Google Android OS

[MexicanDragon]

Stock

**BRENT**

[Grahame]

Stock on the Google Nexus devices - both now on 4.3. Don't have to wait for a third party for upgrades.

[n_maher]

Stock on my GS3 because it seems to be a popular enough item that it receives somewhat timely updates.  Really what I need to do is get off Verizon so I can be done with their locked versions of everything but other providers up here simply do not provide the level of coverage, which is maddennig.  I'd love to hear suggestions for how to get around that.

[luvdunhill]

Non-stock. Primarily to tether on my grandfathered unlimited at&t plan.

[blessingx]

One pre-Nexus, and two Nexus' all stock and pure. 

[Nebby]

Rooted Nexus 4, but no custom rom

[luvdunhill]

Non-stock. Primarily to tether on my grandfathered unlimited at&t plan.

I do use cwm for backup and restore as well. So, rooted and modded.

[Dreadhead]

Stock here. I will get around to rooting it at some point so I can tether on it but right now I'm fine as is.

[CarlSeibert]

Kind of what Chris said. I keep saying I'll get around to rooting the nexus 7, but I never do. I've had it almost a year. I guess I haven't felt a pressing need. I have no desire to root the phone.

And moar pixels is moar better as far as I'm concerned. There's gotta be a reason why imagesetters work at 1200 ppi. I don't know what the real headroom you need on top of that old 300 ppi rule of thumb might be, but I'm guessing a couple hundred percent. Type at 300 ppi looks pretty bad if you look closely. The screen on this S4 is 2k pixels over less than 4 inches and it's noticeably better than screens that are "good enough". There Will be a point where the trade-off no longer makes sense, but I'll don't know what it will be.

Edited August 5, 2013 by CarlSeibert

[mypasswordis]

I've had three Android phones and felt the need to root/recovery and install custom ROMs for all of them. Think I even did some Terminal stuff to change read/write permissions and init.d at some point. Not a fan of stock bloatware and enjoy tethering and changing my CPU frequency changing characteristics, mainly to prolong battery life. For my current phone, an AT&T branded S3, I also rooted/ROM'd to get T mobile's latest features on 4.1.2 like Multi Window and Wifi calling and some other stuff like Call Recording and SMS/MMS tweaks. And I could never use Android without Titanium Backup or something similar, which also requires root. Running SuperSU and Busybox. 

[grawk]

The big advantage to rooting your android phone is then you get to track every remote exploit and fix them yourself, instead of having to have your vendor do it as part of their job.

[Nebby]

The big advantage to rooting your android phone is then you get to track every remote exploit and fix them yourself, instead of having to have your vendor do it as part of their job.

 

That's only if you load a custom rom. My rooted Nexus applies the updates just fine

[Dusty Chalk]

Stock.  I've removed that fucking NFL bloatware without even needing to add the developer options.  I did (add the developer options), but I didn't need to.

 

Also, lazy.

[mypasswordis]

Not everyone wants the same exploits/theming/functions, which is the point of rooting it and having tons of different ROMs and ROM devs out there to choose from. It's also fun, at least for me, to delve deeper into how my phone works. If everyone wanted the same consistent experience across the board with everything locked, they would choose Apple, which is totally fine with me.

[Dusty Chalk]

Yeah, I understand fun, believe me, I just don't have time for that right now (hence the lazy comment).

 

But my point was, if the only issue is bloatware, there's a halfway point between fully stock and a fully rooted device.  One can disable the bloatware apps (and never see them again) with a stock (Android) phone.

[mypasswordis]

My comment wasn't directed at you. Yeah, sometimes just getting rid of some bloatware is good enough. Although I definitely had to root to get rid of the AT&T and some Samsung bloatware on my phone.

[Dusty Chalk]

Yeah, I know.    I was just speaking for myself inasmuch as it applied to me.

 

And yes, good point -- the disabling thing only works if it's truly bloatware, and unnecessary for the functioning of the phone.  And I don't think it deletes it entirely, so there's that as well.

[postjack]

i keep my note ii stock. have looked into rooting it but for my needs there aren't that many benefits. i know touchwiz used to have a bad wrap, but its current incarnation is smooth and functional.

[luvdunhill]

The big advantage to rooting your android phone is then you get to track every remote exploit and fix them yourself, instead of having to have your vendor do it as part of their job.

Ask Apple how well that process goes. I personally have had remote webkit exploits for safari that they took 6 months to create a patch that didnt fix the issue.

Regardless, I don't manage updates they work just fine from Samsung/Google.

[grawk]

remote webkit exploits only work if you go the websites that are a problem.  

[luvdunhill]

You mean like those rare png images on ad banners? How do you avoid those again?

[grawk]

I hadn't heard of that in the wild.  But a lot more bugs are caught by vendors than not.  It certainly becomes much more of a full time job to patch every bug found individually.  (And yes, this depends on more than just rooting, generally.  It's the roms that get exploited.  But I know you know all this.)

[luvdunhill]

Well creating security issues is my job.

It is pretty common to use advertising for things like this. We call it "malvertising". I honestly do not have much of a reality check on what people perceive to be possible or pervasive, but it is interesting this is something you havent run across. We have actually sold technology to a lot of the big online presences that rely on advertising via banners to prevent these malicious images from getting syndicated.

[n_maher]

Dan enjoys trying to incite a reaction from fans of anything unApple.

[grawk]

i was actually just arguing against rom replacement, I'm considering android devices