Do you really own the device you purchased?

Sounds confusing right?

Let's take a simple scenario – you purchase a smart phone, un-box it and powered up, initial boot completes, you enter your email and device is ready for use. Now you stand staring at home screen of new device swiping left and right, let's touch app drawer icon and it there goes... lots of apps pre-installed for your convenience.

You start exploring these convenience apps one by one, accepting complicated “terms of use” where needed and after playing around a while you realize that most of these pre-installed apps are absolutely unnecessary and proceed to delete them.

What happens next? The result:

To make story short, pre-installed convenience apps (called 'bloatware') cannot be deleted from a device that you thought you owned. Why? Because a corporate seeking ROI thinks these apps are best for you regardless of your opinion.

Story does not end here, let's think about:

• Any idea how these companies use your personal information/data? No
• Any idea what access privileges bloatware enjoy that you have to live with? No
• Any guess why terms of use have to be so tricky and lengthy? No

Lets take a step further and look at desktop PCs and laptops. Does it not seem like every manufacturer is telling us that we have been living a wrong and unproductive life? And its only them to tell us “best thing for you” as if we are morons having no idea about choice.

Now are you getting what I mean by “owning the device you purchased”? Let's look into breaking free.

'Own' a device

This part may sound too difficult (for some may be) but not at all – it is only a matter of willingness and exploring a few web pages to get going.

Smart phone devices

• Rooting the device: Rooting (or gaining super user access) gives you absolute authority over the device bringing everything at your disposal. Be it removing bloatware or installing apps requiring root access such as an app to manage device's storage the way you want, for example. Files needed for rooting each device vary by make and model but procedure conceptually remains same.

• Custom ROMs: At the end of day, every device has a processor meaning every device has to have an operating system – the same goes with smart phones. Fun and most adventurous part begins when you break free from bloatware loaded stock ROM shipped by manufacturer to install custom ROM of your choice, developed and maintained by faithful community of developers. Custom ROMs come with many features including new and creative user experiences, access to hidden features, improved battery life and best of all giving you an opportunity to do the device 'your way'.

• Firewalls: If you still feel need for full control on apps sending and receiving data, you can install firewalls to allow or restrict apps access. This makes sure nothing happens without your explicit permission.

Laptop and desktop PCs

It's all about Windows: No it's not, it just gets shipped with most of new personal computers sold without consumers' choice to have it pre-installed or not.

Unless you are not running a special purpose software that largely requires Windows platform, world is open and free to experiment with Linux. Wine (a Linux compatibility layer for Windows programs) runs most of Windows programs and games successfully on Linux.

Let's see this way, if you are into elegant and beautiful looking personal desktop then rest assured you have not seen anything yet. If it is about security and proven stability than Windows is not even coming close to it.

Linux world is full of options – as a starter you may be interested in exploring Solydkx or Zorin or Ubuntuand after gaining some experience may consider advanced (and my favorite) Manjaro and Antergos Linux (or even most elite Arch Linux) distributions to have complete choice about building your own desktop from bare bones OS.

You can play around safely in Linux using LiveCDs or installing on virtual PCs as both of the methods are non-destructive of your current setup.

What is gained or lost?

Be it rooting and installing custom ROMs on smart phones or installing Linux on your PC – every tool and software is open source, community driven and totally free. The process of experimenting with software gives you good knowledge about devices and not to mention yet again, the way you want your device to be. This at times saves unnecessary hardware upgrade costs, software licensing costs including fun of rejuvenating old devices using simple tools available at our disposal.

Believe me, the day you experiment with your device it will be a life long different vision of how you see your devices.

In the end, its all about freedom of choice not just the freedom of buying certain piece of hardware to have a signature device being an extension of yourself.

Thoughts and comments welcome!

Note: Rooting or installing custom ROM on your smart phone will void its warranty, you've been warned!