Rooting is a process allowing users of mobile phones, tablet PCs, and other devices running the Android operating system to attain privileged control (known as root access) within Android's subsystem. Rooting is often performed with the goal of overcoming limitations that carriers and hardware manufacturers put on some devices, resulting in the ability to alter or replace system applications and settings, run specialized apps that require administrator-level permissions, or perform other operations that are otherwise inaccessible to a normal Android user. Rooting is analogous to jailbreaking devices running the Apple iOS operating system or the Sony PlayStation 3. On Android, rooting can also facilitate the complete removal and replacement of the device's operating system. As Android was derived from the Linux kernel, rooting an Android device is similar in practice to accessing administrative permissions on Linux or any other Unix-like computer such as FreeBSD or OS X.