2y ago

Rooting android & banking apps

I always favored rooting my phone, used to have a redmi 4x with magisk and lineage os. It was time for a new phone, and got a xiaomi note 10S.

On the 4x I noticed that play store did not list revolut and other banking apps, and the bank Im using said I can't use the app on rooted phone, so I decided not to root my 10S.

However I still think about unlocking and rooting it, but I'm afraid of my banking apps no longer working.

I still would like to use my phone like I did before: NFC payments (google pay), banking apps, play store for said apps, google maps.

Is it possible to create a setup like this? Should I even try?

17 comments

You may use HuskyDG/MagiskHide and Shamiko Magisk module (new version) or MagiskHide(older version) to try hiding root on these apps.
I haven't tried it.
Edit: grammar structure
- My partners phone is rooted, and all their banking apps work by using just Magisk to hide root status. They have been running Xiaomi eu for couple years now.
  
  So you're a couple of power users? You're living the dream, dude
  
  What a coincidence, today the first major roadblock was met: Google Wallet: It won't allow using google pay on their device, probably because SafetyNet fails. Although it also should be circumventable, going to look into it on weekend.
Depends on your banking app. In old Magisk versions you could hide Magisk for apps, but that is dropped since Magisk 24.0. I guess it depends on the banking app if they have a problem with rooted devices or not. The 2 I use don't jabe issues with a rooted device. I don't use NFC for payment so no clue if that's an issue.
Edit: It looks like they added MagiskHide again in 26.1 and added a DenyList feature. I need to dive into this.
https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compatibility-with-grapheneos/
This list of tested banking apps and graphene OS may be interesting to you.
I just install Magisk Delta and disable Zygisk, then enable Magisk Hide for Google Play Services, Google Services Framework, Play Store and your banking app.
- Yeah for some banking apps you need to freeze magisk now, because it finds the service. Still, as of right now it os perfectly doable
You can, but you'll be playing a cat and mouse game between SafetyNet (and whatever security features your bank app uses) with software like Magisk. I used to do LineageOS on a Mi 5 and it'd work 98% of the time. Just a matter if the one week or so a year when it borks out matters to you; it certainly was enough to irk me to not consider rooting any more.
It shouldn't affect Play Store or Google Maps though, those never had a problem.
I was in a similar boat to you but never take my wallet anywhere so needed Google Pay. I used to use the options other mentioned like Magisk but odd days it didn't work after an update meaning NFC didn't work. I couldn't risk it so decided to stop using it. I only really needed adblocking and you don't need root for that anymore.
Just use a second phone for that proprietary stuff. So you dont have to comprise privacy/security on your main/private phone. Also a huge fan of xprivacylua to isolate proprietary apps and feed them random data.
I have been rooting since 2020 and I have never had any issues with my bank app, I usually only need Zygisk and the deny list from Magisk, that's it.
I got it to work pretty flawlessly with Magisk Delta, Universal safetynet fix mod by Displax and then hiding Google play services and whatever apps detect root in Magisk deltas settings
I haven't been rooted for a while since my last rooted device was an HTC 10 back in 2018, but at least back then I didn't have issues with my banking apps. For that though, your milage may vary depending on if your bank's app uses the safetynet API.
For Google Pay, I gave up on that while rooted because even with Magisk Hide I couldn't get it to work reliably and that's unlikely to change since the Magisk dev went to work for Google and stopped working on Magisk Hide due to it being a conflict of interest.
Other than that, apps that use Widevine DRM may not work properly on rooted devices. For example, Netflix incorporates both safetynet and Widevine so you have to sideload it since it won't allow you to install directly from the Play Store and once you do have it installed, the Widevine issue keeps video playback at 480p regardless of network quality.
As much as I am for supporting rooted devices since you should be able to do what you want on a device that you own, unfortunately it isn't really viable to run on a device that you daily. Companies want full control rather than giving you control and many of the restrictions that rooting causes has more drawbacks than pros IMO. I'd probably still root if I'm rooting a secondary device, but I wouldn't root my main phone anymore.

17 comments