Proving that nothing really ever dies, a team out of Russia has been working on custom firmware for the venerable Nokia N86 - and has produced a 'Symbian World' themed OS - you know, with the cute Symbian cartoon imagery of recent (well, 2010) times... See below for details and download link.

'Bounty Hunter' says:

We finally released very stable and quite deep mod of Nokia N86 FW. Non touch Nokia phones have far too few good Custom FirmWares (CFW). So our group Symbian_Zone in Russia is still trying to use this phone to the max. :)

This CFW is very clean, all dead Nokia services are deleted, and the CFW has many important fixes like built-in SHA-2 certs for normal web browsing, officially updated library, Nokia Maps, N-Gage and others.

Also, an optional ROM Patcher used. So you can use official software and unsigned packages too. 

This is the first CFW from our Symbian_Zone: Symbian World series. Also, we finally understand how to calibrate the core in Symbian 9.2 phones, so the next CFW will be done for the Nokia N81-1/N81-3 (Nokia's N-Gage 2.0 flagship) and a few more.

There's a detailed changelog, though here machine translated from the original Russian:

Modified firmware "Symbian World" for Nokia N86 8MP (RM-484).

It is based on the original firmware v30.009.

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Features of CFW:

• All interface, input and help languages ​​are removed, except English and Russian;
• The default language is English;
• The default date is 01/01/2017;
• The default standby mode is "Standard" (In which the "idle mode" is empty);
• The default USB mode is "Drive";
• Updated time zones, for Russia there is no more time translation, but Moscow is still "GMT + 4", not "GMT + 3";
• The default time delimiter is a colon, the date separator is a dash, for all languages;
• The "Themes" icon is returned to the menu. The theme "Nokia NSeries" is replaced by "Symbian World Silver Theme";
• In the corresponding menu in "Themes" many different waiting modes are added;
• Reduced the top bar in the menu. There was more space for the icons, and the menu now looks the same as on Symbian OS 9.1 / 9.2;
• New menu structure. Added folders: "Multimedia", "Data Manager", "Internet", "Location", "Games", "Help";
• Replaced application icons "Dictionary", "Reading message", "Home Media", "FM-transmitting", "Phone settings" On the OVi style. Initially, one part of these icons was in the NSeries style, and the other, in the ESeries style: Nokia E66 / E71;
• The "Real Player" icon is now replaced with themes;
• The system has the effect of the NSeries themes, but it is not registered in the manifest, which has never worked. Corrected. Now all standard themes have this effect;
• The OVi standby mode has been replaced with a mode where there are only application shortcuts and 8 notes of the calendar, since in standard horizontal standby mode only 4 calendar notes can be accommodated. But there is a plug-in built-in E-Mail client;
• In the horizontal standby mode, by default, the mail and Internet exchange lines are disabled;
• The calendar plug-in on the desktop shows events only for the current day, and not for 7 days in advance;
• The warning about emergency calls in the standby mode when the autonomous mode is active has been removed;
• Quality of images for the camera: 100% - for all resolutions, and for video recording, the bit rate is increased from 4 MB / s to 5 MBit / s;
• The cache for firmware via FOTA is reduced to 0 bytes, as new versions of official firmware will no longer be available;
• In normal and offline modes, warning signals and key signals are disabled. In silent - vibration is included;
• 24-hour screensaver by default;
• Backlight timeout: 60 seconds, screensaver: 90 seconds, animation: 60 seconds;
• Backlight brightness is set to 25%;
• The dictaphone by default writes in the "Standard" quality: .wav with a bitrate of 128 kBit / s, the duration of a day for one record. If you select "High" quality, the recording is made in: .aac with a bitrate of 256 Kbps / s. As a side effect from the quality improvement, the recorder can not record conversations. To regain the possibility of recording telephone conversations, in the settings of the recorder it is enough to change the recording quality back to "Standard";
• To turn off the squeak when recording phone conversations, you need to activate the corresponding patch in the built-in "ROMPatcher Plus v3.1";
• Delivery reports for SMS and MMS are included;
• Saving 999 sent messages;
• Accessory by default: Headphones;
• Speaker volume: 10, and hands-free: 7;
• By default are included: display of call duration, information after a call, speed dialing;
• In the standard browser, the mini-map, security warnings are disabled and the suffix ".ru" is added. Standard bookmarks are cleared, instead of them are added: "Yandex", "YouTube", "VKontakte". Hot keys are given to the layout, which was on its previous versions;
• Built-in support for SHA-2 certificates, necessary for working with the modern Internet;
• In the Stub of the central repository, * .cre is added to normal update of this type with usual .sis / .sisx with SP and PU type;
• Full rights for J2ME;
• Reduced the call time of the Task Manager;
• Removed visualization brakes in the player. Also removed are "Go to Music store" and "Find in Music store" from the player menu;
• In the player by default, song repetition and mixing are included, the default volume is 70%;
• The player searches for music only in E: \ Sounds \ Digital and F: \ Sounds \ Digital;
• The name of the FM transmitter has been changed from "Nokia" to "N86 8MP". The default frequency is changed from 107.5 to 88.1;
• Built-in "ROMPatcher Plus v3.1" (Naturally, with a working autorun);
• Built-in program-button "Flashlight" for flash;
• Built-in "N-Gage v1.40.1557" with a fix for FP2 and association with .n-gage files in the system so that all hacked games work as expected;
• Built-in game "Snakes v0.6.0.20";
• The standard program for viewing images is replaced by a similar one from the Nokia N78. The fact is that the standard program from Nokia N86 8MP forcibly rotates the display by 90 °, and this follows the system orientation. 

You can download this firmware here on the AAS server. It's assumed that you know how to use Phoenix and the requisite flashing tools. If you don't then.... best stay away!

THIS ARTICLE IS SUPERCEDED by the new firmware here.

Wow. I'm speechless. This is 2017. Dedication, eh?