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All Kindles can now be jailbroken

kindlemodding.org

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Re: All Kindles can now be jailbroken

#181

Post by sharpshadow »

averageRoyalty wrote: post #105
callc wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have human wellbeing as the priority in making products. Treat users with respect. Make hardware open, firmware open, repairable. Let’s be honest here, there are user hostile products and pro-user products. Let’s make making user hostile products illegal / unprofitable with laws.

For the record, my Kindle died after 4 years and Amazon replaced it. That one died after 2 and they replaced it again - all free. Australian Consumer Law is required to be followed if they want to trade here. If you want respect, speak to your lawmakers.

I thought 4 years is not bad at all but it’s even better because „consumer guarantee rights under the Australian Consumer Law, … don’t have a specific expiry date“ and „apply for a period of time that is considered reasonable having regard to the nature of the products or services“[0].

0. https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/broken-but-out-of-warr...

Re: All Kindles can now be jailbroken

#182

Post by fvrther »

muhehe wrote: post #107
fvrther wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mobile read forum for most of it, but also heavily recommend kobopatch 1. https://github.com/pgaskin/kobopatch-patches/releases optional but nice to tweak some small ui details and get rid of ads 2. https://github.com/videah/kobo-tailscale to have a secure connection with your calibre-web instance, but you could also use self-signed certs 3. https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web/wiki/Kobo-Integratio... adding books…

There are ads in kobo? Is it normal or some sort of cheaper offering like kindles?

No ads per se, but a recommendation tile and a kobo plus subscription tile on the main screen that just eats display space for nothing. I mainly use kobopatch to change the epub reader margins, get the page remaining in a chapter and block firmware updates and a few other details. Totally optional, it's just pure nitpicking here. Here is all my kobo modding work in this repo, you can also find what firmware mods are available...

https://github.com/obynio/kobopatch-config/tree/master/src

Re: All Kindles can now be jailbroken

#184

Post by eloisant »

transcriptase wrote: post #14

It’s interesting reading that the reasons for jailbreaking a kindle are so trivial, amounting to adding some minor functionality to reading books and not much else. Kobo jailbreaks from back in the day gave you root on a stripped down Linux install, complete with telnet ssh and ftp. You could even install python and essentially do anything the cpu/display permitted. Another cool aspect with those older kobos was that…

I guess we have so many devices nowadays, there is no point into turning an e-reader into a generic computer.

I have at least 3 RPi lying around in my home, if I want to tinker that's what I will use.

Re: All Kindles can now be jailbroken

#185

Post by NoboruWataya »

starbugs wrote: post #160
ksynwa wrote: post #154

The amount of DRM and locking down Amazon bolts onto its ereaders and ebook formats feels insane to me. I can understand the profit motive but god damn.

> The amount of DRM and locking down Amazon bolts onto its ereaders and ebook formats feels insane to me. I can understand the profit motive but god damn. I don't. I would be much happier buying ebooks without DRM and I would buy substantially more of them if they were DRM-free.

I am with you but we are a small minority. I literally don't know anyone IRL who cares about DRM. I doubt people like us factor into their decision making at all.

Re: All Kindles can now be jailbroken

#186

Post by fvrther »

fvrther wrote: post #62
sphars wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had no idea the extent that Kobos allow you to do these sort of things. Heavily considering a Kobo as my next e-reader once my PW3 gives ups. Is there a good starting resource for Kobo modifications like you mentioned?

Mobile read forum for most of it, but also heavily recommend kobopatch 1. https://github.com/pgaskin/kobopatch-patches/releases optional but nice to tweak some small ui details and get rid of ads 2. https://github.com/videah/kobo-tailscale to have a secure connection with your calibre-web instance, but you could also use self-signed certs 3. https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web/wiki/Kobo-Integratio... adding books…

We also have the amazing Plato reader, like koreader but with a snapper UI and made exclusively for kobo and written in Rust by the guy responsible for bspwm.

https://github.com/baskerville/plato

Re: All Kindles can now be jailbroken

#187

Post by OvbiousError »

_thisdot wrote: post #166
pmx wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can browse the Kobo book store here https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebooks

What are the prices compared to Amazon's? Books are generally cheaper here in the subcontinent. I did a price comparison of 30 books and found out that Kindle editions cost significantly lesser than Kobo. And Kobo editions cost slightly higher than paperbacks. The total amount for these 30 randomly selected books came to: Paperback price: ₹13,017 (~$149) Kobo price: ₹13,252 (~$152) Kindle price: ₹9,171 (~$105)

I found that it's often best to use google search to search the kobo store. Books sometimes have multiple editions with significant price differences. Not sure if it would make a difference in this case.

Re: All Kindles can now be jailbroken

#188

Post by m000 »

What are some "killer" applications that would tempt the casual Kindle user to jailbreak the device?

I can see someone has ported syncthing [1], which could be convenient for syncing the contents of the device. But probably still too much work compared to using e.g. Calibre and a USB cable a few times per year.

[1] https://syncthing.net/

Re: All Kindles can now be jailbroken

#189

Post by hresvelgr »

fvrther wrote: post #39

Kobo are giving you root access with telnet from the start. You can flash modded firmwares, change the backend servers to phone your own calibre-web instance, install ssh, koreader and even a tailscale vpn on it. They even have UART pins labelled on their board. These are amazing devices to play with. And they read pretty much everything you throw on their storage: epub, cbz, cbr, pdf..

The Kobo Libra Colour has the best UX of a device I own, in that it's completely invisible. I can just read my damn books, highlight passages I think are noteworthy and save words I like the sound of. Everything just works, and the high seas experience is seamless.

Re: All Kindles can now be jailbroken

#190

Post by slezyr »

m000 wrote: post #188

What are some "killer" applications that would tempt the casual Kindle user to jailbreak the device? I can see someone has ported syncthing [1], which could be convenient for syncing the contents of the device. But probably still too much work compared to using e.g. Calibre and a USB cable a few times per year. [1] https://syncthing.net/

The smallest margin on Kindle Scribe is too large. Changing text justification is not possible. Books cannot be uploaded directly with a USB cable without additional software (calibre). Gesture configuration (tap, two-finger tap, etc). Koreader can do everything you want and is significantly better than the stock reader. Unlike other vendors, kindle requires root to install it.
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