Got an Old Kindle? It Might Not Work Anymore • Hacker News Board

Re: Got an Old Kindle? It Might Not Work Anymore

#51

Post by neilv » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 4:31 AM UTC

andyvanosdale wrote: post #36

neilv wrote: post #34

> The company is offering a 20% discount that you can apply toward one of its new Kindle models, Federal is complicated right now, but can state AGs step in, and make Amazon either continue to support the old devices, or provide comparable free replacement devices?

Can they, yes. Just about anyone can be used for just about anything. Should they, no. Why should Amazon continuously support, checks notes... 14 year old devices??? Likely the number of customers using a device like that anymore is super small.

The network service side of the product should continue to work because the company sold that.

Unless you can find where the original advertisements (not microscopic fine print) said that the company would disable the network service side after a period of time, such that the buyers knew that's what they were buying, then the company is obligated to continue operating the service they sold. Or negotiate some alternative satisfactory to the buyer.

Re: Got an Old Kindle? It Might Not Work Anymore

#52

Post by coro_1 » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 4:34 AM UTC

This quote near the end of the article:

> “Kindle devices have a relatively small attack surface, and successful exploitation through ebook files is rare, though not impossible,” said Bogdan Botezatu, a senior director of threat research and reporting for cybersecurity software company Bitdefender.

Should sell more new Kindles.

Re: Got an Old Kindle? It Might Not Work Anymore

#53

Post by siliconpotato » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 5:25 AM UTC

snailmailman wrote: post #38

thewhitetulip wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlikely. Kindles are e readers that last a long time. I have a 10yr old paperwhite as good as new!

how well does the battery hold up after that long? Mine is only like 2-3 years old and I charge it so rarely. I can read several entire books on a charge easily. It lasts months. I imagine even if the battery degraded significantly it would be quite usable.

I replaced the battery in mine. Unlike big tech, I believe in repairing old devices. Something Amazon have not considered is how many of these old devices are used as companion devices for other high end kindle owners. I have a scribe and old paperwhite and use them interchangably, with cloud sync of reading position etc, which won't be possible after 20 may.

Re: Got an Old Kindle? It Might Not Work Anymore

#54

Post by rtpg » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 5:57 AM UTC

ndiddy wrote: post #16

disillusioned wrote: post #6

It seems absurd to me that Amazon is making the product decision to EOL functional hardware that is _actively used to purchase books from them, legally_... all to... what? potentially sell another $100 or so reader? At the expense of... what? Some minimal amount of engineering effort to keep updates flowing for the extremely limited surface area that is the old Kindle OS? Why upset your customers over this when they…

The actual reason is likely that all of these Kindles only support azw3 format ebooks, which are easy to strip the DRM from. This lets Amazon switch to only serving ebooks in kfx format, which are encrypted and harder to strip the DRM from. Amazon stopped allowing saving ebooks to your PC last year, likely for the same reason. It definitely is frustrating though. I have an iPod from 2009 where the battery and hard dr…

there is something bitterly ironic about iPods (and their "sync" system to basically disallow arbitrary loading and sharing of music and "just" dropping music onto it) being now considered an example of an open device.

Re: Got an Old Kindle? It Might Not Work Anymore

#55

Post by mayama » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 6:22 AM UTC

0x38B wrote: post #12

I transfer books by running `python -m http.server` on my phone or computer, then opening my Kindle’s browser to my IP and downloading my .mobi book. It doesn’t take long, and I can do it all over Wi-Fi. I can mount it via SSHFS for anything more than copying a single book. I stopped buying anything from Amazon on principal a couple years ago, books included; and anyway, most books I read these days are in the public…

I sync articles and books to my phone via adb. There is this adbsync python script that syncs files in rsync fashion using adb. Hopefully google won't kill or add barriers to adb like they are doing with installing apks now.

Re: Got an Old Kindle? It Might Not Work Anymore

#56

Post by wrxd » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 6:55 AM UTC

micromacrofoot wrote: post #3

you can still transfer over usb, which should be the bare minimum for eol hardware support... this isn't as bad as it seems on the surface

You can transfer over USB until you have to factory reset the device. At that point it won’t re-activate and you’ve got a nice brick

Re: Got an Old Kindle? It Might Not Work Anymore

#57

Post by wrxd » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 6:58 AM UTC

I saw this coming when they stopped allowing downloads of purchased books. When that happened my Kindle got KOreader and after it broke I replaced it with a Kobo.

I’m much happier with my new device

Re: Got an Old Kindle? It Might Not Work Anymore

#58

Post by Markoff » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 8:59 AM UTC

why it wouldnt work? unless there is some hardcoded switch I doubt my offline Kindle where I copy offline books over USB will suddenly stop working, it's more likely work exactly same as it did in the past 10-15 years using it this way

Re: Got an Old Kindle? It Might Not Work Anymore

#59

Post by offbyone42 » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 7:29 PM UTC

I got extremely lucky. I bought a Kindle recently and decided to get one by BestBuy, just trying my luck to see if they had old stock. The firmware was 5.18.0.2 and I was able to jailbreak it.

If anyone is looking for a Kindle, try non-Amazon stores. Might have older stock with older and jailbreak-able firmware.