rooting

Rooting is the process by which users of Android devices can attain privileged control (known as root access) over various subsystems of the device, usually smartphones and tablets. Because Android is based on a modified version of the Linux kernel, rooting an Android device gives access to administrative (superuser) permissions similar to those on Linux or any other Unix-like operating system such as FreeBSD or macOS.

Rooting is often performed to overcome limitations that carriers and hardware manufacturers put on some devices. Thus, rooting allows the users to alter or replace system applications and settings, run specialized applications ("apps") that require administrator-level permissions, or perform other operations that are otherwise inaccessible to a normal Android user. On some devices, rooting can also facilitate the complete removal and replacement of the device's operating system, usually with a more recent release of its current operating system.