Paranoid Android firmware - review: how to download, install? Paranoid firmware


Ambition makes you look pretty ugly
Kicking, squealing, Gucci little piggy
You don't remember
You don't remember

Off with his head, man
Off with his head, man
Why don't you remember my name?
I guess he does

About “Paranoid Android”

  • What have the artists said about the song?

  • From radiohead.com, circa 1997 (undited):

    paranoid android. in a bar in hollywood* the center of the western universe, standing at the bar (social drinking) after doing the talk show bit. do you want to know this? this is what we aspire to is it? it is dark, there is a woman opposite me o is as sociably anorexic as her poodle, she looks desolate in her make up and lost eyes, next to her husband boyfriend is persuading a younger fleshed half his age stewardess to come back to the hills to their mansion to sample his wine. she looks t him like he’s a character in a hammer house horror. one of our friends spills a glass of wine over a vacuum packed gucci outfit complete with matching white hand bag. the witch goes crazy, we think it is funny. until we see the evil in her eyes. m friend is asked to leave. the gucci creature is the closest thing i have seen to the devil. the woman is possessed. i cannot sleep that night asking what we’ve got our selves into. voices talking like fax machines, hissing and spitting like demons, this is the master race. and now im part of it. anyway you didnt want to know that.

  • What happened to the song's demo version?

    An early demo version of “Paranoid Android” has been in circulation for a long time on the internet.

    The main differences between the versions are in the arrangement, the last verse, and outro. The word “hallelujah” is sung repeatedly, making the Judeo-Christian references even clearer. Radiohead explained the reasoning behind some of the changes in an issue of Rolling Stone:

    [“Paranoid Android”] originally had a Hammond organ solo that goes on forever. It’s hard to listen to without clutching the sofa for support.

    Jonny Greenwood

    When we started at Canned Applause would play the song linearly. Nothing really happened with the outro. It just spun and spun and it got very and went off. Then it was like, ‘We’re going to change sonically what happens in the middle, so it’s a jump.’ Thom came up with the whole thing about the delaying the band coming in. So the moment we think it should go up, he just goes around on the acoustic. I thought that was very clever.
    We had to put different sections of the song together from completely different parts. We had to fake and tape-edit to make the different sections of it go into each other. It’s a very hard thing to explain, but it’s all on 24-track and it runs through. But I had to do a sort of pretty snazzy… I was very pleased with myself. I sort of stood there and said, ‘You guys have no idea what I’ve just done.’ It was pretty clever.

  • What's with the screaming at the end of the song?

    Amidst the distorted guitars that close “Paranoid Android” – one of the heaviest moments in the Radiohead catalog – muffled screaming can be heard. The band and their collaborators talked about it in an interview for Rolling Stone magazine. Stanley Donwood:

    I remember watching them run a microphone with a long wire out into some little ornamental building, a shed, in the garden. They were cutting vocals for “Paranoid Android,” and Thom was just letting go and screaming his head off. It was a very strange evening.

    Release Date May 26, 1997

The moment when the user learns that for any Android the device can be installed custom firmware, often becomes a turning point, because before that it was always constrained by factory restrictions. With the advent custom ROM freedom comes. This includes freedom of choice, and choice sometimes turns out to be painful, but we will try to make this difficult task easier. Below you will find an overview of the best Android firmware: CyanogenMod, MIUI, Illusion ROMS, Paranoid Android, PAC ROM And AOKP. A universal guide to installing them can be found. For each specific device you need to search in this.


Many of you have probably encountered the fact that in Android There are absolutely unfamiliar words in the vocabulary. If you have been in the ecosystem for a long time, then it is not difficult to understand the essence due to the accumulated experience, but for beginners this can become a serious obstacle in understanding various processes or problems. In this post, we tried to collect all the most common terms and describe the main processes that occur in the operating system.

Paranoid Android ROM got a new feature called Halo. Its essence is that users get a completely new way to work with notifications and messages. A new feature is enabled from the status bar, after which notifications (messages) appear in a small round icon that can be placed anywhere on the homescreen. This icon also allows you to very quickly go to the application from which notifications (messages) are received. In this case, all processes that were involved before (for example, a game) are suspended. Idea Halo taken from Facebook Chat Heads, but its boundaries are significantly expanded.


Sony have not yet released operating system updates for Xperia S up to version Android 4.2.2. Jelly Bean, and it is unknown when this will happen. But users already have the opportunity to experience all the benefits of the latest OS thanks to custom ROM. In this post you will find a detailed guide on how to install firmware on Sony Xperia S.

Sony they've been promising a way out for a long time now OTA updates for Xperia S, but so far this has not happened even in the case of the OS version Android 4.1, so many users have long switched to custom ROMs, including on ParanoidAndroid. ROM platform based CM10 and does not contain bugs or errors. Besides ParanoidAndroid equipped with unique features and applications that you will not find in stock firmware versions. Also installing this ROM will allow you to reconfigure, optimize and improve the performance of your Sony Xperia S.

Not long ago, users Sony Xperia Arc there is an opportunity to enjoy all the delights Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean. This became possible thanks to the release of a new custom ROM firmware. If you also want to experience in practice all the new features of the latest OS and you are the owner Arc, then this article is for you. ROM is called Paranoid and includes all the features Jelly Bean And Google apps available for updates and improvements Xperia Arc. The procedure specified in the article is applicable only with the latter; other devices may be damaged. For this opportunity we should thank the developers from XDA, especially considering the fact that for this smartphone model there are no updates to Jelly Bean not planned yet. Thus, this is the best opportunity to get your hands on the latest version of the OS. Also note that this is not an official update and for this reason it must be installed manually. And since the guide is quite simple and each step is not particularly difficult, you don’t have to worry about anything. Just read the text of the article carefully.

Paranoid Android is a custom firmware with many features. It is based on the popular CyanogenMod project. The name of the firmware is similar to the Radiohead song. And perhaps (this has not been officially confirmed) it was named after her. In this article we will talk about the unique opportunities that this firmware offers, and also give brief instructions on how to install it.

The main difference between Paranoid Android and other firmware is the ability to change the appearance of each element of the system. This becomes possible thanks to the “smart” change of screen dpi. Other firmwares make changes to the system file to solve this problem build.prop. Which is not always justified and negatively affects the performance of the system.

Features of Paranoid Android

As the main developer of this firmware, Paul Henschel, states, Paranoid Android is a ROM that meets three main requirements:

  • Has hybrid functionality. Today, many firmwares use this feature. But exactly PA became the first to introduce this regime to the masses. Of course, the hybrid mode itself does not make the firmware better, but without it it is impossible to imagine the functionality of modern smartphones and tablets.
  • Is close to drain. Stock firmware is better than custom firmware in terms of performance and security. Therefore, the closer the custom firmware is to the one that is preinstalled on devices running Android, the safer and more productive it is. Base Paranoid Android is CyanogenMod. And as we wrote in this article, this firmware is very close to custom and does not overload the system with useless and unnecessary features.
  • Developed based on fan demand. Now this firmware has a huge number of fans. They organized a community where they share their vision of the future of this firmware. Developers take an active part in communication within this community and use the most interesting features submitted by users in new firmware versions.

Increasing usable screen area

As already said above, PA has such a feature as Hybrid Mode . With its help, you can use the device simultaneously in phone and tablet mode, without relying on the DPI of the system or a specific application.

You can set the display mode using a special menu "Paranoid Settings". Simply move the slider to the desired position DPI.

The user interface is selected in the Workspace tab from several modes:

  • Hybrid OFF– standard view, hybrid mode active
  • Stock UI– stock view, hybrid mode active
  • Tablet UI– a view with a large amount of usable space thanks to the combination of status and navbar
  • Phablet UI– pure Android, hybrid mode active
  • Phone UI (small)– telephone view
  • Tablet UI (small)– optimal view for 8-inch tablets
  • Tablet UI (mid)– classic look for tablets over 8 inches

In the firmware settings Paranoid Android You can specify the default appearance mode for applications. This is done in the section "User interface" . Here you can also set a common DPI for groups of applications and the lock screen.

Notification preview

Created to work with the appearance of application display Apps tab. When changing DPI, you can always see what happened before applying the system changes. This tab also lets you “trick apps into thinking” they're running on a larger screen. At the same time, applications themselves will choose the settings for such display.

Backup copies of the settings of this custom firmware can be made in the tab "Backup and Restore" . Here, if necessary, you can load an already saved copy of the settings. The tab menu looks like this:

  • "Reset properties"— return settings to their original state
  • "Backup preferences"– creating a backup of settings
  • "Delete backup"– deleting all or some of the saved settings backups

If something seems incomprehensible to the user of the Paranoid Android firmware, you can always read the help of this ROM. To do this you need to go to Help section .

Improved navigation

The reader of this article may get the impression that the main difference between this custom firmware and the stock one is the ability to modify the interface to suit your needs. But it is not so. Here you can also take advantage of some of the functions that were described in.

The main features of Paranoid Android, in addition to changing the display on the screen, are:

  • "Floating peek"— the ability to open one application window on top of another
  • "Immersive Mode"— hiding the status bar and navigation keys in any application
  • Switch settings quickly and easily in a special window by holding your finger
  • Changing the battery percentage display

Unfortunately, most of the team behind this firmware today works for OnePlus. Because of this, the development of this firmware has slowed down greatly. But, old developers have created many unique solutions for OPPO, Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P. In particular, the mode "Peek"(“In your pocket”) and gesture settings.

But there is no such interesting thing as changing processor performance modes in Paranoid Android, unlike CyanogenMod.

As in the case of Cyan, the installation of this firmware on different smartphone models may differ. Therefore, we will tell you how to install PA on a popular smartphone Google Nexus 5.

  1. First, download the firmware from this site
  2. Then download the GAPPS package to install Google services on your device
  3. We transfer files to the smartphone’s memory using a PC (no need to extract them from archives)
  4. Turn off the smartphone and boot into recovery mode (how to do this is described in detail in)
  5. Create a backup copy Nandroid (Backup mode)
  6. Reset settings to factory defaults ( Wipe mode )

And after such preparation, we proceed to install Paranoid Android on your smartphone:

  1. IN CWM mode go to "install zip from SD card" and activate there "choose zip from SD card"
  2. IN TWRP select a tab "Install" and find the saved firmware file in the phone memory

IMPORTANT: While the firmware download process is in progress, the phone buttons cannot be pressed!

  • Then we repeat the download for the second downloaded archive

Reboot your smartphone and use the updated firmware of your device.

Paranoid Android is an alternative firmware that has rich functionality and an interesting appearance. It will significantly improve the use of your Android smartphone for the better. System updates come via OTA. But, unfortunately, the number of supported devices is not as large as we would like.

Video. Paranoid Android - firmware with rich customization