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Kindle is removing download and transfer option on Feb 26th

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Re: Kindle is removing download and transfer option on Feb 26th

#31

Post by 8ytecoder »

locusofself wrote: post #9
poisonborz wrote: post #3

Bad, but anyone sideloading would skip Kindles anyway for a long time now for much better products.

Also, what better products are there? Kobo? I have a kindle oasis and it's a great device. Not that I love giving money to Amazon, I avoid that when I can with library or at least heavily discounted/public domain or side-loaded books whenever possible.

Kobo Libra color. If I’m being very honest, the screen isn’t as good as the oasis but it’s a compromise I’ve accepted for vastly superior hackability. I telnet into my kobo and installed tailscale then pointed the api to my calibre web instance, I have a much better experience overall because the books are drm-free(d) and calibre web handles sync with kobo really well.

And it has physical buttons. I was clinging to my oasis for the buttons.

Re: Kindle is removing download and transfer option on Feb 26th

#33

Post by rafram »

Retr0id wrote: post #17

By the way, all kindle models are currently jailbreakable: https://kindlemodding.org/jailbreaking/WinterBreak/

As far as I can tell, the main benefit of jailbreaking is to be able to install a reader that supports more ebook formats, since a stock Kindle can already browse the web and read ebooks from any source, but it only supports MOBI/AZW3, and the Send to Kindle EPUB converter is not very good. But it’s easy enough to use Calibre to do a lossless EPUB -> AZW3 conversion without the hassle of jailbreaking. Is there some other benefit that I’m missing?

Re: Kindle is removing download and transfer option on Feb 26th

#34

Post by wiether »

I hear the complaints about Kindle but...

How are we supposed to do?

In three "taps" I buy a book and 10s later I start reading it. Legally. The device just works.

The alternatives? Libraries here (France) have a very limited offer of ebooks. Even for ebooks in English. I owned a Kobo circa 2013 and it was awful. I tried friend's devices more recently, and it's not the UX I expect from a "book".

A simple comparison; "Parable of the Sower", bought it for 3.49€ on amazon.fr, it's at 5.26€ on ebooks.com and it still got DRMs.

Even pirating is less convenient: some files are buggy, some files are weird OCR of physical books, you have to deal with the download and transfer...

And I just can't read physical books. I hate that.

So usually, if I really enjoy an ebook, I buy a physical copy in a local bookstore and give it to a friend/whoever I think is going to like it.

I would love an open ecosystem where I could rent ebooks from a library, and buy books that can be read wherever I want. But that's not going to happen because the big guns of the industry think they know better.

So that's where I'm at: buying & reading books in Amazon's walled garden, or doing neither at all.

Re: Kindle is removing download and transfer option on Feb 26th

#35

Post by jerjerjer »

rafram wrote: post #33
Retr0id wrote: post #17

By the way, all kindle models are currently jailbreakable: https://kindlemodding.org/jailbreaking/WinterBreak/

As far as I can tell, the main benefit of jailbreaking is to be able to install a reader that supports more ebook formats, since a stock Kindle can already browse the web and read ebooks from any source, but it only supports MOBI/AZW3, and the Send to Kindle EPUB converter is not very good. But it’s easy enough to use Calibre to do a lossless EPUB -> AZW3 conversion without the hassle of jailbreaking. Is there some o…

Folders.

Re: Kindle is removing download and transfer option on Feb 26th

#36

Post by shasheene »

Retr0id wrote: post #17

By the way, all kindle models are currently jailbreakable: https://kindlemodding.org/jailbreaking/WinterBreak/

Oh finally! I have a Kindle Scribe, and it's really amazing hardware, but it's unusable for reading websites like Wikipedia and sending links to it using the Amazon bookmarklet is a pretty bad experience.

The biggest issue is the web browser doesn't have pagination, ie a next page button. *It only supports smooth scrolling using the touch screen*. Which on an e-ink display is a completely awful, insanely frustrating experience that I can't believe they ship it (and the Scribe is an 11th generation product).

Using a web browser to read pure text is a blurred mess that's takes several painful seconds to slowly scroll to the next page.

Since I bought the Kindle Scribe (big mistake due to the above issue), I've wanted to jailbreak it to install a non-terrible Wikipedia browser.

Eg the one available in the KOReader project -- the open-source alternative eink-optimized ebook app that is widely-supported across the eink ecosystem (including older Kindles).

Thanks for heads up that a jailbreak is finally available!

Re: Kindle is removing download and transfer option on Feb 26th

#37

Post by pmarreck »

I own Kindles and I have bought a lot of ebook content from the Amazon store over the years but they don't seem to realize that the more restrictions they put in place, the more they are incentivizing just someone going to the effort to decrypt/de-DRM everything to epub and shoving it into a Kobo (or apple's Books.app, or comic book reader, or anything else that reads the ebook or comic book formats)

...Which is exactly what I ended up doing. Decrypting 100% of my Kindle purchases so I can use them how I please, and using z-library when I was too lazy to even do so.

Apple understood this when the first iPod came out. Offer a better service, not shinier handcuffs.

Re: Kindle is removing download and transfer option on Feb 26th

#38

Post by runjake »

pmarreck wrote: post #37

I own Kindles and I have bought a lot of ebook content from the Amazon store over the years but they don't seem to realize that the more restrictions they put in place, the more they are incentivizing just someone going to the effort to decrypt/de-DRM everything to epub and shoving it into a Kobo (or apple's Books.app, or comic book reader, or anything else that reads the ebook or comic book formats) ...Which is exac…

What do you use to decrypt your Kindle purchases? I haven't yet found anything that works with modern purchases.

Re: Kindle is removing download and transfer option on Feb 26th

#40

Post by pmarreck »

neilv wrote: post #11

For people already locked into Kindle, I don't know what to tell you. (Unless you DRM-crack, and get into the gray areas of the piracy culture that's creating much of the DRM problems.) But it would be healthy for everyone if people supported a DRM-free and non-surveillance ebook ecosystem. One solution I found is to buy ebooks as DRM-free EPUBs and PDFs, and read them in open source desktop tools and on my relativel…

> and get into the gray areas of the piracy culture that's creating much of the DRM problems

This is an interesting framing, mainly because it can be flipped 180 degrees around. "Shinier and more impregnable DRM just creates problems that lock you into certain devices and usage patterns, which simply create much of the gray area of piracy culture"

I mean, you're literally starting out by not trusting the person who fucking purchased your product and then furthermore also artificially limiting them in how they can use that content and on what devices!

Imagine if every marriage began with an un-shut-offable location tracker in your wedding band. You'd be complaining about the "cheating culture that has contributed to the need to install uncircumventable perma-trackers on the newly-married... and also, everyone who tries to disable them OBVIOUSLY just wants to cheat" /eye-roll

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