There was a time when I would practically swap the ROM as soon as I took a phone out of the box. Sometimes that wasn’t possible because the device was so new and had almost no community behind it. But in most cases, opening HTCmania or XDA was a haven of options to customize my phone’s OS.

Those were different times. Android has undergone a magnificent evolution in recent years. Not only on the hardware level, but in everything related to the operating system. Talking about MIUI, EMUI or TouchWiz ten years ago makes me shudder a little: they were terrible systems compared to what we have today.

The society was much more vibrant. The era of CyanogenMOD, Paranoid Android and other ROMs was lived with a lot of anger from the inside. More up-to-date ROMs from the manufacturer itself, that cleanliness that took us away from the very heavy ROMs that were available at that time…

Modifying the ROM meant gaining updates, fluidity and even functionality (customization, ROM-specific applications) in most cases.

There weren’t many obstacles in the bootloader. There is one major barrier to access when changing the ROM: unlocking the bootloader. A few years ago, most phones could be easily unlocked, except in certain cases, like Samsung did with its ODIN program. Some even with a few commands.

Today things have changed. For example, to change the ROM to a Xiaomi, we have to wait a whole week, that is, 168 hours, just to be able to unlock the bootloader.

Manufacturers like Google are starting to put up barriers by blocking AI functions in case we unlock the bootloader – a problem if we want to root the ROM but not modify it – and in general everything is much more difficult than before.

ROMs are becoming more and more complete. Who would have told me a few years ago that Samsung ROM would be one of my favorites? This is just one example of how software has changed over the years, enriched with artificial intelligence functions and increasingly high-quality native applications.

The same goes for support. Manufacturers are starting to provide updates for up to 4.5 and 7 years, something that was unthinkable a few years ago.

If we add to this the death of Pixel Experience, the best ROM to turn an Android mobile into a Pixel, I am starting to run out of reasons to dedicate the necessary time – which does not mean that there are still no reasons – to modify the ROM.

In my particular case. Out of pure nostalgia I still have a few phones with ROMs. A POCO F3 with Pixel Experience and a lot of Xposed modules, a Pixel 6 with GrapheneOS… However, beyond curiosity, it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to install a Custom ROM on my personal phone.

We invite you to tell us your story and current relationship with ROMs, a world that receives less attention than it did a few years ago but refuses to die.

On Xataka | The game’s preservation is largely dependent on several ROM sites. One of the most important just died