Hi sailors,
I’m trying to get into the habit of reading but books are often expensive and cumbersome. However I don’t particularly like reading on my phone screen since I’ll get distracted eventually.
So, e-readers seems to me a perfect fit. It’s tech enough that I find it interesting. Not too expensive. Gorgeous paper white display.
So, essentially what I want to know is, which kindle (or other device) is best for cracking/exploiting/moding, and overall just your opinion on it.
Edit3: I’ve decided I’ll buy a paperwhite kindle (2020 version). I found a 2nd hand one, like new, for 80€ with a screen protector + magnetic cover. This way I’m still not supporting amazon :)
Edit 2: I’m from the EU 🇪🇺 so, if you have EU specific tips it’d be great. Also my country doesn’t really care about piracy so I’m not really worried about VPNs
Edit: I didn’t expect so many people to reply! Thanks everyone!
Also I don’t remember writing half of the things on this post? Might just install a monoxide detector… If some admin edited it, thanks. It’s a lot clearer now, probably why it got so much traction.
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I know this isn’t what you’re asking for but the kobo H2O is what I use and it’s fantastic. It’s not sucked into Amazon’s shitty ecosystem and right out of the box it works for loading pirated content. I get all my books from the zlibrary onion site and you literally drag and drop files into the file folder. It’s e-ink so the battery lasts forever, it gets super bright for outside reading, and it’s waterproof. I can’t speak to modding but I haven’t bought a book since 2020 because of it and I honestly prefer it to most physical books at this point
Buy any kindle you prefer. Install calibre. Connect USB cable between kindle and computer.
Done.
Now download ebooks from anywhere, import into calibre and sync to your Kindle.
I have the paper white touch screen one.
After initially setting up your kindle, just keep it in airplane mode. Upload new books with calibre
If you skip updates long enough, someone might find a security hole, and if you’ve skipped the update that fixes it, you’ll be able to jailbreak it, install koreader, read epubs without conversion, use the filesystem for ebook organization.
Also, you’ll avoid advertisements, which Amazon is now pushing to the homescreens even of kindles that were bought with the extra-cost no-ads option.
Do you do it for privacy or just so that new updates don’t break it?
Privacy mainly
Personally, I did it just to save battery. But recently I made the mistake to connect and it updated to an interface that I don’t like and the battery that was bad (it’s 7 years old) seems to be worst.
I know this is the wrong /c/ for this, but… your local library probably has tons of content you can check out on your Kindle for free.
Seems like a good tip, but I’m from the EU so other than physical books and outdated PC’s with dialup (okay, dialup might be going too far haha) I don’t think there’s anything else at the library here.
You can sideload on to any kindle.
Paperwhite (non-SE) is the version to go for. They go on sale every month or two, check camelcamelcamel.
https://singlelogin.re/
https://calibre-ebook.com/Have fun.
Also, buy the ad-supported version from a place other than Amazon, and tell Amazon you got it as a gift and would like to remove the ads.
There’s a non-zero chance the customer service will remove it free of charge because I don’t think it’s possible for someone to pay to remove the ads if it wasn’t purchased from Amazon directly.
This is a great tip. I bought a used Voyage a couple years back and it wasn’t even listed as ads-free. I had just planned on leaving it in airplane mode like my previous kindle, but was pleasantly surprised.
Akshully, get the Paperwhite Kids. Like $10 more than the ad supported version, no ads, free cover/case, 2 year accidental protection warranty instead of just one year manufacturer warranty. Just be sure to cancel the free trial of the kids service.
They just fixed this. They raised the price of the kids version, ads turn back on if you turn kids mode off.
I just called Amazon and complained about the ads, they turned them off. I am Amazon prime though
Every single Kindle supports sideloading books via USB, or even, you can send non-legally obtained books OTA via the Amazon email on your kindle (yes, if you have a Amazon account you can have your device Linked to an @kindle.com mail address).
But, be worry about some issues. Be sideloading or emailing, Kindle devices natively don’t support ePub books. So, if you sideload via USB you WILL need to convert the books to some format like .mobi or .azw3 to be able to read it on the Kindle.
On the other side, if you email the files, Amazon servers do the converting for you, so you can easily send epub files and the Kindle servers adjust the ebook, you just need to have your Kindle connected to WiFi.
The only issue with emailing the files is you can’t use custom covers with them. If that’s not a concern, it’s definitely the easier route.
I own both a Kindle Basic 10 and a Kobo Clara HD.
Both devices can sideload books just fine out of the box, and you will be able to read them without having to do any hacks or jailbreaks. The easiest way to sideload and keep track of your books is using Calibre on a computer.
But I will say that the sideloading experience of the two devices are night and day.
Kindles are very clearly built to funnel you into the Amazon book store. Buying books from Amazon is smooth and easy.
For sideloading on Kindles you must convert to mobi, azw, azw3 or kfx. All of these have different feature support. So if you want Book covers, the updated layout engine and typesetting, then you must use kfx. But Calibre can’t natively convert to kfx. So you will need to install amazons ebook previewer and a plugin in Calibre to make Calibre convert to kfx via the amazon ebook preview application. Each conversion takes roughly 2 minutes, and randomly fails for no apparent reason.
If you decide to use Kindles’ email option for sideloading, then your books will be converted to mobi, so you lose out on a lot of features. And the kindle sees the books as documents, not books.
If you sideload with Calibre and try to upload books with book covers, then it will work fine, and for a couple of seconds after uploading the book it will work fine. Then the Kindle will realize that should definitely look up the book cover om Amazon, and if it finds the book if will overwrite your book cover, if not it will replace it with a blank page. You can then reconnect your Kindle to Calibre and Calibre will fix your book covers properly. But if your Kindle is able to look up the book on Amazon it will continue to overwrite your book cover.
Finally the organization of sideloaded books sucks on Kindle. If you sideload via email, then you can organized the books through Amazon’s website. If you sideload with Calibre you can’t, and your only option is to manually organized your books into folders on the device one by one. This is extremely slow and tedious.
Sideloading books on a Kobo can’t be done via e-mail, but Kobo supports epub out of the box, which most ebook are. If you want the books to load and navigate faster, you can convert to kepub, this requires a plugin for Calibre, but no additional software. Each book conversion takes 2-3 seconds, and the book arrives on your Kobo with a functioning book cover, full functionality and zero fuss. Additionally Kobos automatically organize books into folders based on both author and series based on your metadata in Calibre, making it a breeze to organize your entire library on your computer and just transfer things, already organized, to your kobo. Kobos also has an additional section called “Collections” which you can map to any field in Calibre you like. I have mapped mine to a Genre field, but you could organize stuff by anything you want.
So if you are planning to primarily sideload books, I would strongly encourage you to look at a Kobo instead of a Kindle.
Regarding the format of the files: Absolutely not true in my experience with a paperwhite.
Maybe it’s model specific, maybe calibre takes care of it for me but I am sure that I sideloaded epubs and they worked fine. Both via Amazon e-mail and calibre.
Amazon e-mail automatically converts to azw3, and Calibre also automatically converts to azw3 when transferring to a Kindle.
If you drag and drop the epub directly to the device it won’t work.
I may be very well wrong but I believe to have dropped epubs directly after compiling some web novels myself.
But I probably misremember it and it was calibre doing the lifting.
I have a Kindle paperwhite without ads, worth paying extra imo. I use Calibre to convert any books I “find” to mobis and send via email through Calibre. I’ve also done this with manga and it’s been working well. Loves me my paperwhite.
I have a Kindle paperwhite without ads, worth paying extra imo.
Pro tip: if you leave off wifi for long enough, the ads seem to expire and they’re permanently replaced by some generic pencils image or something. And, since having wifi on can cause the kindle to overwrite your cover images, I sync with calibre over USB anyway. I have the ad-supported Kindle 4 from 2011 and haven’t had ads on it since 2012.
If you have the magnetic cover though, you’ll still need to press the button to unlock it.
I don’t follow. When you say magnetic cover, do you mean some of the newer models? Also, what does pressing the button to unlock it do? Does that turn on wifi or something? I have to press a button to turn my Kindle 4 “on” (aka remove the screensaver and show my book) but that doesn’t cause an issue.
With my ad-free paper white, there’s a magnet in the case that lines up with a sensor in the kindle.
You open the cover, and it’s right where you left off.
With the ad supported version, you’d open the cover, and have to push the button to dismiss the ad.
IIRC, that behavior still persists even if the ads expire.
Huh. Yeah that must be a thing with newer models. Mine doesn’t have any magnets, and its not in a shape a case would even make sense. I do press a button to dismiss the “screensaver” (the thing that keeps you from accidentaly turning pages with side buttons when not in use), but I don’t see an ad on that screensaver. It’s pencils laying on a book, and has been for about a decade now.
With the ad supported kindle, there would be another screen showing the ad before you could use it.
Not a huge deal, but it does get a little annoying
It basically prevents you from being able to use the feature of the case
The ads were a lot less noticeable on the older kindles with the keyboard
Oh that’s interesting. That makes sense. Like I said I’m using the Kindle 4 from 2011 and it has a slightly different form factor and no way to use a magnetic case.
As others have mentioned, Kobo is a good device, especially if you use and are familiar with a Linux desktop and command line, as this can circumvent sign up while still getting updates. Discussed here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=171664
Then it’s just a quick visit over to oceanofpdf (or wherever you can find pdf/epub books). Download book, mount the Kobo, copy the book file, unmount, and enjoy!
