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Old 07-04-2017, 01:04 AM   #1
GuyDoodles
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Install Android apps through built-in browser?
Don't know if this is completely ridiculous or not, but I discovered that the Kobo Aura 2 uses the Android browser 4.0 as i found thanks to www.whatismybrowser.com . Can u download apps through beta browsr? Sorry about engrish I am typing on my kobo right niw and we all know how finicky the keyboard is. Hooefully i will have access to an actual computer tomorrow. Also, please ELI5 because im new to the kobos inner workings. thx
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Old 07-04-2017, 02:30 AM   #2
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Sorry, not going to work. The Kobo devices do not run any form of Android. So, no Android application will be installable on it. If you tap a link to a package, it will probably just refresh the screen and not download anything.

And for the record, the user agent sent by the browser is:

Code:
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.0; en-us;) AppleWebKit/538.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/538.1 (Kobo Touch 0370/4.4.9344)
I have no idea why this includes "Android 2.0" in it.

The above is from my Aura H2O running the latest firmware available to it. All the devices report themselves as a "Kobo Touch". But, you can tell them apart by the next number ("0370" means Aura H2O). The last bit, "4.4.9344", is the firmware version. I'd be pretty sure that only the calibre server looks for any identifiers for the Kobo device browser, and it is only looking for "Kobo Touch".
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Old 07-04-2017, 07:14 PM   #3
thedicemaster
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you can see in the user agent that it mentions both firefox(mozilla, gecko) and safari(applewebkit) as well, and obviously it can't be both.
it's basicly saying "i can do anything safari and firefox can do on android 2.0", without directly revealing what browser it actually is.

it reports as android to get touch optimized pages, but an older version so websites are likelier to use simplified pages.
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Old 07-04-2017, 08:41 PM   #4
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you can see in the user agent that it mentions both firefox(mozilla, gecko) and safari(applewebkit) as well, and obviously it can't be both.
it's basicly saying "i can do anything safari and firefox can do on android 2.0", without directly revealing what browser it actually is.

it reports as android to get touch optimized pages, but an older version so websites are likelier to use simplified pages.
Sorry, that's not really correct. Pretty much all browses include "Mozilla/5" and "like Gecko". These were pretty much standardized during the "browse wars". That's 10+ years ago now. Even IE has had these for a long time. So, they really just indicate support for features that are over 10 years old.

The browser is WebKit based and I'm pretty sure the version numbers are accurate. Reporting "Safari" is the questionable bit in there.

But, yes reporting as an old Android version should prompt the server to send the mobile versions of pages.
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Old 07-04-2017, 11:32 PM   #5
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The browser is WebKit based and I'm pretty sure the version numbers are accurate. Reporting "Safari" is the questionable bit in there.
Okay, but how is "Safari" questionable? Wouldn't it just imply that the Kobo's expirimental browser borrows features from Safari? And could somebody explain what nickel's "engine" is? Is it Linux? Qt? On side note, what are fickel and sickel?

As always, please ELI5.
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Old 07-05-2017, 12:30 AM   #6
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Okay, but how is "Safari" questionable? Wouldn't it just imply that the Kobo's expirimental browser borrows features from Safari?
That's probably what they are trying to imply. As it is based on WebKit, it might be justifiable, but I don't know. That's why I stated "questionable".
Quote:
And could somebody explain what nickel's "engine" is? Is it Linux? Qt? On side note, what are fickel and sickel?
nickel is a proprietary application written by Kobo to manage the books on the device. As such, it probably doesn't have an "engine". It uses a pile of libraries include Qt, the Adobe RMSDK and WebKit. The book display, at least for kepubs, uses WebKit.

"fickel" appears to be something with the WiFi. "sickel" is a monitor program that will restart the device if it considers something has hung. Again, both are written by Kobo.
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Old 07-05-2017, 10:44 PM   #7
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Thank you. I kept searching these forums to see what the heck they were. I couldn't find anything. Any clue why they call it that? If there is a separate thread or something that explains it all? It would be greatly appreciated.
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Old 07-06-2017, 12:13 AM   #8
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Thank you. I kept searching these forums to see what the heck they were. I couldn't find anything. Any clue why they call it that? If there is a separate thread or something that explains it all? It would be greatly appreciated.
There is discussion on some of the components, but not much. They are all part of the firmware and hence are just there.

As to the names, I don't know. Why is anything called what it is? There is a pattern, so I would say someone named one of the components, and then when they needed another, they named is something similar.

But, I'm curious, why do we care? The firmware is a package that works together. It doesn't matter what the bits are called so long as they work. The only reason to look at any of this is because you want to fiddle.
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