On February 26th, Kindle customers will lose the ability to download eBook purchases directly to their PC. If you want to switch to a rival eReader brand in the future, I suggest that you use the soon-to-be discontinued “Download and Transfer via USB” feature to archive your Kindle library.
Locked-in platform closing the door. How surprising.
Accepting DRM in the first place is the problem. Hard to avoid, but still. I just got a boox; great value, can’t use adobe DRM. Didn’t have any problem there. Of course, money is going everywhere except big “publishers”, but that’s hardly an issue; they choose their business model, I choose my customer model.
they choose their business model, I choose my customer model.
Ooh, this is very pithy. I like it. I will use it.
Joke’s on them, I get all my books from Z-Library anyhow.
I have a few books I bought, but even then, I grab from z-library. More portable and no DRM.
That’s fucked.
So anyway self hosting Kavita to read everything in my browser is hella convenient.
Interesting, I’d never heard of Kavita, so have just been using Calibre all these years. Did you start out on Kavita, or did you move from Calibre, or another software?
I tend to bounce around software. I ran into it at random researching docker containers and just kind of stuck with it. I’ve got a habit of trying to containerize everything nowadays haha
I use calibre for my kindle, but kavita for web reading on any of my devices.
The calibre web server kept claiming its downloads to my device were corrupted and would just never open books. Kavita just sends the books page as a web page which gets rid of that particular issue
Dropping a link for the lazy/myself for later
This is why I never once purchased a book from Amazon even though I have a Kindle.
Pretty pumped to jailbreak it with the new jailbreak.
I’ll be done with audible the moment I stop being able to liberate and archive what I pay for.
Until then, they’re helping me build my audiobookshelf
New kindle jailbreak you say?
https://kindlemodding.org/jailbreaking/WinterBreak/
Supposedly works on all Kindles, I haven’t actually done a deep dive yet, just have it bookmarked since yesterday.
What can you do with a jailbroken Kindle?
Actually own it.
Run software they don’t approve of. Like alternate reading apps that don’t need you to pipe everything through an Amazon account, read formats they don’t support, etc.
Hi. Thank you for the info.
I am looking for a new e-reader. Is there any reason why I should buy a Kindle and jailbreak it rather than get a PineNote, SuperNote, Nook device, Boox device, or a Kobo Libra?
Or would you recommend something else?
I have a Boox Palma 2 - their cellphone-sized thing that doesn’t have a cellular radio. I love it. They’re more expensive than kindles, though, since they’re not subsidizing their cost with ebook sales. I haven’t actually tried jailbreaking a kindle so I can’t say how good an experience that would be, but you could probably pick up a kindle of some description on the used market for dirt cheap to try it out.
The Palma was one of my top choices but I was thinking it might be a little small for me. It is one of the better looking devices.
I didn’t even think getting a used Kindle. New Kindle prices seem a little high for getting a locked system, so a used one is probably the most cost effective method.
Thanks for the suggestion.
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I was looking at the PineNote myself, but they stopped selling the developer version due to low demand. I’m afraid that it won’t be back until those who do own it finish writing the software for it.
Oh… I didn’t know that. Thanks for letting me know.
According to their site and a couple others, they have recently started selling again and with what looks to be some variant of Debian on it.
Interesting, thanks
I resisted eBooks for years, preferring physical books from the library or new/second hand stores. I got gifted a Kindle from a well meaning relative a few years ago and I have a small collection on there, mainly built up when I was commuting.
This news came just as I am backing up my own data, moving off of the big name Cloud services and going back to open source software. (In confession the convenience of M365 etc won me over so the last 10 or so years I fell into the trap!)
Anyway needless to say my 40(ish) Kindle books quickly got downloaded and archived this week. Thanks to Calibre I’ve also fixed the covers to a book series that suddenly got updated to an awful ‘new hip’ version! :)
I’m now intrigued about repurposing the Kindle hardware as it still works and I don’t want it to go to waste, but with this and other recent events I’m done personally proving data or money to these big corporate companies as much as I possibly can.
ebooks have managed to pull the same scam that game developers pulled on gamers 20 years ago.
“ebooks will be cheaper! and with the fact that we wont have to pay for printing, shipping, storage, etc, You’ll pay a lower price while the author/publisher still receive more money than they would have from the physical book! its a win/win for everyone!”
aaaand then as soon as they were accepted ebook prices became the same (or near enough) price as the physical version, and in a few rare cases, even more expensive. Resulting in the massive promised profits for publishers, and maybe authors, but no gain but lots of demerits (like obnoxious drm, and shit like amazon going onto your device to delete it cause they lost the rights or something, which has happened) for end users/readers
And thats first party, brand new books.
There is no second hand market for ebooks, like there is from physical. Si theres no browsing a place like Half Price Booked or whatever to find something that isnt in your normal wheel house but thanks to being pre-owed, its cheap enough to roll the dice on.
My Kobo e-reader is pretty nice and takes any ol e-pub file just fine. And Calibre, a third party software for managing ebooks, has a plugin to crack Kindle files. Just sayin
And Calibre, a third party software for managing ebooks, has a plugin to crack Kindle files
Which requires being able to download those files from Amazon. Which is what this post is all about, Amazon not allowing you to download the files anymore.
I was thinking along the lines of if you already had them downloaded and wanted to switch off to something else
And Calibre, a third party software for managing ebooks, has a plugin to crack Kindle files.
Unfortunately currently broken for the latest version of Kindle for PC, which switched to a different encryption scheme. It also uses KFX file format that nobody likes, which fortunately can be converted to EPUB with another plugin, but de-DRMing doesn’t seem to work right now. It still seems to work for titles in AZW3/MOBI that didn’t get DRM update or didn’t have DRM in the first place.
I am sorry, what?
Turn on PC or phone. Download ebook from torrent site. Enjoy.
It’s not difficult to switch?
Oddly enough, pirated ebooks are a malware minefield. And hard to find.
That said, I have about 8000.
Try explaining how to do that to your non-techie relatives, especially the older ones who like reading. Yes, this makes is more difficult to switch.
Why don’t you use library genesis or Anna‘s archive?
Library Genesis is down. Maybe for good
Undernet and #bookz for me somehow turned out to be easier than more popular styles of piracy.
Is bookz a channel in undernet?
yes
I’ll continue pirating, thanks.
This is the way.
PSA: “Archiving” is a general legal-neutral and safe term you can use with co-workers.
Wether i am also a pirate one may speculate but i am always an archivist.
Fuck that.
YARR!!
Turns out it really is archiving when government decides to go renegade and start deleting everything they disagree with or wipe from history. Archive away beautiful data horders.
It’s not just Amazon. Libraries (and Libby, the app they use) are also making it difficult to do anything but read in a browser or use Kindle.
Overdrive (which is Libby) integrates directly into the Kobo OS so you can borrow books directly on the device instead of the roundabout way you have to do it on the Kindle.
Overdrive’s being phased out and being replaced by Libby according to the 2 libraries I frequent. I wonder if it will still be supported on Kobo OS once the website and apps are shut down?
My library has used Libby for years. It’s another version of Overdrive. My library books download to Kobo fine unless they’re changing something else I don’t know about.
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My wife uses Libby and books go directly to her kindle.
Libraries (and Libby, the app they use) are also making it difficult to do anything but read in a browser or use Kindle.
Sadly too true. To be fair though I don’t think ANY librarian want that.
Here in Belgium we have an online library ( lirtuel.be ) that isn’t actually too bad. I looked it up and they say they provided ePub/PDF so I registered right away. Then… I discovered what they meant wasn’t ePub/PDF but rather DRMed ePub/PDF (here is an example https://www.lirtuel.be/resources/67aaf2124e480409978b68fb with ePub logo on the top right). Anyway I contacted them explaining that my ebook reader (reMarkable) does not support DRM and thus I couldn’t read the content. They pointed me to their documentation https://confluence.demarque.com/confluence/cantook-station/fr/faq/verrou-numerique-et-identifiant-adobe/qu-est-ce-qu-un-verrou-numerique-drm which implies it’s all “normal” to use that. I insisted, they didn’t reply.
Long story short, I’m either not using their service anymore or using DeGourou https://github.com/Bingwithyou/DeGourou to make the content legally loaned actually usable. Sad state of affairs but I’m convinced none of the actual librarians, namely people who care for making knowledge discoverable and accessible like that. I’m sure they’ve been coerced by same big publishers.
If this doesn’t help physical book sales, nothing will.
In the meantime, hackers have just released a new jailbreak and made it a more open platform than ever :^)
The only surprise here is that it took them this long to do it.
I love my Kobo. I installed KO Reader on it and have Calibre for managing my ebooks.
Get all my ebooks from z-library or Anna’s archive.
That’s my situation too. Got the Kobo Clara Color as a Christmas present for myself (the color was like $10 more, so what the hell) after resisting eBooks for years, and I really love it.
They take almost any ebook type, but they do have their own proprietary format, KEPUB. That’s what their own store uses. Thankfully, Calibre can convert to and from it. Due to Kobo being able to more easily handle zooming in to images and things like that with KEPUB, it’s sometimes worth converting.
Nice. Mines an older Clara I bought about 5 years ago. I personally don’t have the use for a color screen, but for $10 I guess why not! Most books I read don’t have any images besides the cover
I installed KO Reader as soon as I got it and never looked back. Not as pretty as the standard Nickel (?) OS but more customisable.
I love having an e-reader. I read so much more because of it. Much more convenient, not having to worry about heavy books, holding open pages, no need to worry about proper lighting for reading. Light and small enough to bring everywhere. I will buy another immediately once this one dies.
…and for those on Linux there is ‘DeGouru’, a tool for de-DRMing internet archive books that are lending-restricted.
A bit annoying in that it is somewhat sensitive to the Python version one has installed but there are ways to manage that which I am not qualified to advise on.
To all the people who are saying “I’ll just pirate books,” you are aware you can buy eBooks from places that aren’t Amazon, right?
Have a look at https://bookshop.org/ebooks You can buy books/eBooks and support local bookstores that aren’t Barnes & Nobles or Amazon.
I’d suggest you download/archive your Kindle books and then buy your eBooks from elsewhere. You can still load those onto your Kindle.
Saying “I’m going to pirate because one specific website is changing its policy soon,” is pretty stupid.
Addendum: that specific site is dog shit. Imagine thinking you just bought an ebook but instead you bought a lease to some DRM shit that only works on their app.
EPUB or GTFO.
Does that provide epub when baught? Or does it lock you in with their DRM app?
Thanks for asking this, that question made me go look it up.
I found https://bookshop.org/info/ebooks
I thought you could load bookshop.org eBooks onto a Kindle, but it seems they have their own DRM and you need to use their own app…
Some of their books are DRM free, but not all. I thought they all were, but it turns out I was wrong.
So… maybe even bookshop.org isn’t the best option for Kindles.
I guess there really is only one option left…
I went researched a few years ago and concluded that there is no option for writers to be guaranteed “no piracy” and that’s why they prefer having paperbooks. (That is also after brainstorming with a few people to publish my own book if it were…) and those days i was trying to find an important book in electronic format and could not find it anywhere, the paper 10th edition version (which i eventually bought) is like 1000 pages and the e version i found was 200 ish pages summary. So my sad conclusion was that i just need a big’ol scanner at home, just so that i can scan everything that i buy in paper just because i could then keep it personally on my e-reader (and having destroyedbinding of each book i buy lmao)… is that too much to ask… my wife says no… lol
I hear you saying that, but the books I want to buy are never on those sites.
i buy most ebooks from a small local bookstore. for the rest there’s still zlib
Are you buying ebooks in a physical store? How does that work?
they also have an online shop and are reselling ebooks for an external provider and get a small percentage of the money
