Google invests a lot of time in Android security and has designed systems like the way the operating system handles app permissions to give us control over how software sees our data. But this kind of access control doesn’t just apply to apps, and we ourselves are also limited in what Android allows us to do – admittedly often for our own protection. And while there are ways to get around some of these restrictions, exploiting them isn’t always without consequences.

We’re talking about rooting your phone today, the process of tampering with Android to gain superuser access. There are many good reasons to root, like removing stubborn bloatware or simply changing the way existing apps work. However, there are just as many reasons to be concerned, from weakening your phone’s security to risking breaking it completely.

What we don’t often think about when rooting is the consequences it could have on our phone’s existing feature set. For example, years ago Sony tied the image processing capabilities of Xperia cameras to the phone’s secure DRM key storage. And once you unlocked the bootloader – as you often have to do when rooting – those keys were erased and the camera broke. Sony finally stopped doing that in 2018, and now it’s the latest Pixel phones that are causing rooters headaches.

New Pixel 9 owners who have unlocked their bootloaders in search of root privileges are reporting that some of the phone’s AI-powered features no longer work. This doesn’t happen everywhere, and some AI features still seem to work fine, but features like Pixel screenshots simply don’t work with an unlocked bootloader.

In this case, there are a few possibilities as to why this could be happening (and so inconsistently across different features), and we’re not at all sure it’s intentional. We’ve already reached out to Google in hopes of shedding some light on the situation.

Given the risks involved and the things you might give up (even unintentionally) to root your phone, we’re dying to know: do you even bother rooting your phone? With all the features of modern Android and the possibilities for device customization, do you still feel the same urge to root as you did maybe ten years ago? Or is it more about principles and control for you and the appeal of rooting has never faded?

For our survey, we’re grouping a lot of similar actions together here, since the end result will likely be the same. Whether you’re looking to gain root privileges, unlock your bootloader for another reason, or even go the custom ROM route, we’re essentially asking: are you modifying your phone in a way that affects Android’s underlying security model?

If you are determined to root your phone, post a comment after voting and tell us about your experience. Why did you start doing it and why do you still continue?