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I can't root my phone because I don't have an image for it (Moto G73) although I'd like to, but for some reason my banking app thinks it's rooted and refuses to work. This happened just after I updated it, it wasn't happening before.
Edit: I'm regretting not getting the Motorola Edge 40 Neo, which also costs £250, but is slightly better in multiple ways, and seems like it has better root support.
If you didn't root your phone, but multiple root detection apps go off (don't just try one), there's a good chance some piece of malware managed to root your phone. This is exactly the scenario banking apps include root detection kits for. It could be a false positive, but this certainly warrants further investigation.
If other apps also indicate root access (i.e. antivirus apps), it's probably best to restore factory settings and hope this clears up the infection. If it doesn't, you'll need to restore the entire system from a factory image (if that's possible in the first place) and hope your phone doesn't get infected again.
I would advice installing multiple antivirus apps and having them scan your phone. If they also tell you you've been rooted, I would trust them to tell the truth. If they don't report root access, but do report a bunch of viruses, the virus may have found a way to evade root detection by AV and may be installing weird apps in exchange for money from shitty ad fraud companies. If none of them are throwing up any warnings and only this specific app is complaining, you might want to wait a while and see if it goes away; if could just be a bug in your banking app.
If you can't clear the infection, I'm afraid your phone is rootkitted. In that case, I would recommend you not to use it for anything important. To prevent your phone becoming part of a botnet, you might need to remove your SIM, not enter your WiFi credentials after the next factory reset, and consider leaving it off entirely. If you start needing to enter more and more CAPTCHAs to enter websites, that can be a sign of some kind of infection on your network. If you've noticed something like that recently, it may be connected.
~~Your phone was last updated almost a year ago, so if you were infected, it may just be a matter of time before you're infected again.~~ Edit: I was wrong, it'll receive security updates until early 2026. Staying away from pirated apps and apps from sketchy sources may help prevent reinfection.
While I agree with most of what you said, I'm pretty sure the phone gets monthly security updates.
Hmm, weird. That website wasn't in any of my Google search results. I guess it's because of their weird SPA design? It also seems to provide security update information from before the phone was released? Your link just provides a bunch of details about CVEs for me.
But I looked again at the Motorola site and it does appear the phone receives updates up until 2026, so you're absolutely right. Motorola should really publish this data somewhere easier to find, IMO.
Hypatia, which is the only antivirus I could find on F-Droid, didn't return any negative results. It would be helpful to be able to monitor my internet and what connections my phone is making, but all I have is simple net monitor, which can tell me the speed and nothing else. I can see there's background network activity, but no way to tell if it's legitimate (for something like syncthing) or malicious.
Just FYI, rootkit malware does exist for phones
What is that and how does it relate to my issue?
Spyware that roots your phone.
Well how could it do it if I can't?
A lot of exploits exist to root a phone. Bad apps can abuse those exploits.
You don't actually need an image to root a phone, that's not what rooting is... It's just gaining full administrative privileges over the device
Fucking DRM.
This happens because "normie" Android devices has a proprietary shit called SafeNet Attestation API
SafetyNet is the old thing. It's all about Play Integrity now. Magisk & friends have already moved on to a new method of fingerprint spoofing.
This is the correct take.
Is your system software fully updated?
Are you running a Beta version of the system software?
It's the latest stable version, it updated a couple of days ago.
That shows a bunch of FAQs, was there a specific one you wanted me to see?
Did you enable developer mode and their message is stupid?
I enabled developer mode, but it's not rooted.
But Android is open source! Oh, until you actually do any fucking thing with it. Be gone, Google.
Adjacent topic... Do you use a credit union? Because fuuuuuuck banks.
My bank just merged with another and released a new app. Immediately when trying to log in it said that the app can't be used with developer mode enabled.
With developer mode enabled? I have that enabled, although my error message is about root. With a degoogled stock ROM, you have to have adb to backup system data, it's crazy your bank was blocking that.
Credit unions are better but that doesnt mean their app will work on a rooted device
Source: My credit Union app doesnt work on my rooted devices 🙃
Nationwide is a building society, which I think is kind of similar.
Install TB Checker and use the various detection modes to figure out what the bank app might be picking up on.
They check for a lot of (dumb) things instead of just checking for Play Integrity like they're supposed to. For example it might be detecting an app that could be using root, even if it's not, and assume that means you must be rooted, even though you're not. 🤷
8 known trackers, and won't open when I install it from Aurora. Yeah...
Lineage OS user here, my banking app got an update a while ago that stopped trusting my finger scanner because I'm rooted. Luckily it still allows passwords or else that would be a deal breaker.
*Edit, now that I think about it I'm not even rooted, just an unlocked boot loader.
Did you unlock your bootloader? Some apps just scan for Google Play SafetyNet or in some other way to check whether you unlocked your bootloader or rooted and if they think you do they will vaguely state you are rooted.
Other's concern about your phone being infected are justified and I recommend you to try whether a dedicated root checking app thinks your phone is rooted. These usually don't lie.
Regarding your rooting situation I always rooted the lazy way. Renamed magisk.apk to magisk.zip, flashed it and it always worked for me. But I rooted only 2 phones in my life really and this is not the recommended method by magisk developer.
Is it OEM unlocked?
Yes, but not rooted. I could relock it and see if that solves the issue, but the app was opening fine when it was still OEM unlocked for several months until the app was updated yesterday. I didn't want it locked in case I did ever find a custom ROM for my phone and I didn't want to delete all my data.
Pretty sure this is the reason then, OEM unlocks can trigger this on some devices.
magisk can hide root from apps
Yes, but only if I actually rooted it, which I didn't. I'd like to root it, but couldn't find any trustworthy image for my phone to patch.
I keep waiting for KernelSU support for more devices
I think there's magisk module that can bypass that but i forgot what's name
3 years ago i unlock bootloader + install custom ROM/Kernel in my mom phone (bc it's still running very ancient android) & install magisk after that i activate the module that can hide magisk presence (forgot what's name) so all e-banking & other payment apps work well
And how are they going to use it if they can't root their phone?
Indeed
More and more every day, I wish the Firefox Phone had survived.
It kinda did survive. KaiOS is forked from Firefox OS, though it's more designed for Kinda-Smart feature phones in developing countries.
Firefox had a phone? I wish Firefox would try again.
They did. It was a project initially called "Boot to Gecko," about a decade ago; and the idea was to make a Linux kernel OS so lightweight that you were running web apps as close to bare metal as possible. There were intended to be no binary apps, only web apps running on open standards; though that didn't necessarily carry through as originally intended.
I agree. I think it was before its time and would be a real boon today.
I can't remember much about it but I seem to remember that the actual hardware itself was very entry level which was part of the problem. It really would have done better to appeal to enthusiasts.
I get that it was marketed at third world countries, but I still think they would have done better had they had a western version with more up-to-date specs as well, if only to get the kind of market share that would encourage app developers.
Yeah, I read a retrospective written by one of the developers, and it sounds like they had the trouble that they could only get development partners for low-end devices (which kind of meant that they had to target developing countries) but they couldn't get companies like WhatsApp to make web apps that would run on Firefox OS (which meant that it was kind of a non-starter in those developing countries).
Couple that with some questionable priority decisions at the top of the project, and a major reshuffling of Mozilla's organizational aims near the end of the project, and it all just sort of fell apart. I do kind of wonder if it would have done better today, or maybe as a tablet or a Roku competitor.