Kobo Clara BW

khm:

I now own a Kobo Clara BW. Here's the first thing you need to know: pick a language, connect to wifi, it will update itself. After that it will ask you to 'connect the device' which requires a Kobo account.

Instead of doing that, plug it into a computer, and when it pops up a little window, click 'Connect.'

On the computer go to the .kobo/Kobo directory on the device, and edit the file Kobo eReader.conf. In the [ApplicationPreferences] section, add a line like

SideLoadedMode=true

and save and exit the editor. Unmount the device from your computer, and hold the Clara BW's power button until the white LED flashes. Then press the power button again.

When it boots back up, you don't need to register or connect shit. Dump books on it and rock on.

I'm posting this because every single internet thing which talks about this leaves out two important facts:

• 1) If you edit that file before updating, or before you get to the QR code screen, it won't take.
• 2) Most of the online people access this mode by signing out of an existing account rather than activating it during first-run setup.

Kobo tracks your book-reading by default. It does this to do shit like pop up congratulatory notes if you read a lot of books, or give you 'stats' on your reading habits. In order to perform this, it basically encodes your reading habits and sends them to Google Analytics in a not-directly-attributable-to-you manner, via a fake domain called 'devices.kobo.com.'

So, obviously some folks do not want this behavior. What you can do is make a hosts file with a line like 127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com ssl.google-analytics.com google-analytics.com in addition to the default localhost entry, then put that in a directory called etc and tar | gzip the thing up into a file called KoboRoot.tgz. Plug in your Kobo device, copy that file to the .kobo directory, and unmount your device. The Kobo will see this file as a firmware update, and apply it -- overwriting the default /etc/hosts file with the one you made. Now it can't reach Google Analytics to report anything.

Congratulations on reducing the functionality of your device!

Here's the file I used: KoboRoot.tgz You can use it for reference or use it directly, but I'm not responsible for your Kobo.

There's a ton of other shit you can do to your device -- add fonts, different reading programs, the list goes on, but this is a good start.