Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th

#11

Post by Washuu » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 4:40 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #9

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #5

Combined with the announcement that they're killing the old Kindles as well...this is 100% about preventing people from liberating DRM from their books. Full stop. They are closing each and every remaining hole.

Not necessarily? There was a post just a year ago on how somebody jailbroke the kindle books from the web UI. I think the more plausible and likely explanations are: 1. Kindles take a beating when people actually use them instead of putting them in a drawer. Not many older kindles are still in circulation that are old + used. How good is a 14 year old lithium battery at best doing? 2. Added to the above, how is a 14…

> Not necessarily? There was a post just a year ago on how somebody jailbroke the kindle books from the web UI.

I used that research to build something similar. It only works for manga and comics right now, but I have been tinkering with implementing glyph support as well to be able to handle full books.

https://github.com/Alexia/kandle-downloader

The original research is here, but the web site is down right now. https://blog.pixelmelt.dev/kindle-web-drm/

Re: Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th

#12

Post by wrxd » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 4:41 PM UTC

I’m so happy I downloaded all my Kindle books when I still had a chance and then moved to the Kobo ecosystem, which albeit not perfect is much much better

Re: Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th

#13

Post by datatrashfire » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 4:42 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #9

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #5

Combined with the announcement that they're killing the old Kindles as well...this is 100% about preventing people from liberating DRM from their books. Full stop. They are closing each and every remaining hole.

Not necessarily? There was a post just a year ago on how somebody jailbroke the kindle books from the web UI. I think the more plausible and likely explanations are: 1. Kindles take a beating when people actually use them instead of putting them in a drawer. Not many older kindles are still in circulation that are old + used. How good is a 14 year old lithium battery at best doing? 2. Added to the above, how is a 14…

both my kindle and wife's work great and we have been using them regularly. they are actually very well made and durable devices.

Re: Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th

#14

Post by sgiratch » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 4:42 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #9

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #5

Combined with the announcement that they're killing the old Kindles as well...this is 100% about preventing people from liberating DRM from their books. Full stop. They are closing each and every remaining hole.

Not necessarily? There was a post just a year ago on how somebody jailbroke the kindle books from the web UI. I think the more plausible and likely explanations are: 1. Kindles take a beating when people actually use them instead of putting them in a drawer. Not many older kindles are still in circulation that are old + used. How good is a 14 year old lithium battery at best doing? 2. Added to the above, how is a 14…

Both my Kindle Touch and my Kindle Paperwhite gen1 are still completely fine. And I havent noticed any typesetting etc that doesnt work.

All of these discontinued devices support the AWZ4-format (which can be de-drmed and what im guessing this whole thing is about), but the newer ones use KFX which locks you perfectly into the Amazon and Kindle-ecosystem

Re: Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th

#15

Post by Zanni » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 4:44 PM UTC

Multicomp wrote: post #6

I never bought into Kindle because of this lockdown attitude. I buy audiobooks from audiobookstore and ebooks from google play books when lazy and itch and the other usual independent sites that sell drm free files when I'm not doing a jit in time purchase. I have a kindle I USB sideload or put files on sd card, because it has a physical keyboard. But with the state of digital goods disrepect for the customer and loc…

I used to feel this way, but I reconsidered my threat model. You know what format is "locked in"? Physical books. Can only exist in one location at a time. If you loan it out, you can't read it until it's returned. Subject to theft, fire, rot, bugs or simply being lost.

There are aspects of Kindle I don't love--the constantly changing cover art for books I've purchased--but I've never run into an actual problem. I've got 2,500 books on my Kindle devices, and I can access them anywhere in the world at any time on my dedicated readers, my phone, my laptop (via Kindle Cloud Reader).

If DRM is the price I have to pay for a dead-simple ecosystem, multi-device support and free cloud storage, well, I guess I'm happy to pay it.

Re: Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th

#16

Post by wiether » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 4:47 PM UTC

It's funny that the top product recommendation on the website is the "Kobo Remote Control", which is the main thing that is making me think of going to Kobo once my Kindle Paperwhite is dead.

Amazon abandoning +14yo products, I don't care. I'm surprised they kept them alive that long. And they'll still work, just not with the store.

The DRM/Kindle for PC thing, I don't care. I'm perfectly aware that "buying" a digital good is actually a temporary license. I'm paying for the convenience, not to own "something". And since I've paid my fair share of "copie privée" tax, if I want to grab a persistent copy of an ebook I purchased on Amazon, I got it from the high seas.

Re: Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th

#17

Post by gjsman-1000 » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 4:48 PM UTC

sgiratch wrote: post #14

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily? There was a post just a year ago on how somebody jailbroke the kindle books from the web UI. I think the more plausible and likely explanations are: 1. Kindles take a beating when people actually use them instead of putting them in a drawer. Not many older kindles are still in circulation that are old + used. How good is a 14 year old lithium battery at best doing? 2. Added to the above, how is a 14…

Both my Kindle Touch and my Kindle Paperwhite gen1 are still completely fine. And I havent noticed any typesetting etc that doesnt work. All of these discontinued devices support the AWZ4-format (which can be de-drmed and what im guessing this whole thing is about), but the newer ones use KFX which locks you perfectly into the Amazon and Kindle-ecosystem

[dead]

Re: Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th

#18

Post by lopis » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 4:49 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #9

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #5

Combined with the announcement that they're killing the old Kindles as well...this is 100% about preventing people from liberating DRM from their books. Full stop. They are closing each and every remaining hole.

Not necessarily? There was a post just a year ago on how somebody jailbroke the kindle books from the web UI. I think the more plausible and likely explanations are: 1. Kindles take a beating when people actually use them instead of putting them in a drawer. Not many older kindles are still in circulation that are old + used. How good is a 14 year old lithium battery at best doing? 2. Added to the above, how is a 14…

I just replaced the battery on my Kindle 3rd gen (2010?) and it's basically as good as new now. Batteries are easy to find online.

Re: Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th

#19

Post by WillAdams » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 4:49 PM UTC

elicash wrote: post #3

> The company has disclosed to Good e-Reader that Amazon is developing a new Kindle for PC app, but it will only be compatible with Windows 11.

FWIW, I'm quite disappointed that they didn't continue in the vein of the Windows 8 app which was touch friendly and worked quite nicely w/ a stylus.

I'm hoping that with the discontinuation of:

https://read.amazon.com/kindle-notebook

that it will become possible to view Kindle Scribe notebooks in this new application as it is to view them in the Kindle App on Android (when it doesn't crash).

Re: Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th

#20

Post by n8henrie » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #9

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #5

Combined with the announcement that they're killing the old Kindles as well...this is 100% about preventing people from liberating DRM from their books. Full stop. They are closing each and every remaining hole.

Not necessarily? There was a post just a year ago on how somebody jailbroke the kindle books from the web UI. I think the more plausible and likely explanations are: 1. Kindles take a beating when people actually use them instead of putting them in a drawer. Not many older kindles are still in circulation that are old + used. How good is a 14 year old lithium battery at best doing? 2. Added to the above, how is a 14…

I strongly disagree. If it's doing well enough for the owner then it's doing well enough. I don't understand how one can tell someone else that their computer is unacceptably slow for that other individual's personal use.

This is a really unfortunate move by Amazon. My next e-reader will be one that I own (instead of just rent).

Glad that I took the time to jailbreak and pause updates on my 2017 kindle paperwhite while I could.