There are some things in life that sound too good to be true. However, this isn’t one of them. George Hortz, a hacker made famous by his iOS jailbreaks and PlayStation hacks has managed to root the Verizon Galaxy S5. So why should you care? Well, he used a recently discovered exploit found in all Linux kernels that were built prior to June 3rd. So in theory (and in practice) his app should work on any Android device that has a kernel build date prior to June 3rd. Now, this isn’t going to work on newer HTC or Motorola devices because of a locked system partition (damn you HTC and Motorola) but it should work with almost any other device. For more details check out the thread here. So here’s how to root any android device:
What You Will Need:
- An Android Device
- Towel Root APK
Step 1: Make Sure Your Device is Compatible
The kernel build date on your device has to be before June 3rd. To check your kernel build number go to settings – about phone. Then look at the build date.
Step 2: Rooting
Now time to root. Navigate to the site listed above (towelroot.com) and click on the lamba sign to down the apk. When installing it you might get a warning about Google saying that it could open up exploits and cause harm (well, no duh…we’re rooting) just ignore and continue. Once the installation completes, open up the app and hit the Make it Rain button. It will reboot your device and you will be rooted. To verify that you’re rooted, use the app root checker. You are going to have to download a Superuser manager though, so I recommend downloading SuperSU.
If the website says that your device is unsupported, it might just be because it’s not in the database. Use Modstrings to fix that: https://towelroot.com/modstrings.html