• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Help Downgrade back to older firmware

  • Thread starter Thread starter godlovingman
  • Start date Start date
G

godlovingman

Guest
Hi sorry I don't be on here any unless I have a need an answer for something anyway I'm thinking about getting an Galaxy S7 to replace my S6. But the S7 I'm thinking about getting is running 7.0 I need to downgrade it to 6.0.1 so I can continue to use foxfi my s6 keeps eating batteries so want newest phone I can use and still use foxfi. How hard is it to downgrade from 7.0 to 6.0 on the S7? TIA!
 
On newer androids you don't need Foxfi, You turn WiFi Hotspot on under Settings>Network & Internet. I'm not sure if 7.0 has that option. If it does you wouldn't need to worry about downgrading the software
 
AugieTN said:
On newer androids you don't need Foxfi, You turn WiFi Hotspot on under Settings>Network & Internet. I'm not sure if 7.0 has that option. If it does you wouldn't need to worry about downgrading the software
Click to expand...
You have to pay for the hotspot though don't you? I've had foxfi almost 10 year now 3/17 will be I paid for it then and haven't had to pay for it since. I'm still under the old grandfathered data plan been with Verizon since they bought alltel out.
 
AugieTN said:
Yes, you have to pay for data/internet when you use hotspot.

Foxfi says, "...FoxFi usage is covered under your phone's existing data plan..." So it sounded like the same thing to me.
http://foxfi.com/
Click to expand...
That's why I've kept my s6 so long so I keep using foxfi paid for it once and uses data from my data plan not a separate hotspot plan. That's why I was wondering how hard it'd be to downgrade an s7 to 6.0 so I can keep using foxfi and not pay extra for a hotspot plan. If the hotspot in newer firmware used existing phone data like foxfi I'd be happy instead of having to pay for phone data and separate hotspot plan data.
 
I guess "separate hotspot plans" are a US thing? In other part of the world there are no such things, and hotspot usage is just the same as any other data usage. For that matter hotspots have been a standard part of Android firmware for a very long time: every Android I've had, back to 2.x, had that feature built in, so if your older phones don't have it that's because your carriers have been removing it.

Unfortunately I don't live there so don't know whether your carriers still suck in this way (making something like FoxFi necessary) or whether they've decided to give up on that particular rip-off.
 
godlovingman said:
That's why I've kept my s6 so long so I keep using foxfi paid for it once and uses data from my data plan not a separate hotspot plan. That's why I was wondering how hard it'd be to downgrade an s7 to 6.0 so I can keep using foxfi and not pay extra for a hotspot plan.
Click to expand...
Hadron said:
I guess "separate hotspot plans" are a US thing? In other part of the world there are no such things, and hotspot usage is just the same as any other data usage. For that matter hotspots have been a standard part of Android firmware for a very long time: every Android I've had, back to 2.x, had that feature built in, so if your older phones don't have it that's because your carriers have been removing it.

Unfortunately I don't live there so don't know whether your carriers still suck in this way (making something like FoxFi necessary) or whether they've decided to give up on that particular rip-off.
Click to expand...
Verizon fought for years to keep companies like FoxFi from doing what they do making you pay extra for a hotspot plan instead of it being included with your data plan itself. I use foxfi to power my laptop, TV and ps4. So I use close to 200gb of data a month I'd love to get a newer phone but been trying to keep older phones to keep foxfi working.
 
godlovingman said:
Verizon fought for years to keep companies like FoxFi from doing what they do making you pay extra for a hotspot plan instead of it being included with your data plan itself. I use foxfi to power my laptop, TV and ps4. So I use close to 200gb of data a month I'd love to get a newer phone but been trying to keep older phones to keep foxfi working.
Click to expand...

If you are using 200GB a month I'm surprised Verizon hasn't came up with a reason to cut you off, regardless of what was grandfathered in. Maybe they will if you change phones. Good Luck!
 
AugieTN said:
If you are using 200GB a month I'm surprised Verizon hasn't came up with a reason to cut you off, regardless of what was grandfathered in. Maybe they will if you change phones. Good Luck!
Click to expand...
Sorry I just looked I use around 100gb used to use around 150 but I don't be online as much as I did.
 

Attachments

  • plan.jpg
    plan.jpg
    211.7 KB · Views: 71
Last edited by a moderator:
A solution might be to install a custom ROM of the desired Android version. The Galaxy S7 is quite an easy device to root, I've rooted an S7 myself. and had plenty of support on XDA Devs.
 
Last edited:
mikedt said:
A solution might be to install a custom ROM of the desired Android version. The Galaxy S7 is quite an easy device to root, I've rooted an S7 myself. and had plenty of support on XDA Devs.
Click to expand...
Same process as going back stock firmware isn't it? I don't want to possibly brick a phone or worse with a bad rom.
 
godlovingman said:
Same process as going back stock firmware isn't it? I don't want to possibly brick a phone or worse with a bad rom.
Click to expand...

Yeah, pretty much, which means the device must be rooted to install an older stock Android 6 ROM.

The S7 I had, I installed LineageOS, but this was years ago, and no longer have that phone.

FYI
https://lineageos.org/
https://forum.xda-developers.com/f/samsung-galaxy-s7-exynos-roms-kernels-recoveri.5125/ef

Having to do this sort of hackery just to enable tethering is something I've not seen for myself of course. All smart-phones I've had, tethering is standard, without having to pay any extra fees to a carrier.
 
mikedt said:
Yeah, pretty much, which means the device must be rooted to install an older stock Android 6 ROM.

The S7 I had, I installed LineageOS, but this was years ago, and no longer have that phone.

FYI
https://lineageos.org/
https://forum.xda-developers.com/f/samsung-galaxy-s7-exynos-roms-kernels-recoveri.5125/ef

Having to do this sort of hackery just to enable tethering is something I've not seen for myself of course. All smart-phones I've had, tethering is standard, without having to pay any extra fees to a carrier.
Click to expand...
Verizon charges $24 a month to use tethering/hotspot wish it was free so I wouldn't have to use a work around app like foxfi.
 
mikedt said:
A solution might be to install a custom ROM of the desired Android version. The Galaxy S7 is quite an easy device to root, I've rooted an S7 myself. and had plenty of support on XDA Devs.
Click to expand...
Looking on the sites looks like only the international version has roms unless I'm looking at it wrong.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom