And yes, it’s a screensaver.
Meh, the way I look at it they’ve just motivated a LOT of people to move off their services and also jailbreak their devices.
Seems like a good time to acquire old devices too.
I like your optimism.
Most people will never even figure out jailbreaking is even an option, let alone actually do it. They’ll just buy a new Kindle
Indeed they have. Hopefully this will be the tip of the iceberg for a lot of people too.
As an old PaperWhite owner with no loyalty to Amazon, anywhere I can find a jailbreaking guide?
Thank you!
I personally wouldnt bother with the jail breaking if you can. Ive had good results just putting mine on airplane mode and using Calibre to manage my library.
That’s what I do now, so it would probably just be a fun project for me to see if I can do the jailbreak
While not having PaperWhite this was the guide I used. Though be careful if you have firmware version 5.15.1.1 or later, you might need to downgrade first. And don’t rush anything. Good luck!
Thank you!
No problem!
My ebook reader from 2008 still works, even if I may have to replace the battery.
My 11 year old kindle is still going strong. The secret is never having disabled airplane mode even once since I first got it.
I’m happy to leave Amazon, but it sure feels like Kindle Unlimited has a stranglehold on indie publishing. At this point I’m faced with sticking with Amazon or basically finding an entirely new genre to read, as 90% of the titles I like (litrpg) aren’t available outside Amazon due to KUs exclusivity clause.
Since it’s an immoral monopoly it’s up to you to decide if it’s perfectly morally justifiable to just sail the high seas for this.
I think there were other (DRM-free) Indie publishing platforms though… not sure how much they have to offer though.
Currently I’m still able to buy the book and break the DRM, though that option is rapidly closing. I try to buy it elsewhere if possible, but it’s often not.
Piracy is an option, but because the authors are so small, pirated copies can take months to become available, if they ever are. Also, I consider myself very knowledgeable in breaking the encryption for these files. I would be the person putting the upload out there if I was interested in that kind of thing. So if I’m having difficulty breaking the DRM, chances are high that nobody else has either. Or at least we’d be stuck with crappy OCR’d PDF copies instead of proper epubs.
At the end of the day though, as the consumer, exclusive content like this means I participate in the platform or I simply don’t get access to that content. If it were simply a couple of titles, that’s one thing, but it hurts when it’s an entire genre. It’d be like being a fan of metal music, but 90% of all metal music was only on Spotify and nowhere else. It’s horrible that a single company can control an entire genre like this.
As someone who made the other decision, I’ve found most of the litrpg I’ve looked for on zlib. There are definitely a few that aren’t on there, though, and that number increases if you’re reading the latest stuff as it’s released. So depending on your reading habits, it could be plentiful or almost useless. It does work for me, though, and I’d rather donate to a patreon than give Amazon the money.
I haven’t understood…
Amazon stopped the support for the older Kindles (though it seems only for store connection but anyway) so this will push people to learn new ways to read their books on their devices, a.k.a. jailbreak.
this will push people to learn new ways to read their books
The majority will probably just get a newer kindle model
It’s possible but if I were these people I would at least discover other options other than Kindle at this point.
It was impossible to upload books to these devices except for through Amazon?
No but recently Amazon also pushed an update to make this happen, so people who got this update cannot locally upload books on their devices anymore and have to use Amazon services to buy and download books. Luckily for older devices jailbreak is still an option. Also, people who didn’t update can still use Calibre too apparently. Customization is far better with jailbreak anyway though.
Have you got a link for local uploading requiring a jailbreak?
Don’t have a link for the firmware though quoting from the guide I used:
Copy the update URL (in this case, to 5.11.2) Edit the URL (by changing the 5.11.2 to 5.11.0) Click and save.Don’t know if it still works though.
Sorry, I meant a link to show local upload requires a jailbreak. I know Amazon -> kindle usb loading got nixed, but I’ve not seen anything that local uploading via calibre or just directly dropping a book onto the kindle via usb requires a jailbreak.
Ah, I see. It seems they just disabled their “official” way to transfer via USB. So, local transfers shouldn’t be affected I guess. However this means, if one don’t have older Kindles they won’t get “Download” option from Amazon anymore apparently. They have to directly download it to Kindle and cannot get it out from the device.
