Root a Samsung Galaxy S4

Samsung hopes to make a splash with the new Galaxy Note 9 to make up for the underwhelming sales of its signature Galaxy S9 series. This flagship is a radical departure from its predecessors — it's now optimized for gaming and paired with the most advanced S Pen stylus to date ...more

The majority of Android devices have built-in sensors underneath the hood that measure motion, position, and several environmental parameters that provide data needed to monitor your movements and adjust accordingly. When the Samsung Galaxy S4 came out, they included for the ...more

Point-and-shoot cameras are practically extinct these days now that every new phone on the planet has a camera built right in. This makes the smartphone market highly competitive, because the camera specs and features are a big selling point. Your Samsung Galaxy S3 actually h ...more

Why unlock your Samsung Galaxy S3 to use with a different SIM card? One possible reason is that you love your phone, but not your cellular provider because of the poor service or an unreliable connection. If you purchased a Samsung GS3 with AT&T, T-Mobile, etc. on a contract, ...more

David Blaine has made millions off his magic tricks and mind-bending illusions, so why shouldn't we get in on the action, too? Well, your Samsung Galaxy S3 can do all kinds of things, but magic isn't one of them...yet. Thanks to Android developer Badea Bogdan of Binary Buildi ...more

Erasing everything off of your phone and starting anew is a pretty drastic step to take for a little glitch. For most people, system restoring is a last resort option, but there are a few reasons to want or need to restore your device to factory settings. Many people have tri ...more

Believe it or not, but people are actually texting less than they did before, and that's all thanks to Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, WhatsApp, and other split-second communication services. However, one communication method that is still going strong—and dominating—is email. ...more

There's a lot of personal information residing on your phone, possibly even more than on your computer, so it's only a matter of time before someone tries to access it. The perp can be anything from a paranoid significant other to a malicious identity thief. Personally, I'm m ...more

It was only a matter of time before the apps from the new Samsung Galaxy S5 leaked for everyone to download and install, and today we've got one that takes advantage of the IR blaster on your Galaxy Note 3. Of course, I'm talking about the updated WatchON app, Samsung's built ...more

Automation applications bring the future a little closer. If you've seen Minority Report or other futuristic sci-fi movies, the intrigue of having your electronics work independently is something we can all appreciate. While smartphones continue to improve and push the limits ...more

April Fools may be over, but any day is a good day to prank someone, and the best time to do it is when everyone's eyes are glued to the television. Turning off a TV during a climatic moment is the best way to prank a TV-obsessed sibling or friend, but it's even more hilariou ...more

Here's a routine that I'm sure all of us smartphone users go through at least several times a day. You notice your Samsung Galaxy S4's notification LED blinking, grab your phone to see what it is, and enter your PIN. Only instead of anything important, you find that it's just ...more

Smartphone users these days can get bombarded with texts and emails every hour. Online retailers sending you coupons to get you to buy stuff. Girlfriends asking where you are. Service providers reminding you to pay your bills on time. You probably don't need to read or respon ...more

Most smartphone manufacturers focus on megapixels when it comes to cameras, but HTC took a different direction with the HTC One. Instead of trying to compete with the 13MP camera on the Samsung Galaxy S4, or the 20MP camera on the Sony Xperia Z1, or even the newer iPhone's 8MP ...more

Earlier this month, AT&T quietly introduced a new "Mobility Administrative Fee" which levies a $0.61 monthly charge to all postpaid contracts. While it's a seemingly small amount on an individual basis adding up to $7.32 per year, with its huge customer base, AT&T stands to ma ...more

There is no better example of a risk-versus-reward scenario than jailbreaking your iPhone or rooting your Android phone. While both jailbreaking and rooting undoubtedly has its advantages, this possibility of something going wrong and you ending up with a 500-dollar doorstop i ...more

Even though the Galaxy S8 and S8+ are only just now being released to the public, the software leaks have been rolling in for a while. Everyone seems to have gone crazy for the new look Samsung is pushing out with Samsung Experience, the successor to TouchWiz. As a result, the ...more

Running multiple applications at the same time is one of the Samsung Galaxy S3's and S4's biggest advantages over Apple devices, and it's a fact that Samsung certainly harps on constantly in their well-targeted commercials. Plus, there's the whole widgets thing. There are zer ...more

Each generation of smartphones ushers in a new set of top-of-the-line specs, with processing power, battery size, and display resolution growing by the year. These headlining features get the most press, but there's one unsung hero that has the potential to make the biggest di ...more

The integration of technology into automobiles is becoming more and more widespread each year. Tesla's Model S features a 17" display in the middle of the dash with navigation, music control, and even an Internet browser. Mercedes is working on incorporating Google Glass into ...more

There has been a lot of news over the last couple weeks about the popular Flappy Birds mobile game and its creator, Dong Nguyen. After becoming the hottest game on Android and iOS devices, Nguyen revealed to The Verge that he was making about $50,000 a day in advertising reve ...more

So, you've finally scored the coveted upgrade to chocolaty KitKat deliciousness, or you've managed to get your hands on a Nexus 5, the freshest thing from LG and El Goog. Satisfied with your new lease on life, you direct your phone's web browser to catch up on your Amazon Inst ...more

Most times when you take your smartphone out of your bag, pocket, or purse, you probably know exactly what you're going to do with it. Make a call, send a text, take a selfie, browse viral videos on YouTube, or one of the other many things a smartphone can do nowadays. But fi ...more

One of the best things about the Nexus line of devices is the ease with which one can achieve root. Plug your phone into your PC, download a couple files, type a few commands, and you can be rooted within 30 minutes. No muss, no fuss, no carrier-locked bootloaders. But it too ...more

On Friday, at IFA 2018 in Berlin, Samsung invited attendees into the residence of Family Guy's Griffin family to learn all about its "smart home" products via augmented reality. "If Peter Griffin can have a smart home, then everyone can," said Samsung via its webpage for the ...more

Mobile gaming, in case you haven't noticed, is huge. From the astronomical popularity of Candy Crush Saga, to the ease of using old school emulators, we love gaming on our mobile devices. The future is also bright, just take a look at the Oculus Rift, an immersive virtual worl ...more

Think of all the times you've ever copied and pasted a string of text on your device. At least once, I bet you've wanted to see your copy history. Mac OS X and Windows has had this built-in since forever, so why not Android? I'm constantly going back to re-copy something in A ...more

In a world where mobile devices are the new norm for interacting and staying in contact with one another, it's important to make the experience as smooth as possible, and typing is the biggest problem for me. I'm a sloppy typer and constantly have to correct my errors, whethe ...more

For the first time in twenty years, Apple created its own custom font in late 2014. Dubbed "San Francisco," it combined elements from Helvetica and FF DIN to create a crisp, elegant, and highly legible font that is now used in iOS, macOS, and tvOS. With an open source Magisk ...more

Chainfire, the renowned Android dev who brought us tools like CF-Auto-Root and 500 Firepaper, among many other apps and tools, has done what he always seems to do, which is root devices before they hit the shelves, this time for the Samsung Galaxy S5. Announced today, he has ...more

Of the hundreds of uses for our devices, the one that I cherish most is the ability to kill time just about whenever and wherever I need to. Whether it's reading news, checking social media, or watching videos, we have a ton of ways to pass the time in that two-hour DMV line o ...more

One of the more innovative features about the new Windows 8 operating system is the ability to unlock the screen via a picture password. This new feature allows the user to select any photo they would like and use taps, circles or straight lines to unlock the device. The video ...more

Twitter found a sweet spot with its 160-character limit, but Snapchat sports a social media low of 31 characters, forcing us to condense our ideas into a few short words when typing in picture captions because of their ephemeral nature. While this severely limited amount of wo ...more

Apple is very tight lipped about their products, and their iPhone is certainly no exception, but when products depend on global manufacturing, it's nearly impossible to keep good secrets contained. Apple's Been Worried for a While Now Apple has seen its growth decrease over ...more

Why is transferring contacts from an old smartphone to a new one still insanely difficult? I can check my bank account, upload a picture to Instagram, email someone across the globe, and check the weather forecast on my phone—all in under five minutes. So why does transferrin ...more

Fast moving cars, strangers in the background, and even birds flying by can all ruin a great shot. Thankfully, TouchWiz provides the tools to remove unwanted objects, right in the stock camera application. With Eraser mode, you can fire off a quick succession of shots, then r ...more

There are a lot of things your Samsung Galaxy Note 2 can do straight out of the box, but there's also a ton of things it can't, or simply could be better at. That's why most of us end up rooting—to enhance the mobile experience. Today, I'll be showing you some of my favorite ...more

Screen timeouts serve mostly as security measures and energy savers, but they can also interrupt you when you're reading a book or editing a document. There is no built-in way to manage screen timeouts on a per-app basis, but if you've got root access, you can do just that usi ...more

According to a recent survey conducted by Edison Research and Statista, Pandora still has a firm grasp as the most popular music streaming service in the United States. With iHeartRadio, iTunes Radio, and even Spotify trailing behind by a large margin, it doesn't look like Pan ...more

For the most part, Google Play Music makes it extremely easy to upload and organize your music library, as well as access it quickly using the default settings—but there are a few things it could do better. In your settings, you can adjust the equalizer, block explicit songs, ...more

While the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is sure to get an Android 5.0 Lollipop update, there's no official confirmation on when exactly that will happen (rumors state January). In the meantime, there are a number of ways to get some of Lollipop's features on your KitKat device right n ...more

Stock prices be damned, HTC is ready to right the ship with it's soon-to-be-released follow up to the HTC One. The financially challenged device maker, according to inside sources, plans a March release for it's newest flagship. We know that the Taiwanese manufacturer all but ...more

Customizing the lock screen, status bar, and other aspects of your Galaxy's UI usually requires root. Thankfully, Samsung has reintroduced a well-regarded app that gives you the freedom to tailor parts of your Galaxy's interface in just a few simple steps. Galaxy fans raved a ...more

While Snapchat's latest update brought messaging and video chatting, it also ruined something for us softModders—KeepChat. With KeepChat, we were able to save pictures and videos sent to us without the other person being notified. It was pretty slick, and I was beginning to mi ...more

The Samsung Galaxy S8's almost bezel-less display is truly a sight to behold, especially when set to Immersive Mode. While transparent when on the home screen, the navigation and status bars on the S8 will often turn opaque depending on what app you're using at the moment. Thi ...more

When it comes to squeezing as much battery life as possible out of our smartphones, most people aim for software solutions, or ones that can otherwise be easily managed right from the touchscreen. Managing Wi-Fi and data connections, fine-tuning screen brightness, and install ...more

Changing an app's name on your home screen is not something you can do on stock Android or TouchWiz, but it should be. If you think of it merely from a customization angle, sure, it's not a big deal, but having the ability to alter an app shortcut's name can do wonders for cle ...more

Whether it's a chaotic family day meetup at the beach, barhopping with buddies, or getting stranded in the middle of nowhere with a dead car battery, being able to share your exact location with others using your smartphone makes life easier and less stressful. Apple is makin ...more

Smartphone displays are getting bigger every year, and Samsung devices are at the forefront of that trend. But, from a software standpoint, the icons, buttons, and other on-screen elements seem to stay at the same scale. So while phones are getting bigger, their interfaces are ...more

Both the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge have had root methods available to them before the phones were even released, but the problem with these existing root methods is that they would trip the KNOX counter on your device. Why Tripping KNOX Is Bad for Your Phone To give you a bit of ...more

Samsung's popular Good Lock app has been updated to work on One UI and now lets you take full advantage of its awesome add-ons to customize your S10 in a few simple taps. One add-on in particular lets you get rid of mostly redundant indicators like the NFC "N" for a cleaner st ...more

While many of the U.S. carriers have updated their Samsung Galaxy S3 devices to Android 4.1.2 already, one major absence from the upgrade is Samsung's Premium Suite. One of the coolest features from the Premium Suite is Multi-View, a function that lets you truly multitask by r ...more

Random vibrations, ghost buzzing — whatever you call it, when your phone goes off for seemingly no reason, it's pretty frustrating. Finding the source of a phantom vibration can be almost impossible if there's no associated notification, especially given the myriad apps and sy ...more

It turns out that the new Galaxy Samsung S8 Active (codenamed Cruiser) will be headed for AT&T in the US later this year, just like previous Active models. SamMobile revealed that the device would be exclusive to the network with a model number SM-G892A. The Merriam-Webster d ...more

The "Smart Keyboard" on the LG G3 has received a lot of praise for its ability to adequately analyze user keystrokes, provide adjustable sizes, and customize key placements, among other things. These features, combined with predictive text, swipe gestures, and autocorrect make ...more

It's been rumored ever since the 2012 release of the Kindle Fire, and now Amazon's first smartphone is set to debut a little later this year. A few weeks ago, BGR got an exclusive look at a prototype device assumed to be Amazon's first flagship smartphone, albeit in a clunky, ...more

Every Galaxy S20 sold in the US — even the S20+ and S20 Ultra — simply can't be rooted. With the bootloader permanently locked, you miss out on the world of rooting and the customization it opens up, but modifications are still possible. Thanks to some Samsung-developed apps ...more

Smartphones are inherently bad for privacy. You've basically got a tracking device in your pocket, pinging off cell towers and locking onto GPS satellites. All the while, tracking cookies, advertising IDs, and usage stats follow you around the internet. So no, there's no such ...more

One of the best things about the Samsung Galaxy S3 is the ability to modify the device in countless ways, as with any other Android device. A recent guide on adding softkeys to the GS3 from mod Faisal inspired me to share some information on how to edit build.prop, which is y ...more

In an attempt to keep things simple, Snapchat has a limited amount of editing features, made up of "smart" photo filters, drawing pens, and special text captions. If you want more editing capabilities, you'll be pleased to know there's a way, no thanks to Snapchat, but you wil ...more