I was thinking of buying jailbreak for the PS3, but then I came across a tutorial on this site that mentioned how to apply custom firmware. As a result I was wondering what the difference between the two were, because if I'm going to have to install a game to the hard drive anyway in order to get smooth play back, I'd at least like to be able to put the disc back in it's case so it doesn't get scratched or damaged.
As far as I can tell the two methods seems to be interchangeable, however I wanted to double check before doing something stupid, and messing things up.
Technically it is all jailbreaking, but the CFWs have better game support, you can start the system without doing a bunch of extra steps, and they are free.
I don't have a PS3 yet (future purchase), so now it's mostly information gathering. I just don't want my discs to get beat up, so basically anything that let's me play from the hard drive is a good idea. However, as someone who has fooled with custom firmware before, I know there must be at least some level of difference. For instance; the Wii.
The Wii has two methods of getting backups to work; a modchip (which costs money), and using the homebrew channel (which is free, but takes a couple of dozen steps, and may brick your system if you mess up). I've fooled with both, and in my experience, soft mod is vastly superior, especially when you got a Western Digital Passport (sorry for the plug, but having not only one cable for data and power, and the fact that its compact and out of the way design makes this the best drive for running Wii games off of).
As a result complexity isn't what I'm really worried about, but more of wondering what different options are available for each method. In the above example I could use a modchip, burn a disc, and be done with it, but did some research into other methods, and basically profited (non-monetarily) from it. As a result I figured there must be at least some small thing different about jailbreak, otherwise, why charge $50 for it? So, yeah, both will allow you to run games from the hard drive without having a disc in the drive, but there must be more to it than that.
It's simple. Some clever guys begun to manufacture jailbreak dongles when original jailbreak came up. But then CFW is appeared, which is fully cover functions of jailbreak + alot more. But what to do with already manufactured dongles? Well some of that sellers sell them for downgrading (which could be very useful in some cases), and others just misinform people, that jailbreak is better in some or another way (which is obviously not). That's the story.
P.S. If you will buy PS3 with firmware of 3.56 or higher you will get no CFW nor jailbreak.
Downgrading is mostly for development and repair purposes...any firmware that can be downgraded can also get CFW (with Linux if you want it), so there is no reason for ordinary users to go to 3.41 or lower.
