I’m Rooted…Now What?

OK, so hopefully you may be rooted by now.  If not, no worries…we’ll have more ways to root coming soon.

The first question people ask are what apps are good to get once you have your phone rooted.  That’s hard to answer because it just depends on what you want to do with your phone.  I’m going to mention a few apps here that are popular and good to start off with.  You can also go to the Android Market and just do a search for Root and you’ll find listings of apps that require root access.  Let’s start with one of the most popular apps…

Wi-Fi Tether (Click to Download): One of the first things people want to do with their rooted is phone is to add the capability to turn your phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot without having to pay your wireless carrier a monthly fee.  The best way is with the free Wi-Fi Tether app.  There are other apps on the market that will do the same thing, but for a free app I haven’t found many that do it better.  Notice: Tethering uses a lot of data so make sure you have an Unlimited Data plan or you could get hit with some major overage charges from your wireless carrier!

The Home Screen for Wi-fi Tether

Once you’ve downloaded the app from that link I just provided, go through the regular install.  You will get prompted for Superuser permissions the first time you run it.  Just press Allow and you’re good to go.  What you’ll see right off the bat is a giant Wi-Fi icon that says press to tether.  Press it and you’re tethering…it’s that easy.

However, I do recommend you adjust a couple settings first.  From the main screen in the Wi-Fi Tether app, press the menu button, and then press settings.  At the top of the list is the Enable Wifi Encryption checkbox.  Make sure this is checked otherwise anyone can jump onto your wifi and slow you down.  Then go down and press Change Passphrase.  Pick a new passphrase (password) that will be required everytime someone wants to log onto this particular wifi hotspot.  The other option you may or may not want to change is the Change SSID option.  This just allows you to change the name that appears as the hotspot.  By default it’s AndroidTether but you can change it if you want something custom.

I would generally leave the rest of the settings alone unless you know what you’re doing.  Occasionally this program can be a little “buggy” and require you to  try to connect a few times before it works.  That’s normal, just be patient.

If this worked for you, please leave a comment below and tell me what phone you tried it on.  If it didn’t work, let me know in the comments and we’ll see if we can’t get you all figured out.  Happy Tethering!