Is it possible to get s-off without paying 25 bucks for the sunshine app?

I'm coming from a Nexus 5 so i expected to just be able to unlock the bootloader and download a custom rom, well no. After about an hour of trying to figure out why the fuck i keept getting boot-loops i figured out i needed to "turn s-off" so i tried using firewater but with no success and after some more googling it seems like HTC put in a fix to prevent firewater from working (i might be wrong here?) and i really dont want to pay 25 bucks just to be able to get this sense shit off my phone.

Thanks!

EDIT: ended up biting the bullet and paying for sunshine, thanks for all the help though!