Does anyone here jailbreak their phone anymore?

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ultimatebob

Lifer
Jul 1, 2001
25,135
2,445
126
That's the least of your worries if you get hacked. They could put a trojan on the phone that spies on you (well the OS does that anyway especially Android...) and they could also put something that will infiltrate your home network. Ex: you connect to data or public wifi and pickup the trojan. Connect to your home wifi, then it unloads the trojan on the rest of your network if something internal also has a vulnerability. Of course if your wifi is on a separate vlan as it should be it won't be too much of an issue, but still. They can do lot of damage. They can also screen cap what's on your screen etc... basically whatever exploit that lets them do remote code execution can let them do pretty much anything you can think of.

Yeah... once a hacker has found a way into your home network, it's pretty much game over. You might not mind them looking at your pet photos, but you probably will if they steal your identity and drain your bank account.
 

GodisanAtheist

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2006
6,719
7,016
136
I think a lot of people jailbroke their phones to either sideload apps or to unlock soft gated features. Nowadays, the stock operating systems tend to do almost anything people need and the app ecosystems have matured to the point where there is usually a solid free alternative to everything.

There just isn't as much of a point in jailbreaking now as there used to be, so not many people really do it anymore.
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
67,199
12,027
126
www.anyf.ca
Does that mean Android sends your user information (contacts? pictures? Kindle reading list?) to Google?

More than likely. By default it does because it stores in cloud but even if you disable all that it would probably be naive to think they don't still do it, just that it does not show up for you. Pretty sure they occasionaly record your voice and send that data too. Iphones do it, Amazon Echo etc.... pretty much any smart device that has a mic. Even ones that arn't suppose to have a mic, like TVs. (Samsung and Vizio were caught doing it). Living in a scary world when it comes to privacy.
 

NoTine42

Golden Member
Sep 30, 2013
1,387
78
91
I think a lot of people jailbroke their phones to either sideload apps or to unlock soft gated features. Nowadays, the stock operating systems tend to do almost anything people need and the app ecosystems have matured to the point where there is usually a solid free alternative to everything.

There just isn't as much of a point in jailbreaking now as there used to be, so not many people really do it anymore.
I remember friends talking about jail breaking IPhones (3s and earlier) because jailbreaking allowed multitasking among other now basic features.
Now, the main advantage seems to be using cell data as a hotspot. But most unlimited data plans also include some hotspot data.
 

DesiPower

Lifer
Nov 22, 2008
15,366
740
126
Can someone explain the difference - Root vs Unlock* vs Jailbreak

* Not carrier unlock but unlock so that you can install 3rd part apps
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
67,199
12,027
126
www.anyf.ca
I remember friends talking about jail breaking IPhones (3s and earlier) because jailbreaking allowed multitasking among other now basic features.
Now, the main advantage seems to be using cell data as a hotspot. But most unlimited data plans also include some hotspot data.

I've used my phone as a hot spot before and never had to do anything special. It's a very dangerous thing to do though as it's easy to go over the limit... I typically use it at church if I need to install a Linux package or update on the system we used for audio recordings.
 
Mar 11, 2004
23,031
5,495
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I remember friends talking about jail breaking IPhones (3s and earlier) because jailbreaking allowed multitasking among other now basic features.
Now, the main advantage seems to be using cell data as a hotspot. But most unlimited data plans also include some hotspot data.

My plan does but my phone refuses to let me because it wants to go through a bunch of hoops to enable it.

Of course it also usually is either slower or pretty constrained (I think I get 3G tethering with my plan or could pay an extra $10 a month for I think 20GB of LTE tethering; I think Verizon and ATT are worse but I haven't checked their plans in some time).

So I think most people are just trying to get what they're already paying for.

Can someone explain the difference - Root vs Unlock* vs Jailbreak

* Not carrier unlock but unlock so that you can install 3rd part apps

Jailbreak I think was specific to Apple and referred to getting around their base OS security so you could run modified stuff. I'm not sure how that's changed over time.

Root is similar but often is done in order to install a more pure AOSP version of Android to bypass the OEM customizations (and carrier bloat) that many Android phones came saddled with. I think it used to be necessary in order to install different launchers and do some other things that now doesn't need root access. But there's still other things that do.

Unlock is simple. I think any Android phone can "sideload" apps (which is installing apps from a source other than the Google Play Store) without root. Well its a bit more complicated in that Amazon's phones (which run a version of Android that Amazon customized), wherein you have to sideload to install normal Android apps on them. I think you have to jailbreak in order to do that on iPhone (although I believe there was one exception, and that was enterprise - large corporations - could manage things which let them adjust different aspects, which I think they lock things down more so I'm not sure it would be useful for bypassing the stuff that people are jailbreaking for; I also think Apple might've clamped down on that some as they found out that some malware was using some of those enterprise software flags to bypass some of the security features and infect phones).
 

Minerva

Platinum Member
Nov 18, 1999
2,115
11
81
Jailbreaking pretty much died when untethered jailbreaks weren't possible.
If one has to run the app to perform the jailbreak every time your phone is restarted, what's the point?

Rooting android devices is very dependent on device model and manufacturer. Most sold in the USA have locked bootloaders preventing custom recovery from being installed. There are some vulnerabilities that allow for root but (IMO) the best is accomplished with OEM unlocking ability so a custom recovery can be flashed and then the sky is the limit.