The Android operating system has always had the root user account tucked away ever since the dawn of the operating system. Rooting was more popular in years past because there were more applications out there for rooted users that stock Android didn’t have features that it could match. Now stock Android has more features and has taken many of the useful features that were once restricted to those only with root access.

On top of Android using many of the root features, it also tightened the security of the operating system a lot, making it much more difficult for third-party devs to create rooting tools. All through the years up until now, Chainfire’s SuperSU was able to get root access to all devices that had a custom recovery like TWRP available. All you need to do was unlock the bootloader, flash the custom recovery image and then upload the SuperSU and it was done.

Then came the part when Android changed the game by putting the “su” daemon into the system partition and running it at startup. The result was the old version of SuperSU no longer worked, and Chainfire needed to come up with a new idea. He eventually developed a version of SuperSU called the systemless root, and it got its name because it no longer went through the system partition. The results were good for being able to install most root apps out there, but it wasn’t perfect.

Google developed something called SafetyNet which was a new feature that meant if you got root access from then on—even with the systemless version of the SuperSU—it would be tripped and stop things like Android Pay working. That meant rooted users had no choice but to unroot their devices if they wanted to be able to use Android Pay from there on out. The same deal was with Netflix also.

There were still hundreds of useful root applications out there that people could run, but not having access to Android Pay and Netflix meant that many people had unhappily had to stop using rooted Android operating systems, even though they would have loved not to. Chainfire never came up with a solution to this with his SuperSU.

Now there is a new tool called Magisk. It comes with a unique version of SuperSU and its own Manager application as well. The Magisk SuperSU and Magisk Manager can run a full systemless root, allow root access to all applications and still do it all without tripping SafetyNet. That means it’s possible to have root access and use services like Android Pay. Netflix will work too.

Download Magisk to Root Android 5.0.1 Lollipop