I have quite often seen people here and on other tech forums assume that purchasing a Kindle means being locked into Amazon's ecosystem, giving up personal details, and having the risk that your books might be deleted. But you don't have to use the Kindle's internet connectivity: I have owned three generations of Kindle, and with each one I activated airplane mode the second I unboxed the device and I never turned airplane mode off. All my ebooks come from sources other than Amazon (mainly LibGen, for example), and they can be easily transferred over to the Kindle by USB because the Kindle appears as any ordinary USB drive to a computer.
Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
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Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#22Why would you leave on wifi on an e-ink kindle, when not actively downloading a book? The battery lasts 3-4x as long with it disabled (on my 3rd gen device at least).
I doubt most users need a real-time sync of their book location to the cloud, unless they read on multiple devices.
Also, if you use the kindle to get loaned/library books on this particular model, they aren't removed even if the due-date is exceeded until you reconnect to wifi, which has been handy at times...
Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#23Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#24This is a bit unfortunate, because the kindle paperwhite is just phenomenal. It's easy on my eyes and it's a godsend for traveling. I suppose the solution here is to just keep it in offline mode when not syncing books.
[edit] as others have noted, it's possible to permanently use offline mode, and transfer books via usb cable.
> Unfortunately, in order to use a non-Kindle application, I have to buy DRM-Free books.
One can remove DRM for amazon's ebook format (.azw3 ?) via some python scripts. You didn't hear it from me though.
Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#25I think you mean "Predictably" rather than "Surprisingly".
“Obviously”.
What isn’t collecting “too much” data at this point?
Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#26Are these requests sent to a separate domain? I may have missed it in the article but it’d be great to know whether we could null route these without disrupting functionality.
That's a great idea! It looks like the 'bad' stuff goes to unagi-na.amazon.com
Exactly, I also added:
mobile-app-expan.amazon.com
cde-ta-g7g.amazon.com
Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#27I'm sure someone like me always has the same "hot take" in every thread regarding this, but I honestly still love reading physical books. After spending a day weary of interacting with screens all day, there is something nice about tapping in to this activity that humans have done for hundreds of years. Sure, e-ink is easier on the eyes, but isolating myself with a good book can be a near spiritual experience.
I agree.
E-Readers do a hell of a good job at emulating the experience with e-ink displays & you can't compete with the ability to carry 1000's of books in your bag, but there's something about the reading experience that I wish to keep completely 'analogue'!
Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#28Kindle is a great tech (e-ink) with a terribly expensive ecosystem (amazon store) for books.
I load all the books I get directly from my computer (Mostly from project Gutenberg).
Turning airplane mode on permanently now.
Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#29How are the alternatives. Although i will miss my collection of books but I'm going to be in the market for the next ebook reader.
I just switched from my Kindle Paperwhite to the Kobo Libra H2O and I really like it.
It's easier to hold with dedicated page turn buttons, good lighting, and fast screen response time. Also water resistant and good battery life.
So far I've been able to get all the books I've wanted, mostly from the Kobo store, but it can work with any open format.
Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#30How are the alternatives. Although i will miss my collection of books but I'm going to be in the market for the next ebook reader.
Kobo's have comparable (even superior, IMO) hardware to the Kindle line. The thing that everyone who migrates from Kindle to Kobo seems to get hung up on is that it does not have an option to wirelessly sync books that have been sideloaded across devices. This is because Kobo does not give everyone a private cloud like Amazon does (I imagine it would be prohibitively expensive to do so for anyone but Amazon). It's no…
I have a $350 Kobo Forma and the UI is so slow compared to my $200 Kindle. It takes a long time to startup and it has horrible & slow touch detection which makes it really hard to highlight quotes properly.
Maybe other Kobo variants do better however.