Kobo devices will all do a setup which includes signing into an account and downloading the latest available firmware. That can be done over WiFi or using the Kobo desktop application. After that, you can turn WiFi, delete the app and sideload books. And you don't have to talk to Kobo again. When doing the setup, you can use a fake email address. Kobo do not validate it beyond that it has to look like a real email address.
There is a method to bypass the setup by inserting a record in the internal database. That has broken with different firmware versions. I believe it works with the current firmware, but, I have never tried it. And, personally, as you can use a fake email address and never connected to Kobo again, I've never seen the point. Of course, I also buy books from Kobo and occasionally use the library, so having an actual working account makes sense to me.
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