Should apps and games prevent users from customizing their smartphones?

Many Android apps and games block users for enabling developer options, rooting, or installing a custom ROM. Should they be allowed to do so?

By  Pranob Mehrotra Nov 14, 2021

One of the best things about Android is that it gives power users plenty of options to customize their devices. Users can easily root their phones to install custom ROMs and custom kernels, use powerful automation tools like Tasker, and do much more. However, rooting or modifying an Android phone does have a few downsides. For instance, some apps and games simply refuse to work on modded devices. This brings us to our discussion topic for today.

FWUL, the Linux distro designed for Android debugging and modding, hits version 3.0

FWUL is a custom Linux distribution for Android debugging. The developer announced the release of version 3.0 a couple of weeks ago.

By  George Burduli Jan 31, 2019

Chances are, at least once in a lifetime, you needed to flash your Android device or simply use adb or fastboot for debugging purposes. Considering the fact that Windows has more than 80% market share on the operating system market, chances are even higher that you use it. That's why it's sometimes so hard to properly use the advanced debugging tools on this platform. I've even had problems after reinstalling adb a couple of times, and then using the full Android Studio SDK tools.

Guide: Sending a Logcat to Help Debug Your Favorite App

Ever have your favorite app suddenly crash on you? Want to help the developer debug what happened? Learn how to capture and filter Logcats with our guide.

By  Former Writer Mar 16, 2017

It’s happened to us all at one point or another. There’s no shame in admitting it. Sometimes, Android apps crash. Whether you're using a completely stock device to run Google Maps or a highly-customized ROM with an Xposed module to enhance Google Hangouts, application crashes and other issues can occur and even become quite a hindrance. This is especially true in the development of smaller-scale tweaks and applications such as the many found on our website. When issues arise, one of the most constructive and helpful insights the user can lend the developer into the nature of the crash is through providing a Logcat. Although extremely helpful for developers, obtaining this information can seem somewhat daunting for a regular user.