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Comment by BLKNSLVR | Hacker News Reader

I thought rooting Samsung's was quite a simple exercise with Odin. Why is it out of the question?

I'm looking forward to when my wife upgrades her phone, so I can root the S10e.

While I don't know about his particular device, newer Samsung devices tend to permanently disable features (like the camera in the Fold devices) when you root them.

I don't understand why disabling the camera is a thing. It's really insufferable behavior.

Snapdragon versions are usually harder to root, and my carrier s21u here in Canada does not even have the bootloader unlock option that exynos versions do. But Exynos are always worse when it comes to thermals, camera quality, and performance. So the choice is often between a much more performant but locked Snapdragon or a more open phone but with the sometimes atrocious downgrade that comes with Exynos SoCs. Exynos used to be harder for custom roms to get right, but I think that's not the case anymoee.

Even if your device lets you root it (many don't), you will trip the "Knox fuse." It's a small fuse inside the CPU that permanently burns out if you root, and permanently blocks Samsung Pay, Secure Folder, a few other Samsung security apps... and on the Galaxy Z Fold 3, your camera (though on the Z Fold 3, apparently, if you re-lock your bootloader the restriction goes away). Also said fuse cannot be reset so if you reinstall completely stock firmware, it's blown forever.

> ...permanently blocks Samsung Pay, Secure Folder, a few other Samsung security apps...

Yet another good reason to root your phone. You wouldn't catch me using any of this Samsung shovelware.

From what I could tell apparently a lot of banking apps will also stop working. I never bothered to confirm it

It seems that most Samsung phones are locked down in the US. Other models have no issue besides KNOX tripping.

KNOX tripping only disable some features you probably won't need unless you have a corporate phone, and you probably shouldn't mess with these anyways. At least in Europe, tripping KNOX doesn't void your warranty.

Carrier Snapdragon versions? No way. Verizon Note 9s are still quite unrootable, let alone custom ROM-able.

Some note series devices had some sort of contract with military, which made them totally impossible to root for eg. Note 4

Do you have a citation on that?

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