I love my Kindle I went from the voyage where I eventually destroyed the screen by accident to the oasis (32gb is amazing!). I was always fully aware of the privacy issues, so I only ever used it in airplane mode. None of my kindles have ever been on wifi/3g. I can still buy kindle ebooks and even do software upgrades, all offline, so it never bothered me.
Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
301–310 of 393 posts
Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#302[deleted]
Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#303This 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. On…
>One can remove DRM for amazon's ebook format (.azw3 ?) via some python scripts. You didn't hear it from me though. Not for the new KFX format. Only way to get around that is to use an older version of the kindle desktop app that downloads the azw format. Workaround won't last long though. And won't work on newer macs because the old version is a 32bit app .
Apparently you can do the conversion with Calibre.[1]
1: https://epubor.com/how-to-convert-kindle-kfx-to-epubpdfmobi-...
Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I activated airplane mode the second I unboxed the device and I never turned airplane mode off. Same, however I had to connect my Kindle Oasis to the internet 1 time after purchase though, if i remember correct it was to download the dictionaries (for translation) i needed. And i think there was a feature that was missing until i connected it to the internet once (i used a new/temporary account for that) but can't…
You could have got those dictionaries from a filesharing community and simply copied them over to the Kindle via USB. No need to connect the Kindle to internet.
Yea, I tried that first but all the dictionaries i downloaded didn't work on my device for some reason, so in the end i gave up...
Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You think companies should loudly advertise something people don’t care about? It's not what I said.
> why don't they loudly advertise the data collection
This I wrote. I didn't write "companies should loudly advertise something people don’t care about" -> you added something to my sentence, taking it out of context.
I wrote my opinion already, but I'll repeat it anyway in case it was not clear. I think you can't know if people care about it or not, as long as they're not informed about it.
Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Privacy LARPers are a tiny segment of the market, the average person doesn’t really care if their ‘usage of the highlighter function is tracked’ If so, why don't they loudly advertise the data collection and do it only with opt-in? It's not that the average user doesn't care if they're tracked, it's that they're not aware that they're being tracked.
> If so, why don't they loudly advertise the data collection and do it only with opt-in? But they do. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yg70ojfWXnk
The video is about synch, while the conversation is about "collection does lead to better products" -> i.e, analytics.
Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
AKA, the original whispersync. Yup, this was once a thing - you didn't need wifi for sync or downloading books at all.
Kindles at one point apparently came with free cellular access https://xkcd.com/548/
They still do - it's an option on more expensive devices (Paperwhite and Oasis).
Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#308This statement - "None of these requests appear to be used for customer features like last read location." - bugs me, because it's fairly obviously false, and detracts from the real concerns. To sync a "last read page" across devices, you need to send a location back to Amazon. It's also appropriate to tie a location to a device, so you can pick the appropriate device to sync your position from. And, when you highlig…
Can't you do lost of those things by sending encrypted data to Amazon, and getting back the encrypted data from them? They act as a storage in most cases, not as a server, no?
The data is encrypted.
Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why buy a kindle at all then? Any cheap budget tablet can read ebooks and stay off the internet.
Any cheap budget table isn't e-ink, which matters for battery life and, at least for some people, reading pleasure. Also, I mainly use my Kindle for reading research papers in academia, into the hundreds of publications each year. So, after years of using these devices its UI (which I find admirably simple and straightforward) is burned into my muscle memory. So, switching to another series of devices would mean havi…
There are many cheap e-ink readers on the market these days, though.
Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agree. Opt out at the minimum. How did software and features ever get done before telemetry? Efficiency is not always the best humanistic approach. So maybe they support unused features and maybe they let some features wither that lots of people like. Maybe it would make things cost a little more. I think people would be ok with some of those inefficiencies.
>How did software and features ever get done before telemetry? IMHO, The software today is miles better at UX.
Is that because of telemetry or just the field developing naturally, though?