In 2011, the need to circumvent hardware restrictions to install unofficial firmware lessened as an increasing number of devices shipped with unlocked or unlockable bootloaders, similar to the Nexus series of phones.

However, to install precompiled firmware on a PowerShot camera, it is only necessary to download the correct binary and copy it to an SD memory card.

Installing firmware with errors or for a different revision of the hardware, or installing firmware incompetently patched such as DVD firmware that only plays DVDs sold in a particular region can cause bricking.

For those of you looking for a meter stick, I suggest installing special firmware like Tomato on your router.

Updater should continue to be an effective way of installing firmware without carrier approval.

I've considered installing alternate firmware, DD-WRT - I think this is the classic router for DD-WRT - or Tomato.

And then it installs official firmware.

Some mp3 players that do not play games out of the box could be made to do so by installing Rockbox or other alternative firmware.

The only thing I cannot do that can be done with an Android handset is install new firmware to change the set of apps it can run.

Modifying consumer hardware to operate on these expanded channels often involves installing after-market firmware and/or changing the "country code" setting of the wireless card.