One of the most popular tools among the Android-rooting community is Magisk by John Wu. Magisk is an Android rooting tool that allows users to install custom modules to enhance their experience and customize their devices. For example, users can hide their roots from certain apps, bypass SafetyNet checks, and more. Magisk also has a companion app called Magisk Manager that manages root settings and modules.
There are many modules (FoxMagiskModuleManager) available that can improve the user experience by enhancing audio quality, adding new gestures, improving performance, and providing other functionality. These modules can modify the system without requiring users to tweak the system partition. Developers have made a good number of tweaks to Magisk V26.0, bringing support for the upcoming Android version, Android 14. This version was developed from scratch because it will be released in the not-too-distant future.
Magisk V26.0 works with the Galaxy S23 and now has initial support for Android 14.
The latest update of Magisk no longer supports Android Lollipop or older versions due to a lack of testing and compatibility issues. Magisk released its major update, version 26.0, ahead of Android 14, which is scheduled to release a beta update in April 2023. A lot of new features are coming to Android 14, such as a larger font size, a privacy dashboard, app hibernation, one-handed mode, nearby sharing of Wi-Fi passwords, improved privacy, notification flashes, and more.
Previous versions of Magisk were incompatible with the Samsung Galaxy S23 series, but with the latest update to Magisk, it now adds compatibility with the Galaxy S23 series and other Galaxy smartphones that use the init_boot.img format. On Samsung devices, users no longer need to rely on third-party forks or any advanced methods for the Galaxy S23.
The Zygisk API has been updated to v4, which allows Magisk to hook into system processes to modify system behavior without modifying the app process. Alongside the Zygisk update, there is a refreshed PLT function hook API. The implementation of Zygisk has gone through some refactoring, which includes updated code for loading and unloading mechanisms and the new PLT function hook implementation.
The developer of Magisk has brought major fixes with boot image patching, along with noticeable changes such as the new Magic Mount backend, which now supports loading the system with overlays files. This means the module can now modify system files without requiring interference with the system partition, improving compatibility with OEMs using overlays for system overlays.
SELinux has also been updated, allowing root access and module loading. However, Direct Boot image patching is unaffected because custom recovery environments may not be able to detect and mount the pre-init partition correctly, which could cause problems with SELinux patching. In this case, you may need to reinstall Magisk via the Magisk App after the first boot.
SELinux is responsible for enforcing access control policies on Android devices and is now more capable of detecting and mounting the pre-init partition, which contains the SELinux rules. This does not affect the Magisk installation method you prefer to proceed with. Different devices use different boot image formats or compression to perform Magisk, and Magisk V26.0 has fixed those patching issues. The patching process is a critical step for rooting your Android device with Magisk, which involves modifying the boot partition of your Android device by injecting the Magisk files to enable root access.
Apart from these, Magisk V26.0 brings minor bug fixes and optimizations to MagiskInit, MagiskPolicy, MagiskBoot, and MagiskApp. The new Sepolicy.rule implementation provides custom SELinux patches to improve pre-init partition detection, supporting more Android devices. As for MagiskBoot and MagiskInit, which run during boot to set up Magisk environments, they now support more devices and scenarios, including micro loader devices, Lz4_legacy compression on v4 boot images, and replacing existing *.rc files in overlay.d.