Rooting your Android phone used to be a complicated process involving about a dozen steps and arcane rituals best left to folks like Anton LaVey.
Nowadays, it's much simpler.
There's an app for that.
Hi, I'm Seth Rosenblatt for CNET.
And today I'm going to show you how to gain root access on your Android phone.
Actually, this is more than just one rooting app,
but the one I'll be using today is super one click.
If you have an HTC phone, you want to use the unrevoked non-market app to root and remove the NAND lock.
For unrevoked, simply download, run the installer in your desktop and follow the instructions.
Before we begin, I'm going to caution you, be careful when you root your phone.
It will void your warranty and it's possible to break your phone even with a one click rooting app.
Generally, that only happens when the one click process gets interrupted, but one more time, please be careful.
For example, if your main computer is a laptop, make sure it's plugged in so you're not draining the battery while rooting.
All right, all that's said.
Let's get this started.
Note that these are general instructions and that there might be device specific idiosyncrasies you want to know about before you begin, so do your research.
First, download super one click and save it to your desktop, but do not run it.
Not yet.
Next, connect your phone to your computer, but do not mount the SD card.
That means that you should not turn on USB storage.
Double check by going to settings, SD card, and phone storage and unmount the SD card.
What you don't want though is to unable USB debugging.
If don't have a notification that will take you to it, go to settings,
application settings, development, and unable USB debugging.
Go back to your computer and double click on superoneclick.exe.
Choose the Samsung Captivate Tab if that's your phone.
For all others except those made by HTC, choose the universal tab.
Last, click the root button and go get yourself a tasty beverage.
This is gonna take a while.
If you want to sit and watch it, you are to see a bunch of activities scrolling by with okay appearing after each one.
You might see some warnings too, but they're nothing to worry about as long as super one click doesn't freeze.
After rooting is complete, it's a good idea to check for an app called superuser with a skull and crossbones icon and to allow nonmarket apps to install if you haven't set that up yet either.
Go to settings, applications, and check unknown sources.
Finally, reboot your phone and you are to be ready to breath in the rarefied air that all rooted Android owners' share.
It smells like victory.
So that's how you root your Android using super one click.
Keep an eye out for the companion video to this one how to install a custom Android ROM.
Remember, always be safe when rooting.
For CNET, I'm Seth Rosenblatt.