Last week we reported that the Galaxy S4 had been rooted prior to launch. Shortly after the article was published we had to edit the article as well known exploiter Chainfire reported that the root method that had always been tried and true would not work on the Galaxy S4. The developer who had repackaged the Samsung firmware with su into an Odin flash able image had good reason to believe this method would work even without having tested it since this had always been the tried and true method for rooting Samsung devices in the past. He had not accounted for the fact that Samsung has included Knox, a security measure that separates the business side of your phone from the personal side, which makes the phone more palatable to enterprise.
Chainfire has been working on the root method for the Qualcomm variant for a while now. He discovered early on that while you are able to inject the su binary into the firmware, the device reboots when the same binary is executed. Chainfire has developed a root method that actually works using his CF-Auto-Root process. This method will only work for the GT-I905 Qualcomm LTE model version of the S4.
Via XDA
Chainfire has been working on the root method for the Qualcomm variant for a while now. He discovered early on that while you are able to inject the su binary into the firmware, the device reboots when the same binary is executed. Chainfire has developed a root method that actually works using his CF-Auto-Root process. This method will only work for the GT-I905 Qualcomm LTE model version of the S4.
Via XDA