I want to preface this thread by stressing that if you don't feel comfortable with the current downgrading method, you should probably stay on 9.5-10.3, so you don't accidentally brick your system.
I've been wanting to vent about this for a while now, and this seems like the time to do it. To begin, I am not going to try to say that I have contributed to this community in any way, shape, or form yet. In actuality, all I have done thus far is mooch off the work of others; however, I feel like this needs to be said nonetheless.
In my honest opinion, JustPingo, the author of KTM, really screwed the community the past couple weeks. How you may ask? To begin, he constantly reminded the community that he was working on SNShax, which was supposed to be an alternate downgrading method to MemChunkHax2. However, he left us and other developers who may have picked up the slack waiting. In the end, he never truly released an exploit which users could take advantage of to downgrade their consoles. While he didn't owe the community a single thing, he should never have claimed he was working on an exploit.
This only slowed the community's progress toward making the actual exploit itself, which was probably rushed to ensure it was released before 10.4. Furthermore, this rush may be the reason why MemChunkHax2 is not currently 100% stable and why several users had their 3DSs bricked.
This leads me to my second issue with JustPingo: KTM and it's release. I get it. He wanted to make a tool that made downgrading easy for everyone, which would lower the number of bricked consoled; however, he really didn't develop anything himself. He only leaned on the work of other developers, such as Steveice10, Smea, TuxSH, and julian20. These developers are who we should truly give thanks to, even though their efforts were downplayed by JustPingo.
Continuing with the issue of KTM, I think it is a nice gesture to try to stop noobs from bricking their consoles, but should those same noobs have access to a system version which can be exploited and thus inherently bricked? Personally, I don't think that KTM is a big deal in any way because the people who would have bricked their systems via the downgrade will probably eventually brick their system by installing a corrupt .cia to their sysnand or by installing something to the console's NAND. If users aren't familiar with checking the MD5 hash of a couple files, then I certainly don't think they should have access to the kernel of a $200 console.
I guess my total point with this rant is to try to make users understand one thing. As a long time member and developer of the iOS jailbreaking community, I can't stress this enough: if you are going to downgrade, do it now. Don't wait for KTM. As has been suggested, Nintendo will probably be releasing 10.4 soon, which will most certainly patch our current exploits. Finding another kernel exploit could take years, if we find one at all (since the 3DS console will soon be outdated).
While the current downgrade methods can be dangerous, following the tutorials, checking your MD5's, and asking for help will almost certainly ensure you a 9.2 system. If you don't feel comfortable doing the downgrade, you don't have to; however, I stress that all advanced users hop on the downgrade train before the train has left the station! If you soft-brick your console now, you can always upgrade to an exploitable system version.
I hope this has made some of you change your minds about waiting for KTM, since we all need to get downgraded ASAP.
TL;DR
I give my opinions about KTM, JustPingo, and the current methods of downgrading. Specifically, I address their safety and urge users to downgrade while they still have a chance.
I've been wanting to vent about this for a while now, and this seems like the time to do it. To begin, I am not going to try to say that I have contributed to this community in any way, shape, or form yet. In actuality, all I have done thus far is mooch off the work of others; however, I feel like this needs to be said nonetheless.
In my honest opinion, JustPingo, the author of KTM, really screwed the community the past couple weeks. How you may ask? To begin, he constantly reminded the community that he was working on SNShax, which was supposed to be an alternate downgrading method to MemChunkHax2. However, he left us and other developers who may have picked up the slack waiting. In the end, he never truly released an exploit which users could take advantage of to downgrade their consoles. While he didn't owe the community a single thing, he should never have claimed he was working on an exploit.
This only slowed the community's progress toward making the actual exploit itself, which was probably rushed to ensure it was released before 10.4. Furthermore, this rush may be the reason why MemChunkHax2 is not currently 100% stable and why several users had their 3DSs bricked.
This leads me to my second issue with JustPingo: KTM and it's release. I get it. He wanted to make a tool that made downgrading easy for everyone, which would lower the number of bricked consoled; however, he really didn't develop anything himself. He only leaned on the work of other developers, such as Steveice10, Smea, TuxSH, and julian20. These developers are who we should truly give thanks to, even though their efforts were downplayed by JustPingo.
Continuing with the issue of KTM, I think it is a nice gesture to try to stop noobs from bricking their consoles, but should those same noobs have access to a system version which can be exploited and thus inherently bricked? Personally, I don't think that KTM is a big deal in any way because the people who would have bricked their systems via the downgrade will probably eventually brick their system by installing a corrupt .cia to their sysnand or by installing something to the console's NAND. If users aren't familiar with checking the MD5 hash of a couple files, then I certainly don't think they should have access to the kernel of a $200 console.
I guess my total point with this rant is to try to make users understand one thing. As a long time member and developer of the iOS jailbreaking community, I can't stress this enough: if you are going to downgrade, do it now. Don't wait for KTM. As has been suggested, Nintendo will probably be releasing 10.4 soon, which will most certainly patch our current exploits. Finding another kernel exploit could take years, if we find one at all (since the 3DS console will soon be outdated).
While the current downgrade methods can be dangerous, following the tutorials, checking your MD5's, and asking for help will almost certainly ensure you a 9.2 system. If you don't feel comfortable doing the downgrade, you don't have to; however, I stress that all advanced users hop on the downgrade train before the train has left the station! If you soft-brick your console now, you can always upgrade to an exploitable system version.
I hope this has made some of you change your minds about waiting for KTM, since we all need to get downgraded ASAP.
TL;DR
I give my opinions about KTM, JustPingo, and the current methods of downgrading. Specifically, I address their safety and urge users to downgrade while they still have a chance.
