For anyone who’s rooted their Android phone or tablet, the SuperUser app is a familiar and friendly face. If you don’t know what it is, it’s that “Droid and crossbones” menu that pops up to allow you to confirm or deny root permissions. After several years as the de facto standard, one XDA member named Chainfire aims to dethrone it with a much-improved application, SuperSU. (Yes, that stands for “Super SuperUser”.)  The free and paid app adds a bevvy of new features for advanced users, and it’s available on the Google Play Store right now.

So what’s so great about the new application? A lot, actually. In addition to the standard allow/deny functions of SuperUser, Super SU keeps an extensive log of all root permissions as they’re accessed. This is a great way for developers to see how their apps are doing, or for the more security-conscious to keep an eye on things. You can also remove root functions temporarily to watch a Google Video movie and restrict permissions on a per-app basis.

The Pro version ($2.49 USD) adds some useful features like an upgrade-proof root function, which should allow most phones to be easily re-rooted after an over-the-air update. There’s also a PIN security mode. But most of all, you should spring for the update to show your appreciation – all this stuff doesn’t come out of nowhere. SuperSU is in its 1.0 release at the moment, so expect a few bugs, but it’s already looking very promising.

[via XDA]