CyanogenMod, in a nutshell, is the most popular Android ROM out there. If you hate Samsung’s software, or HTC’s software, or whatever software your operator or handset maker of choice preinstalled on your smartphone, you can get rid of it all and put on a new ROM.

Now granted, not everything might work right, and you can kiss your warranty goodbye, but for folks who have an older device that’s stopped receiving software updates, ROMS made by the Android community are the best way to breathe some life into a device from yore.

And with that, let’s talk about the latest version of CyanogenMod. They’re going to release CyanogenMod 10.1 at some point in the near future, hopefully, but today they’re coming out with the first release candidate. It’s based on Android 4.2.2, so you’ll get things like lock screen widget support, but again, this is a beta ROM, so you’ve been warned.

If you’d rather be a little bit safer, then you could always install a third party Android launcher. It’s not going to get rid of TouchWiz, sadly, but it’ll make your homescreen that much more enjoyable to use. And that’s all anyone can really ask for.