrag0n/safetynet-fix

[6] MagiskHide Props Config: https://github.com/Magisk-Modules-Repo/MagiskHidePropsConf

[7] Magisk: https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk

[8] TWRP: https://twrp.me/

Re: LineageOS 20

#85

Post by btdmaster »

jjcon wrote: post #61
2-718-281-828 wrote: post #57

> ohmagoditfinallyhappened - LineageOS now has an awesome new camera app called Aperture! It is based on Google’s (mostly) awesome CameraX library and provides a much closer “to stock” camera app experience on many devices. Massive kudos to developers SebaUbuntu, LuK1337, and luca020400 who developed this initially, designer Vazguard, and to the entire team for working to integrate it into LineageOS and adapt it to o…

I’m curious about this as well. Are these packages open source as well? I’d love to peruse the camerax code - edit - someone else linked it: https://github.com/LineageOS/android_packages_apps_Aperture

See also: https://github.com/SebaUbuntu/android_packages_apps_Aperture

Re: LineageOS 20

#86

Post by terminal_d »

karlicoss wrote: post #72
meltyness wrote: post #5

Has anyone else ceased rooting their phone? It has begun to seem like an unnecessary risk, with the appearance of Android policies necessitating VPN Hotspot make manipulations to nftables, ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=be.mygod.vpnho... ), trusting Magisk, going without Clockwork Mod on many platforms, eschewing security updates. What benefits are you guys reaping from taking root, these days?

I'm rooting to get access to my own data (typically in sqlite databases in protected /data/data partition). Then I feed it into HPI (Human Programming Interface) [1], and from that it gets into my plaintext search system [2] or promnesia [3] [1] https://github.com/karlicoss/HPI#readme [2] https://beepb00p.xyz/pkm-search.html#personal_information [3] https://beepb00p.xyz/promnesia.html

Grasp is an invaluable tool for me! Thank you so much for developing it!

Re: LineageOS 20

#87

Post by ryantgtg »

narag wrote: post #51

I've wasted the best part of the past hour trying to find a phone that's supported and under 200€ in the online page of a nearby shop. Not sure about the reason, there are older and newer phones in both, but never at the same time :-(

I’d like to know this, too. I use an android phone with an unofficial LineageOS rom for app development, but it’s getting very long in the tooth (OnePlus X), and I’m a couple versions of Android behind. I purchased that phone broken on ebay, then fixed it, so it was super cheap. I guess I’ll just browse XDA.

Re: LineageOS 20

#88

Post by dur-randir »

thargor90 wrote: post #83
dur-randir wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- TitaniumBackup - ability to monitor battery consumption - some dpi evasion apps (they sometimes work where no vpn gets through) - packet capture - Macrodroid - view wifi passwords - edit gps.conf, wifi configs, add custom root certs, change default font, etc - ssl cert unpinner - call recording - install Youtube Vanced over original one - allow screenshots from any app - forbid quick tiles access from lock screen (…

Be careful with Titanium backup. It cannot handle several modern Android things properly. (E.g. proper SE Linux file properties) I learned the hard way after the fact...

It handled my recent transition flawlessly, but is there anything better?

Re: LineageOS 20

#89

Post by colordrops »

wistlo wrote: post #46
meltyness wrote: post #5

Has anyone else ceased rooting their phone? It has begun to seem like an unnecessary risk, with the appearance of Android policies necessitating VPN Hotspot make manipulations to nftables, ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=be.mygod.vpnho... ), trusting Magisk, going without Clockwork Mod on many platforms, eschewing security updates. What benefits are you guys reaping from taking root, these days?

Yes, I stopped when I switched from a OnePlus 3T to Pixel 5. My provider (and employer) kicked the 3T off the wireless network because it was not "4G compatible", though it very much is. The Pixel 5 was discounted for purchase, so I got a new phone in a hurry and never rooted it. I really miss the pure red night color mode that required root, and with Magisk it finally became reasonably easy to cloak from bank apps a…

I'm pretty upset how they just don't allow a perfectly functional phone on the network anymore. My 3T is just sitting there collecting dust. I CALLED their support number with a phone that supposedly doesn't work on their network. I'm talking about Verizon.

Re: LineageOS 20

#90

Post by 4cao »

deng wrote: post #55
4cao wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What benefits are you guys reaping from taking root, these days? On stock Android 12+ (LineageOS 19+), superuser access is necessary even to customize the default color scheme. (Except on Google Pixel devices, which have the UI for this built-in: but that's proprietary, not part of AOSP.) The most common use cases would be easily installing and updating apps from third-party stores (such as F-Droid through their Pr…

If you install lineageos from microg https://lineage.microg.org/ then F-Droid will already be installed with system extensions and you won't need root.

Being "rooted" can mean different things, so I'm answering in the broadest sense.

You're right of course. You don't need actual superuser access to the live system to make it work (only through recovery). And, as is the case with LineageOS for MicroG, it can already be integrated into the custom OS.

Thing is, when you start doing such things, the next step is often "rooting" the device anyway, so that you can hide what is considered being "rooted" (which can be as little as running any custom OS) from APKs with "root detection" that otherwise refuse to run.

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