It is becoming increasingly difficult to flash a mobile phone. What should Android users do?

Since the birth of Android phones, flashing has always been a hot topic.

But you may have this feeling: it seems to be getting harder and harder to flash your phone nowadays. And fewer and fewer people are still trying to flash their phones.

Why is it getting harder and harder to flash your phone? Do Android users no longer need to flash their phones?

Do we still need to flash the machine now?

Flashing, to put it simply, is the process of reinstalling the system on a mobile phone. In the early years, the Android system was not perfect and stable enough, and mobile phones often needed to be flashed to maintain smooth operation, or to perform some fancy operations that the native system could not complete. Flashing is almost one of the necessary skills for Android users.

With the upgrading of Android versions, and the domestic manufacturers' increasingly better deep customization of Android, fewer and fewer people are flashing their phones.

Do we no longer need to flash the machine?

Actually not.

To give the simplest example: if your phone has a black screen and cannot be turned on (commonly known as bricking), you can try to flash the phone yourself to save it; but if you don’t know how to flash, or the phone cannot be flashed, you can only watch it become scrapped.

In addition, flashing can be used to delete built-in advertising apps, make the phone more personalized, etc. In general, as long as the phone system is not 100% corrupted, the need for flashing will always exist.

Why is it becoming more and more difficult to flash the phone?

There are two main reasons:

The first is that mobile phone manufacturers take a negative attitude or even deliberately set up barriers.

Today's mobile phone manufacturers are very enthusiastic about selling mobile phones, because they can make money from selling mobile phones; but they are relatively negative about after-sales support such as flashing the phone, because this area cannot generate direct profits and manufacturers are not willing to waste time on it.

Not only that, users flashing their phones may also directly harm the interests of manufacturers: mobile phones now come with a lot of advertisements when they leave the factory, and the income generated by these advertisements is one of the important profit sources of mobile phone manufacturers. Flashing the phone means that you may remove these ads or even simply change to another system, which means that the manufacturer will lose a large part of its income.

In addition, the prohibition of flashing is also an important support for the fan economy of manufacturers. If you use the phone of this brand and its system, you will become its loyal fan - the so-called Apple fan, Mi fan, Hua fan, etc. Your information and needs are fully known by this brand. In the future, when this brand launches any new products, you are the most likely potential consumer to pay for them.

Therefore, in order to prevent users from flashing their phones, mobile phone manufacturers now set up many barriers: no longer providing flashing packages, setting BL locks and no longer providing unlocking methods, encrypting the flashing ports, etc. The purpose is not "for the safety of users" as advertised by the manufacturers, but is essentially driven by profits.

Article 2: Private masters or third-party institutions gradually fade out.

In the past, one of the important reasons why flashing was so active was that there were a large number of private organizations or third-party experts who "did it for love". They continued to study the fun of flashing and taught more and more people how to flash.

However, with the improvement of the Android system, fewer and fewer users are keen on flashing their phones, and these organizations and experts are losing motivation - Cyanogen, the most well-known Android third-party ROM manufacturer in the industry, was completely shut down at the end of 2016.

With blockades in front and no reinforcements behind, it will naturally become more and more difficult to flash the machine.

Where has the flashing become more difficult?

First of all, it is difficult to find the flash package.

In the past, you could basically find the flash package you wanted by searching on Baidu; but now if you search for newer phones, you will find that it is very likely that you can't find it. The reason is as mentioned above, neither the official nor the third party is developing it, so naturally you can't find it.

Secondly, the technical requirements for flashing the phone are getting higher and higher.

Flashing a phone is getting harder and harder now - BL lock is a big problem. Many phones, if they are not unlocked or cannot be unlocked, can only be flashed by disassembling and short-circuiting. This operation is too difficult for ordinary users, not to mention that it cannot guarantee 100% success.

There is still a demand for flashing, but the difficulty of flashing is getting higher and higher. As an ordinary Android user, what should I do?