What is Root (for your Android)

We love Android, but rooting your phone can give you the opportunity to do so much more than your phone can do out of the box—whether it's wireless tethering, speeding it up with overclocking, or customizing the look of your phone with themes. Here's what you need to know about the rooting process, and where to find a guide for your phone.

What is rooting exactly.

Rooting, for those of you that don't know, means giving yourself root permissions on your phone. It's similar running programs as administrators in Windows, or running a command with sudo in Linux. With a rooted phone, you can run apps that require access to certain system settings, as well as custom ROMS to your phone, which add all sorts of extra features.