CyanogenMod Installer is an app designed to walk you through the process of installing the company’s custom version of Android on your phone or tablet. The app actually consists of two parts: an Android app that helps walk you through the process and a PC app that does the heavy lifting.

Earlier in November, the CyanogenMod team started offering the installer through the Google Play Store, making it easy for folks to download. But now it’s been removed from the Play Store, at Google’s request.

You can still download and install the app for free from the CyanogenMod website — you’ll just need to enable support for apps from “unknown sources” in your Android settings first.

cm installer_04

According to the CyanogenMod team, Google didn’t consider the app harmful, but asked that it be removed from the Play Store since it encourages users to perform an action which may void their warranty.

Unlocking the bootloader and replacing the firmware on most phones and tablets violates the warranty terms for most warranties, no matter how easy it is to do. It’s also possible to re-lock the bootloader and re-install the stock software on most Android devices, but the CyanogenMod installer offers no guidance for doing that.

CyanogenMod is a custom version of Android designed to replace the software that came on your device. It’s based Android Open Source Project code, but includes tweaks such as the ability to customize the quick settings panel or register for a CyanogenMod Account which lets you remotely locate or wipe a device without going through Google’s servers.

It’s one of the most popular custom builds of Android, and the CyanogenMod Installer simplifies the process of loading it on a device — but it only works with a small number of devices at this point, and to be honest, there’s a downside to simplifying the process. If anything goes wrong and you’re unfamiliar with the world of ADB, fastboot, and custom recovery, you may have to go through a crash course to fix any problems that arise.

Still, the more people use the CM Installer, the more people will be able to provide feedback and help the developers improve the software.

 

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4 replies on “CyanogenMod Installer is no longer in the Google Play Store”

  1. Once upon a time i tried to install cyanogen on my oldie galaxy S2. Once i tried it there will be no reason for me to go back to the original sucky samsung firmware.

    The performance and stability of cyanogen is very outstanding compare to stock firmware. No more junk applications inside, already removed nicely by cyanogen developer and i got more freedom to do everything to my own handphone. It is my phone and i want to have full control of it. With stock firmware i cannot do anything.

  2. I think this may not be such a bad thing. Having the user enable non-Play sources on their device and download and install an APK manually is a “You must be at least this nerdy to ride this ride” sign. I think it actually needs a higher bar than that, but lower than “install these drivers on your computer, hook your device up, type these incredibly cryptic adb commands and post your logcats if anything doesn’t work”. The one-click-root-and-ROM packages on xda are a nice compromise, but can still, like this installer, get you in over your head pretty fast.

    The real solution is for hardware that ships with Android to be as open as any PC. More open, now that PCs have stuff like Secure Boot ostensibly designed to protect you from ’90s-era boot sector viruses but, today, are really just barriers in the way of users installing their own choice of OS. Unfortunately, as long as the carriers are able to dictate terms to handset makers, phones are going to have these hoops to jump through and other devices will follow — something that probably appeals to Google as they slowly usurp Microsoft’s monopoly position in personal computing.

  3. “Google didn’t consider the app harmful, but asked that it be removed
    from the Play Store since it encourages users to perform an action which
    may void their warranty.”

    Yeah right – It has nothing to do with the warranty, it’s all about Google being in CONTROL.

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