Rooting Samsung Galaxy S4 I9505 International Version

For a long time I have resisted rooting my phone. I haven't been entirely happy with the way Samsung has packed the phone with all kinds of apps but it hasn't bugged me enough to do something about it. Now I'm going on a flight and I wanted some games on the phone to shut the kids up and the phone is already full. And when I check which apps to remove I see that all the apps that I want to remove are Samsung apps that are locked to the phone and can't be removed.

Enough is enough so I start researching ways to root the phone at last. I am on OS X which basically narrows the options down to Motochopper. I actually tried that but it didn't work with my firmware. Possibly I could also use Jodin3. That looked so complex that I never got around to it.

The reason for that is that I stumbled across a very simple way of rooting the S4. It is all done by the application TowelRoot as shown on the instructions here : http://gs4.wonderhowto.com/how-to/root-any-samsung-galaxy-s4-one-click-0155622 . Very straightforward and easy. And it actually works on my S4!

Basically what you do is first set up your S4 to allow sideloading of applications outside of the app store. Then open towelroot.com in your browser on the phone and hit the lambda to download the app. Then install it and run it. The app only has one button with the text "Let it Ra1n". Push the button and you've rooted your phone!

That was easy! Now I'm off to kill Flipboard, ChatON, WatchON and the rest of the bloat.