Help M8 - couple of questions puzzling me please....

[davo26]

hi

im new to this phone after coming from a rooted One X. trying to get it how i want it but theres a couple of things id like help with, so id appreciate some advice please.

1. the apps i swapped over from the One X now have ads popping up on them. i looked at adblock plus for android and installed it, but for some reason my internet was then really slow, so i uninstalled it. whats changed for the ads to pop up? is it because root settings can disable them? am i able to do anything to stop them?

2. my internet browser (same app as One X, dolphin mini) now displays my favourite website in a way that i have to keep scrolling across the page to read forum posts. before the text was wrapped to fit the screen. it only seems to do it with my favourite website, so could be specific to that, but again, its only the phone thats changed, nothing else. all my settings were imported over.
any ideas on this one?

3. what advantage would rooting get me? i rooted my past phones purely to improve battery life, im not one for fiddling with settings. battery life is decent on the stock rom loaded with it, so is it worth rooting for any other advantages? im not very techy.

thanks a lot

 

[EarlyMon]

http://androidforums.com/threads/to...what-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-rooting.935413/

Read the whole thread for best results.

Root ad blocking is faster and saves battery compared to non root solutions.

The best way to get rid of app ads is to buy the premium version.

Websites now format the output based on the screen dots per inch instead of mobile vs desktop, sometimes with stupid results. You can't do much about that, try a different browser for offending sites.

 

[davo26]

http://androidforums.com/threads/to...what-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-rooting.935413/

Read the whole thread for best results.

Root ad blocking is faster and saves battery compared to non root solutions.

The best way to get rid of app ads is to buy the premium version.

Websites now format the output based on the screen dots per inch instead of mobile vs desktop, sometimes with stupid results. You can't do much about that, try a different browser for offending sites.

thanks. having read that im not sure im ready to root yet. pluses beforehand were better battery life, minuses were failure of my pc to detect the phone (for drag and dropping) and google photos not working properly. id like a bit of time with a 'regular phone' to see how it handles and integrates with things like drag and drop and google+.

you imply ad blocking is possible, non-rooted, how do i go about doing this? and shouldnt it make browsing quicker?

buying ads? never done it yet. im not sure how i pay for them, i think last time i considered it i wasnt happy about giving my bank details to whoever it was. plenty of people do it tho and it makes sense to chuck a few quid (im in uk) to a developer, but who do i actually pay?

dont really understand that dots per inch thing, im just confused as to why it was perfect on One X, and different on M8.
believe me ive tried loooads of browsers, and dolphin mini is the only one where ive been able to open a page and its there, perfect size to read, text wrapped so no scrolling across. every other browser has been tiny pages where i have to zoom each time.

thanks again

 

[Hadron]

You were using Adblock Plus non-rooted, and you've already seen that it slowed your browser down. I've not done this, but the app's description says you need to use it as a proxy for it to work without root (via WiFi only), so that's why it's slower.

And Early doesn't mean buying ads, but buying apps. You do this via the Play Store, so the developer never gets your bank details (I guess use pre-paid Google Play vouchers if you don't want anyone at all to have them - I only gave them credit card info anyway, not debit).

 

[davo26]

You were using Adblock Plus non-rooted, and you've already seen that it slowed your browser down. I've not done this, but the app's description says you need to use it as a proxy for it to work without root (via WiFi only), so that's why it's slower.

And Early doesn't mean buying ads, but buying apps. You do this via the Play Store, so the developer never gets your bank details (I guess use pre-paid Google Play vouchers if you don't want anyone at all to have them - I only gave them credit card info anyway, not debit).

dur, i meant apps, not ads, thanks if you buy apps through the play store, that means putting bank details into phone doesnt it? not entirely happy about that so ill look into the vouchers.

that explains the adblock plus thing then, so what do most people use to disable ads on phones these days? ok, buy the premium, but is there a way besides this?

btw, quite by accident i found the stock htc internet app does what im after!! cant believe that, ive always had to zoom in when using it on previous phones so installed other browsers. it loads at readable size and wraps the text, so happy days id still be interested in any other browsers that do this too if you know of any?

thanks chaps

 

[Hadron]

I put my credit card details into Google Play - my phone itself doesn't have them stored. I did not give my actual bank details to anyone.

I use a root ad blocker, but I also buy paid versions of apps I use regularly anyway (if they exist). If you look at the relative downloads of paid vs free apps I suspect that most people just put up with ads because they'd rather not spend the price of a cup of coffee on an app.

Very few Android browsers reflow text these days. Blame the lawyers - Apple patented it (personally I'd have thought that it was so too obvious to be patentable, but I work to a higher standard of "obvious" than the US patent office).

 

[EarlyMon]

Dolphin reflows just fine, go into settings and tell it to not open in page overview.

 

[davo26]

yeah that bits fine mate, it just doesnt wrap the text on the one site i always go to. the other browsers do, but they always open in overview.

 

[davo26]

just started looking into rooting now ive had a few days of relative calm.... :-D

i seem to remember on my old phones that i had to save roms to sd card, instal zip from sd card etc etc. i havent got an sd card in the M8 yet, does that pose a problem? or do i just need one if im going to instal a different rom?

also, for any of you thats rooted the M8, do you find windows laptops will still pick the phone up as a drive, and allow you to drag and drop just fine?

thanks

EDIT: feel free to answer the above questions, but i took another good long read of the 'pro's and cons of rooting' link above. decided i didnt understand 90% of what was said so i should leave alone. i maybe got carried away with the thought of playing around with different roms etc and dont understand the security implications well enough.
thanks