There’s a publish over at MobileRead the place somebody found that Kobo is now utilizing Safe Boot on the brand new Kobo Libra Color, and that in all probability contains the opposite new Kobo fashions as nicely (the Clara Color and Clara BW).
On the floor that may sound like a great factor for safety causes, nevertheless it’s not like Kobo ereaders are an enormous goal for hackers, and it additionally means Kobo might shut off modding their units with a future software program replace, much like what Amazon does with Kindles.
This additionally makes all of it however unimaginable to put in alternate working techniques on the brand new Kobo fashions.
At current, you’ll be able to nonetheless set up mods and alternate studying apps like KOReader on Kobo’s new units, however now there’s the likelihood that Kobo might shut down stuff like that sooner or later in the event that they needed to.
There’s an lively developer’s neighborhood for Kobo’s units with every kind of mods and fixes that provides folks extra choices on how they selected to make use of their Kobo units. It’s one of many essential issues that units Kobos aside from Kindles, which Amazon actively goes out of their option to maintain locked down. If Kobo decides to take an analogous strategy as Amazon, it’s going to tick off lots of people.
It’s unclear why Kobo is immediately altering course on this, however they may be doing it to make their units seem extra “safe”, despite the fact that it doesn’t actually accomplish something apart from aggravating individuals who like to change their bought Kobo units.
Older Kobos are unlikely to be affected by this, nevertheless it’s not fully out of the query and is one thing to regulate if you happen to like modding your Kobo ereader. Hopefully Kobo will proceed to permit folks to put in mods and different studying apps like KOReader sooner or later.