Superuser settings to be handled in CyanogenMod 12 through Privacy Guard

CyanogenMod 12 is promising to bring a lot of cool new features to your device, we learned today that it even plans to handle Superuser permissions through its Privacy Guard settings.

Root users know the drill, after gaining access to the full permissions of your Android device, you must install an app like SuperSU to keep things in check. Things are a little bit different when you get your hands on one of the few phones that ship with a custom ROM, but for some that will be no more once Cyanogen Inc. ships the latest version of their custom ROM, CyanogenMod 12, to users.

While controlling superuser permissions has been available to CM users already, CM12 will bring that control to the Privacy Guard settings. This makes it as easy as ever to decide which apps should be allowed to take full control of your device, and which should remain sandboxed in the normal Android permissions structure.

Privacy Guard is already an option that helps handle permissions for the installed apps on your Android device. Privacy Guard allows users to disable individual permissions, locking down problematic or over-powered apps to a controlled set of functionality. This is done on an app-by-app-by-permission basis and produces results that can be extremely useful or that completely break an app.

Privacy Guard alone is currently only able to disable permissions, but the added superuser control will allow Privacy Guard to elevate permissions for apps as well, taking full advantage of the hard work you went through to root your device in the first place.

It looks like the code has been committed to the CM12 build, which means that nightly users should see the functionality soon and other CM based ROMs can start including the code as well. For official stable CyanogenMod users, Cyanogen Inc. has not yet provided a release date for CM12, so you’ll need to hang on to SuperSU for now.

Do you think it should be easier to gain root on your Android device? Should manufacturers or Android itself provide root tools?