Slashdot Mirror
Do Android Users Still Use Custom Roms? (androidauthority.com)
"With all of the drama at CyanogenMod, Android Authority takes a look at the current state of custom ROM development," writes Slashdot reader Thelasko. From the article:
The future of CyanogenMod appears uncertain, after the open source ROM was forced to fork under the name Lineage OS. Fortunately there are already other remixed versions of Android available, with some of the most popular being Paranoid Android, Resurrection Remix, and Dirty Unicorns... [But] with each new version of Android, the gap between Android and popular custom ROMs has shrunk, which begs an interesting question: Are custom ROMs even necessary anymore?
To answer this, let's take a quick look at the state of custom ROM development as it exists today.
The article points out that mobile virtual reality is "on the verge of becoming mainstream and the wearable market has grown tremendously," asking whether custom firmware will also integrate these newer technologies. But the original submission also asks a question that's closer to home. What custom ROMs do Slashdot users have installed?
The article points out that mobile virtual reality is "on the verge of becoming mainstream and the wearable market has grown tremendously," asking whether custom firmware will also integrate these newer technologies. But the original submission also asks a question that's closer to home. What custom ROMs do Slashdot users have installed?
I still use a custom rom because Google stopped updating the Nexus 4 and my phone is still working just fine. I run Chroma which runs 6.0.1, whereas the last supported version was 5.1.1. Oddly enough, Chroma is more stable than 5.1.1 was on my phone.
Let's begin by saying that the stock ROMs on certain devices have become very adequate. I own a Nexus 5X and a Moto X Pure smartphone, and their stock ROMs are basically a pure Android experience. The software is already lean without any carrier bloat. Everything works fine, except for the times when google's rushed updates may sometimes introduce a new bug. I also run a stock Samsung ROM on my Galaxy Tab S tablet.
On the other hand, there is a considerable cost to using a third party alternative ROM like Cyanogenmod. For one, those third party ROMs don't always support hardware as well as the stock. If you had read release notes for something like a Cyanogenmod release, you had surely run into statements like "limited camera functionality" or "fingerprint sensor, etc".
Another issue with third party ROMs is that some software builders actively block or sabotage them. For example, the AT&T's Uverse streaming service will detect whether you have a rooted or third party ROM and stops working. The Netflix goes only up to 480p resolution on a non-stock ROM. "Fixing" this probably involves editing build.prop and hiding your root, but I haven't tried it recently.
Yeah, last few devices I've bought had something very close to AOSP with only a minimum of extra apps installed, apps that aren't causing me any problems. Android itself doesn't vary a lot between versions any more, the chances are the version you have varies little - from a user's point of view - from the latest greatest. This is a far cry from the early days of Android where:
1. Every phone had a heavily customized version of Android, in part because stock Android wasn't very pretty, but those customizations were usually horrible and bug ridden. As an example, my T-Mobile Slide 3G's dialer would crash if you changed from portrait to landscape.
2. Android itself was barely feature complete. Third party tools were needed to provide a decent launcher, decent keyboard, and so on, as well as tethering and other features carriers were nervous about.
It just isn't as important any more.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I have Cyanogen on two devices, and I will ALWAYS have a custom ROM just to eliminate all the damn bloatware. If there are programs on a new device that I can't uninstall without rooting (and there always are) it's time for a reflashing.
I gave up on Cyanogenmod when Cyanogen went all Microsoft. Not so much because the mod went bad as I started to lose in anybody who cooperates with Microsoft. It's sad to be proven right again, but I'm glad Lineage managed to break away so it's good in the long term. The parent is right. The stock ROM, even when it's almost plain Android on a Nexus device, is ultra-frustrating. You miss so much customisation. I will be back on a custom ROM the minute LineageOS gets up to speed. I paid the extra for a Nexus only because I knew Cyanogen would run on it properly. I will only be buying devices I know Lineage works on.
I found the stability of Cyanogenmod to be pretty good. I've heard some people say that in some cases it's actually more stable than the original ROMs included with phones, perhaps because of the bloatware that vendors add.
I have KatKiss Marshmallow on an old Asus tablet. Stock ROM was limited to Jellybean, and the thing was a horribly slow piece of shit. The fact that I can run an OS as new as I can (there's even builds available for Nougat but I haven't bothered), on a device this old (2012) is amazing. I can take advantage of F2FS which makes the crappy flash memory perform not so crappy.
I was also amazed at how much space is wasted on the flash memory with the standard OS update process. By installing the bare OS from scratch, and only the Google Apps I want, it hardly uses any flash, leaving plenty of the 32GB free.