Your Motorola Droid supports mulitouch, so why isn't it included in your stock browser? Don't know, don't care: here's how to get it, along with lots of other help tweaks, right now.


WARNING: You should be fine if you follow the instructions closely, but there's a slim chance you could brick you phone. And unless your restore your stock bootloader and software image before sending it back to Verizon, rooting the phone can void the warranty. Proceed at your own risk.

So! The American Droid may lack multitouch, but the European Droid, called the Milestone, does not. It is possible to replace your Droid's software with the the Milestone's, but it's a bit risky, and still buggy—GPS doesn't work, for example. (More on that here, if you're feeling hardy) Luckily, we can gank a little piece of the Milestone's software—the browser, specifically—to give your AmeriDroid the multitouch it deserves, without much trouble. Here's how:

Root your phone, with these instructions from AllDroid:

1. Download the droid-super_user.zip file from here (md5sum cf653352967253e99d967498ffd9ce69).

Do not extract.

2 - Rename the file to "update.zip".

3 - Plug your Droid into your computer via USB. On the Droid go to the Notifications bar and select "USB Connected" then press "Mount".

4 - Once the device is mounted, the SD card will show as a removable device on your computer

5 - Put the "update.zip" file you just renamed into the Root (top) directory of your SD Card.

6 - Unmount the device from your computer, and turn the Droid off.

7 - Hold down the "X" key on the physical keyboard and while doing so press the power button. Hold both of them down until you see a Triangle with an !.

8 - Press the Vol+ and the Camera button together until you get a menu.

9 - Using the D-pad on the physical keyboard, select the option to update with the update.zip file.

10 - This should take a little bit. Once it's done select the option to reboot the phone.


You won't notice much different about your phone, but trust me: it's changed.

2. Install the multitouch native browser. Now that your Droid is rooted, you can change virtually anything about it. Like, say, its default browser! First, download the Milestone browser files from here, and copy them over (the .apk and .so files) to your device's SD card, in the top, or root, folder

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Now, the easiest way to execute hacks like this is with a terminal, so you'll have to download one—search "Terminal Emulator" in the App Market and install that. Now run it. You'll arrive at a command prompt, where you just need to enter the following, each followed by the "Enter" key on your keyboard:

su

mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock4 /system

rm /system/app/Browser.odex

cat /sdcard/Browser.apk > /system/app/Browser.apk

cat /sdcard/libmtwebcore.so > /system/lib/libmtwebcore.so

mount -o ro,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock4 /system

sync

reboot


Now, open your browser. Pinch. Zoom. Smile.

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