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They absolutely have left that door ajar on purpose. Presumably they calculate that by being the de facto go-to reader for the people who want to install their

They absolutely have left that door ajar on purpose. Presumably they calculate that by being the de facto go-to reader for the people who want to install their own software, they can both sell more devices and don't need to splash a lot of money up the security wall playing cat and mouse with motivated hardware hackers (who would become pretty motivated if they found there were no open platforms). It's not as if people who would install koreader would just roll over and start throwing money down on Kobo store books. They'd just never buy a Kobo at all. I have a Clara HD and it's a fun little Linux device (no android nonsense, just a good old shell), Koreader is pretty great (a few rendering bugs aside) and I can even ssh into the thing _and_ pull files down from my computer with WebDAV though the koreader UI.

Fargren 5y ago
What do you mean by install their own software? What are people installing on their Kobos? I bought mine just because Kindle doesn't have ePub support[0]. Now I'm curious what else I could do with it. [0]I know about Calibre. I'm not willing to jump through any hoops for ePubs. This should be basic functionality on any ereader.
- nvllsvm 5y ago
  Alternative reader applications like koreader and plato open up more customization than the default reading app allows for. https://github.com/koreader/koreader https://github.com/koreader/koreader https://github.com/baskerville/plato https://github.com/baskerville/plato
- Georgelemental 5y ago
  Kobos let you install custom book-reading software without too much hassle. KOReader[0] is the most popular one. I like it because it allows for a ton of customization, can properly render pretty much any EPUB you throw at it (much better than stock), and can reflow PDFs (using K2pdfopt[1] under the hood). But there are some other alternatives, including Plato[2] (simple, easy to use, fewer features) and PBChess[3] (closed source, play chess on your Kobo). The MobileRead forums[4] are quite active, you'll find a lot more there. [0] https://github.com/koreader/koreader https://github.com/koreader/koreader [1] https://www.willus.com/k2pdfopt/ https://www.willus.com/k2pdfopt/ [2] https://github.com/baskerville/plato https://github.com/baskerville/plato [3] http://pbchess.vlasovsoft.net/en/ http://pbchess.vlasovsoft.net/en/ [4] https://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=223 https://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=223
- neuralRiot 5y ago
  I have a Boox and i just drop the epubs on the sd card.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > I bought mine just because Kindle doesn't have ePub support[0]. > [0]I know about Calibre. Amazon actually provides their own tool to produce a Kindle document from an ePub. The assumption seems to be that you'll naturally produce Kindle ebooks by writing ePubs and converting them. But the tool doesn't work! I wanted to have line numbers floating to the left of the main text. ePubs are just HTML, and it's easy to do this. It works fine in ePub readers. But while I tried multiple different ways of accomplishing this in an ePub, none of them made it through the conversion to Kindle.
urthor 5y ago
Any customer who actually cared enough to bother to circumvent, is too savvy to be taken advantage of. It's a filter for idiots. One of the unfortunate things you'll realize about the (FMCG) advertising industry, is that most of the results from advertisements is made from the impressionable customers. Impressionable people are the money makers, but they're not the savviest. Hence you're essentially building business models that are targeted at the lowest common denominator. You don't even want the clever customers, they make you less money.
- Syonyk 5y ago
  > You don't even want the clever customers, they make you less money. Some research has been done on "Why are the various scam emails so absolutely horrible, wouldn't they get way more hits if they actually had a native language speaker check them first?" They concluded that the awfulness of it is a useful filter for the most gullible of the gullible. You can only string along so many people. > Far-fetched tales of West African riches strike most as comical. Our analysis suggests that is an advantage to the attacker, not a disadvantage. Since his attack has a low density of victims the Nigerian scammer has an over-riding need to reduce false positives. By sending an email that repels all but the most gullible the scammer gets the most promising marks to self-select, and tilts the true to false positive ratio in his favor. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/WhyFromNigeria.pdf https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...
UncleOxidant 5y ago
How does one checkout books from the library with a Clara HD? Our library uses the Libby app - does that work on the Clara?
- adhesive_wombat 5y ago
  Apparently[1], yes, it does, via some Adobe DRM thing (so maybe it requires Windows?) [1] https://help.libbyapp.com/en-us/6059.htm https://help.libbyapp.com/en-us/6059.htm
- techniko 5y ago
  I have a Libra 2, but I don't think it should be that different. You log in/create an Overdrive account on your Kobo (Libby is made by Overdrive), add your library card to your Overdrive account and you're good. Then when you search for books on the store on your Kobo you click the three dot menu (next to the buy button) and "Borrow" will be an option if it's available from your library. Otherwise after connecting Overdrive you can use the Libby app on your phone or wherever to borrow books, then just connect to wifi and sync your Kobo, and it automatically downloads the borrowed books

Fargren 5y ago

What do you mean by install their own software? What are people installing on their Kobos? I bought mine just because Kindle doesn't have ePub support[0]. Now I'm curious what else I could do with it. [0]I know about Calibre. I'm not willing to jump through any hoops for ePubs. This should be basic functionality on any ereader.

nvllsvm 5y ago
Alternative reader applications like koreader and plato open up more customization than the default reading app allows for. https://github.com/koreader/koreader https://github.com/koreader/koreader https://github.com/baskerville/plato https://github.com/baskerville/plato
Georgelemental 5y ago
Kobos let you install custom book-reading software without too much hassle. KOReader[0] is the most popular one. I like it because it allows for a ton of customization, can properly render pretty much any EPUB you throw at it (much better than stock), and can reflow PDFs (using K2pdfopt[1] under the hood). But there are some other alternatives, including Plato[2] (simple, easy to use, fewer features) and PBChess[3] (closed source, play chess on your Kobo). The MobileRead forums[4] are quite active, you'll find a lot more there. [0] https://github.com/koreader/koreader https://github.com/koreader/koreader [1] https://www.willus.com/k2pdfopt/ https://www.willus.com/k2pdfopt/ [2] https://github.com/baskerville/plato https://github.com/baskerville/plato [3] http://pbchess.vlasovsoft.net/en/ http://pbchess.vlasovsoft.net/en/ [4] https://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=223 https://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=223
neuralRiot 5y ago
I have a Boox and i just drop the epubs on the sd card.
thaumasiotes 5y ago
> I bought mine just because Kindle doesn't have ePub support[0]. > [0]I know about Calibre. Amazon actually provides their own tool to produce a Kindle document from an ePub. The assumption seems to be that you'll naturally produce Kindle ebooks by writing ePubs and converting them. But the tool doesn't work! I wanted to have line numbers floating to the left of the main text. ePubs are just HTML, and it's easy to do this. It works fine in ePub readers. But while I tried multiple different ways of accomplishing this in an ePub, none of them made it through the conversion to Kindle.

urthor 5y ago

Any customer who actually cared enough to bother to circumvent, is too savvy to be taken advantage of. It's a filter for idiots. One of the unfortunate things you'll realize about the (FMCG) advertising industry, is that most of the results from advertisements is made from the impressionable customers. Impressionable people are the money makers, but they're not the savviest. Hence you're essentially building business models that are targeted at the lowest common denominator. You don't even want the clever customers, they make you less money.

Syonyk 5y ago
> You don't even want the clever customers, they make you less money. Some research has been done on "Why are the various scam emails so absolutely horrible, wouldn't they get way more hits if they actually had a native language speaker check them first?" They concluded that the awfulness of it is a useful filter for the most gullible of the gullible. You can only string along so many people. > Far-fetched tales of West African riches strike most as comical. Our analysis suggests that is an advantage to the attacker, not a disadvantage. Since his attack has a low density of victims the Nigerian scammer has an over-riding need to reduce false positives. By sending an email that repels all but the most gullible the scammer gets the most promising marks to self-select, and tilts the true to false positive ratio in his favor. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/WhyFromNigeria.pdf https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...

UncleOxidant 5y ago

How does one checkout books from the library with a Clara HD? Our library uses the Libby app - does that work on the Clara?

adhesive_wombat 5y ago
Apparently[1], yes, it does, via some Adobe DRM thing (so maybe it requires Windows?) [1] https://help.libbyapp.com/en-us/6059.htm https://help.libbyapp.com/en-us/6059.htm
techniko 5y ago
I have a Libra 2, but I don't think it should be that different. You log in/create an Overdrive account on your Kobo (Libby is made by Overdrive), add your library card to your Overdrive account and you're good. Then when you search for books on the store on your Kobo you click the three dot menu (next to the buy button) and "Borrow" will be an option if it's available from your library. Otherwise after connecting Overdrive you can use the Libby app on your phone or wherever to borrow books, then just connect to wifi and sync your Kobo, and it automatically downloads the borrowed books