Many are stuck. They have made a big investment in books, all locked to their buggy, failing Kobo devices. This is the problem of ending up in a failing business ecosystem: you’ld love to leave for a better device, but you will lose all the books you have already purchased, along with free books from promo’s that are no longer available. While I would NEVER recommend purchasing another Kobo product, or investing more money in books locked to that environment, there are two ways to protect you investment:
1. While to Kobo software is very buggy, the worse problem is their hardware is cheap, pathetic and flawed. Most of the issue arise from hardware, so one path is to lose the hardware. Kobo has both an IOS (iPhone/iPod/iPad) and Android (phone/tablet) app that lets use move your books to any of the great hardware available from other companies. The upside is you don’t have to worry about hardware failures. The downside is, it is only truly and option for those that have a device already.
2. Kobo’s hardware is so bad, they can’t even sell it all. To get rid of the excess inventory, the ‘fire sale’ it to overstock companies like Factory Direct (www.factorydirect.ca). Currently there are 20 different Kobo readers available ranging in price from 29 to 129$ CAD. While they will likely be as crappy as the one you currently have, 29$ can buy you a year or more with your books. For 69$ you can get the Android Kobo. The big advantage there is that Kobo did not build or design the hardware. It is a standard Chinese Android tablet with the Kobo app added. I will last for years, and you can download the Kindle app not buy any more books from Kobo!
Probably the best choice is a general device (I went with Google Nexus + Kindle app), but I do miss the e-Ink display and longer battery life. My kids are using the Sony e-Ink Reader, and I may get one of those as well.
Kobo Problems 
For all those losing books – I hope you are using Calibre, or copying all your books to a PC. That way you will still have them and can restore them.
Great Tip, thanks! John is right. You bought the book, not the DRM. If you can get it off and backed up, do it. The you are free to move to more robust platform when you Kobo prematurely dies.
I bought one kobo and it just freeze and i cant get it to work
Did you buy it new? Take it back immediately! Otherwise, factory reset and see if there is a software update available.
The interface is buggy and the lack of a zoom function makes this thing a piece of garbage to read any nonfiction book with maps or tables. How frigging stupid. My 9 year old sony reader has a better interface
All true. These readers are only recommended if you have lots of books trapped in the kobo system. That is why I bought it, but any new books I purchase using the kindle app I installed on the kobo android and it works great. There are a couple of other good free reader apps out there as well, but I would recommend the kindle one.