It should be underlined that the Hybrid Firmware is not a Custom Firmware by itself: it only acts as an enabler for the webkit exploit. The HFW is distributed as a PUP file and it can be installed via USB as any official update. Today, they managed to do just that: the team has released a so-called 'Hybrid Firmware' (HFW) which can be installed on top of Sony's Official Firmware and bring back the previously mentioned webkit exploit, thus making you able to use the already existing PS3Xploit tools again. Still, it didn't take long for the dev team to figure out that wasn't the case, as Sony had just removed a webkit flaw that the team used as an entrypoint: if they found a way around it, the exploit could have been brought back and reused. The tools were able to work under firmware 4.82, aka the latest OFW when they were originally released, however when 4.83 dropped (and later 4.84) it initally looked like the exploit they relied upon was patched. If you've been following the PS3 scene then you may already be familiar with PS3Xploit, a collection of tools which either allows you to install a fully fledged CFW on compatible models or act as a HAN enabler for the previously called 'unhackable' ones.
