Touch Remove Offers/Ads

[ddave7]

I love my new Kobo Touch. It answered the two main requirements I was looking for in a touch screen based reader; it can do a page refresh every page turn (the reason I returned a Nook Touch), and it is much thinner and lighter than the Kindle Touch.

However....... the ads on the sleep screen have to go.

Now before I get jumped on by people who have issues with this let me state that:

1) If any of my local stores had a non-offers model I would have bought it. It seemd like the only Kobo Touch you can buy these days in my dirt is the with offers model.

2) If Kobo offered a way to pay to eliminate the ads, like Amazon does, I would gladly pay. It looks like that is not an option at this point.

3) Turn the device over, close the cover, etc. is also not an option. I'd like to be able have a book cover during sleep mode. Even a blank page would be fine....

So here I am stuck with a great reader that just cycles through the same set of lame ads. You don't even get new ones every now and then. I have them memorized now, so I feel Kobo got their money's worth.

I did find a way to get rid of that irritating recommendations banner. I simply downgraded to version 1.9.14. Same reading experience with no banner.

Has anyone had any success removing the offers/ads?

[Cdesja5]

Canceled response...

[RareBird]

There is an old thread discussing this here but my understanding is that it isn't possible. The other solution for getting rid of the recommended reads is to set it to shortlist rather than downgrading the firmware. Just my two cents.

[filmo]

He paid discounted price buying KT with advertising instead of paying full price for KT without ads that is updated to have hated recommended books Kobo doesn't call advertising while everyone else knows it's advertising. You knowingly bought KT with advertisements on sleep screen. Now enjoy it, sell it or buy cover to protect and hide the ads.

[ddave7]

RareBird, I did find the thread you reference when searching and it didn't sound too encouraging. Since it was written some six months ago I was hoping that someone may have made progress.


filmo, I took great care to frame my question to avoid worthless replies like yours. READ THE POST, I couldn't buy the KT without ads because it IS NOT available locally for me to buy. I would have happily bought the ad free version, or paid an upgrade fee, IF THEY WERE AVAILABLE. You actually may want to READ THE POST next time.....

[m_bisson]

lol filmo was saying that the non-offers version still has ads. He is correct... but Kobo calls them "Recommended Reads" instead.

Originally Posted by ddave7

I couldn't buy the KT without ads because it IS NOT available locally for me to buy. I would have happily bought the ad free version, or paid an upgrade fee, IF THEY WERE AVAILABLE.

I'm sympathetic with your desire to buy locally and understand your dilemma, but I also have to ask if you tried to do a special order through the store.

Ultimately I think that your request is going to go unfulfilled for three reasons:

• The number of people interested in hacking the Touch is rather small, and the few hackers that are around seem to be interested in other projects.
• It is probable that the advertising code is buried in a closed source component of the Touch, which means that there is an even more limited number of people with the skill to modify it.
• People are timid about changing it when Kobo does offer an alternative. Unfortunately the alternative isn't as easy to buy out of as Amazon's, and it does add some inconvenience for people like you.

It's not an immediate solution, but I would suggest watching this project: http://ccoffing.net/tech/proj/ocherbook/ With any luck the author will be able to provide alternative reading software that will improve upon Kobo's offering.

[novou]

I think I recall somebody mentioning that they edited the database on the Kobo to remove the ads, though I'm not sure if brought it ad-free book-cover sleep screens, it may just blank out the ads.

Also, if someone made a custom firmware update file which packs in the ad-free Kobo's entire internal system, then you could probably turn your device into a vanilla one by upgrading with that. (until you do a factory reset) It's a safe assumption that both versions use identical hardware, but with different software running on top.

FW update files typically only include the changes from the original factory install, so that's why installing an ad-free FW update won't alter or remove the ad-system files not included in the FW file.
(This risk of inconsistency is also why doing manual FW rollbacks, or a cross-grade between ad-supported/ad-free is a pretty lousy idea.)

That said, removing the ads that way would not be the most ethical approach, and Kobo should offer a way to pay to remove the ads. I'm sure it's only a matter of (an unknown length of) time before that option is available.

Wasn't there some discussion earlier about the software being the same, but the software served up ads on units with certain serial numbers?

If that wasn't the case, it would be dead simple for someone to package up an ad-free firmware and give it to someone else. After all, the filesystem on a rooted Touch is very much exposed.

[novou]

If it depends on serial numbers, then that would be a large amount of work to circumvent, since you'd have to make the Kobo report a fake serial number, and that could cause a whole host of problems too (collisions?)

I hadn't heard of that structure, and I assumed it was a client side ad-pull.
A SN list would make it much easier for them to turn ads off for people who pay, but if it was that easy, then they might have set up the option for that already.

[Sharkus]

To to OP, out of curiosity, where are you located?

[ddave7]

Well, I decided to go to Plan B.....

I just picked up an older, non-offers KT through craigslist. No more ads on the sleep screen..... The KT with offers will be going back to Best Buy.

Thanks for the help everyone.

[novou]

I got my (ad-free) KT from Best Buy too, I just shipped it to store, brand new;
so you could've bought an ad-free device in the first place.
Glad to hear you got it worked out to your satisfaction though!