Security guru Jcase and friends at theroot.ninja have released a utility that will S-off and bootloader unlock the HTC One (M8), HTC One Mini 2, HTC One Remix, and possibly other newer HTC phones. The only two requirements for the utility to work are a Sense-based ROM and root access, which is attainable with several exploits. And in a move that is sure to earn the team the ire of many on the interwebs, they have decided to release the utility as paid, licensed software at the price of $25 per device license. You can grab the utility, and read an explanation of why they made the decision to charge for the utility,
.Now, please indulge me while I editorialize a bit. Rather than regurgitate the explanations that are linked to above, I'll just add this: a move like this has been a long time in the making, and will likely become more common in the future. And like it or not, it's a good thing. It will allow the security experts to devote the time and obtain the resources they need to keep finding and producing the utilities that implement the exploits that allow us to have things like root access and bootloader unlocks. As we have all been hearing for quite a while now, Android is only getting more secure, and these exploits are getting increasingly difficult to find. And let's face it, the interwebs are great at promising huge bounties to find the vulnerabilities that allow us to do all of this cool stuff with our devices, but the reality is these guys are lucky to get 25% of any given pledged bounty. $25 may seem a bit steep to some, but when you compare that to the price of most unlocked, developer edition phones, it's not even close. All of us who benefit from the work these guys do, in their own time I might add, should in no way begrudge them for wanting to be compensated for that work. If they choose to offer up a product for free, great, but if not, that is their decision, and it should be respected.
Source: theroot.ninja, thanks to livinginkaos for the tip!