What does rooting your phone do?

[Stelv]

Support depends on the rooting community that surrounds a device or Rom. Some devices have a huge community and resources, some do not. Rooting can be risky and one should definitely research custom recoveries, how to make a back up after rooting, how to return to stock once rooting and overclocking 101 amongst other things. I have rooted three devices and can say it all went pretty smooth as long as I research the hell out of things first. I messed up my rooted nook color a while back but was able to fix it with a guide written by members of a support forum for the rooted nook.