[HN Gopher] Kindle is removing download and transfer option on F...
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Kindle is removing download and transfer option on Feb 26th
Author : andyjohnson0
Score : 250 points
Date : 2025-02-16 18:13 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (old.reddit.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (old.reddit.com)
| nothingneko wrote:
| i have owned kindles for the better part of a decade and
| purchased books from the store a total of 4 times - the library
| and friend's epub collections were far more appealing
| poisonborz wrote:
| Bad, but anyone sideloading would skip Kindles anyway for a long
| time now for much better products.
| locusofself wrote:
| I think you can still sideload? Seems like this applies more to
| getting stuff _off_ of the kindle to the P.C.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| No the books are downloaded from the Amazon site. This is
| what is being removed.
|
| They are for the specific purpose of officially supported
| sideloading so that is also being removed. Sideloading books
| from other sources is still ok.
| locusofself wrote:
| Also, what better products are there? Kobo? I have a kindle
| oasis and it's a great device. Not that I love giving money to
| Amazon, I avoid that when I can with library or at least
| heavily discounted/public domain or side-loaded books whenever
| possible.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| I kept my oasis chugging for as long as I could stand it but
| there was no replacement with physical buttons, so I switched
| to a kobo colour. It's pretty great, if you install koreader
| on it you can even get to an on-screen linux shell, if you
| just have to bang out some awk on the bus.. :}
| wkat4242 wrote:
| At least kobo still has physical buttons on most of their
| devices. The oasis has them yes but it hasn't been updated in
| many years. It lacks mod cons like light temperature and
| white on black mode.
|
| The one thing that really bothers me about Kobo is that they
| no longer have a b/w reader in the Libra format. The Kobo
| colour has so much worse contrast. That degradation is not
| worth the slight benefit of mediocre colours for me. It
| really means always needing the blacklight.
| marklar423 wrote:
| Kobo is definitely superior to Kindle in my book. The
| hardware is great and it's completely open to sideloading and
| even modding (it runs Linux under the hood).
|
| I can't speak to their digital bookstore but they integrate
| with Overdrive for library borrowing.
| permo-w wrote:
| besides books, which you can sideload very simply with
| kindle, what do you need to sideload to your e-reader
| poisonborz wrote:
| Better reading software. KOReader is fantastic (also on
| Kindle, if you jailbreak).
| II2II wrote:
| There are a few alternative e-reading applications.
| KOReader and Plato are both under active development.
| KOReader is great at reading PDF documents on e-ink
| screens, has nicer options for accessing Wikipedia
| articles, has useful options for tracking reading
| progress (e.g. you can see which pages you have read,
| which is useful while jumping around technical books),
| and generally goes overboard in giving you control over
| how a book is formatted. I have also seen random
| applications make their way to the Kobo, and some people
| use Kobo's for their own programming projects.
|
| Another benefit is the ability to sideload software
| without jailbreaking it. I'm not going to say it is easy,
| since you need to know a bit about Unix to package your
| own software for sideloading (verses something that
| someone else packaged for you), but at least you can do
| it using trusted applications (rather than downloading
| something from a random third-party).
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| Kobo Libra color. If I'm being very honest, the screen isn't
| as good as the oasis but it's a compromise I've accepted for
| vastly superior hackability. I telnet into my kobo and
| installed tailscale then pointed the api to my calibre web
| instance, I have a much better experience overall because the
| books are drm-free(d) and calibre web handles sync with kobo
| really well.
|
| And it has physical buttons. I was clinging to my oasis for
| the buttons.
| palata wrote:
| > the screen isn't as good as the oasis
|
| Genuinely interested: how good does the screen have to be
| for mimicking text on paper? I have a Kindle from around
| 2013, I don't think I would ever need a better quality?
|
| > I telnet into my kobo and installed tailscale then
| pointed the api to my calibre web instance
|
| Wow that sounds great! This would make me consider a Kobo
| now (though my old Kindle is still good enough) :-).
| loeg wrote:
| I use a Kindle and pretty much exclusively sideload. The
| display and form factor are fantastic. Battery life is very
| good. Last time I was in the market (late 2021), nothing else
| was as good.
| permo-w wrote:
| you're right. it's an e-reader that you can email any epub
| file to and it'll read it. if you don't want to pirate,
| there's a functional store. what more do people need?
| palata wrote:
| People say that Kobo is hackable. Is it not possible to set
| up an email workflow there as well? Shouldn't be too hard,
| right?
| permo-w wrote:
| I don't know about kobo, but I know that with kindle you
| don't even have to hack it to do that, it's just a
| default feature
| toyg wrote:
| _> you can email any ePub file_
|
| Except when you can't, like literally yesterday: subscribed
| to Asimov's, sent ePub, got a link, clicked a link, "that
| link is not valid". Repeat, same message. Why? Who knows?
|
| My next ereader won't be a Kindle.
| int_19h wrote:
| Can you clarify what you mean by "got a link"? If you're
| using Send to Email, there shouldn't be any links
| involved. You just, well, send an email to the designated
| address with the ePub attached, and it shows up in your
| library shortly after.
| theshackleford wrote:
| My kobo is easily as good as my kindle was. Only better,
| because it has zero ties to Amazon.
| poisonborz wrote:
| I think the value of Kindles lies in Amazon's ecosystem.
| Hardware-wise I think most competitors catched up. Kobos
| especially are great, and have a much more open software
| platform.
| tormeh wrote:
| The Pocketbook Era Color is the best e-reader right now if you
| don't care about stores. Or at least it was the best device out
| there when I was in the market for a reader.
| int_19h wrote:
| I sideload with my Kindle all the time and I don't expect to
| switch away. It still lets me grab any random non-DRM ePub and
| upload it over USB, or, better yet, add it directly to my cloud
| library with Send to Email (and then I also get position &
| bookmark sync across all devices etc).
| devilbunny wrote:
| I only use eInk to read at the beach or pool. I am still
| happily using a Kindle 3G. That's an old, old model, but it
| still works and it has physical page turn buttons. Too old to
| work with the Kindle store even over WiFi. But sideloading
| works just fine, and I always have a laptop on vacation. As
| long as I have 3-4 books ready each day I'll never be caught
| short. Download, strip DRM if desired, sideload.
|
| Now I suppose it will just be Anna and me doing the sideload.
| locusofself wrote:
| It sounds like this applies to backing up to a hard drive etc,
| and for some people, then removing DRM from their kindle books.
|
| I understand the worry, but for me I was more worried about
| losing the ability to side-load books, which I don't think is
| being removed.
| gnabgib wrote:
| Discussions
|
| (120 points, 3 days ago, 93 comments)
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43041726
|
| (50 points, 2 days ago, 23 comments)
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43046995
|
| (120 points, 1 day ago, 101 comments)
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43058889
| 42772827 wrote:
| There have been several threads about this on HN over the past
| few days and months. Just to avoid the confusion that seems to
| follow these, a few notes:
|
| (1) This is the "Download and Transfer" option where Amazon
| allowed users to select books they had purchased a license to and
| download them from the Amazon website.
|
| (2) The ability to transfer books from your computer to your
| Kindle using a USB cable is _not_ affected.
|
| (3) The ability to send non-Amazon-licensed ePubs using the Send
| to Kindle email feature is _not_ affected.
| spookybones wrote:
| I was reading a Reddit thread on this, and not a single person
| there understood this. It isn't good news, but it's being
| severely misinterpreted.
| permo-w wrote:
| >I was reading a Reddit thread on this, and not a single
| person there understood this
|
| were you surprised by this revelation?
| soygem wrote:
| kek
| wkat4242 wrote:
| > (2) The ability to transfer books from your computer to your
| Kindle using a USB cable is _not_ affected.
|
| Well, it kinda is. If you can no longer download the books you
| paid for, you can't upload them over USB. That's what that
| feature on their website was meant for, in fact.
|
| Of course you can still upload non-Amazon content yes. Which is
| probably what I'll end up doing. I won't buy books on Amazon
| anymore if I can't remove the DRM.
| 42772827 wrote:
| You can still download books you paid a license to Amazon
| for, you just have to use a Wi-Fi or 4G LTE-enabled Kindle to
| do it.
| goosedragons wrote:
| Which may or may not be possible. For 2G Kindles like the
| Kindle 2 there is no more 2G service and there is no Wifi.
| Download and Transfer was the only remaining way to load
| books on from Amazon without ironically removing the DRM.
| 42772827 wrote:
| Accurate info, edited my comment to specify.
| mattl wrote:
| Not suggesting it as a good option but does the Kindle
| app on Windows and macOS not work with these devices?
| goosedragons wrote:
| Nope. Kindle for PC can't send books to devices.
| mattl wrote:
| Elsewhere here and Reddit it seems the trick is to use
| the Kindle app plus Calibre.
|
| Good luck with it.
| Uvix wrote:
| Assuming that you have Wi-fi and that your Kindle is
| compatible with it. Someone with a hardwired-only
| connection, an older Kindle that doesn't support Wi-fi at
| all, or one that doesn't support WPA3 will be stymied.
|
| (The models that don't support Wi-fi at all originally had
| cellular service for wirelessly downloading books, but that
| was sunset a few years ago. So there will be literally no
| way to copy new books to those devices anymore.)
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Yeah and Amazon stopped supporting those kindles too. My
| Kindle 4th gen no longer connects to the hive even with
| WiFi. It's not a cellular model (and I think they had
| dropped that option by then anyway). It's still the old
| non-touch UI though.
|
| Apparently it needs to be "up to date" but because Amazon
| no longer publishes firmware updates, it is not.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| "Just" - my gen 2 kindle only has 2G connectivity so this
| removal effectively renders it unable to get Amazon-
| purchased books in any way. "Just" implies buying an
| entirely new kindle "just because".
| 42772827 wrote:
| I mean, you're not wrong, but Woot has them on sale for
| ~$30 fairly often. Your Gen 2 is about sixteen years old
| at this point.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| That's $30 that I shouldn't have to spend. (And I mean,
| no worries, I won't, I've had enough with Amazon
| rendering perfectly good kindles obsolete, and I can get
| plenty of books for free elsewhere - still, it's not a
| choice I should have to make just so Amazon can save the
| cost of what's essentially an app to check your
| permissions and set up a pre signed s3 download link for
| you).
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Yes but not over USB of course. Another thing that bothers
| me about that, is that Amazon could block my account for
| whatever reason and I'd lose access to all my content. Of
| course this goes for many such services. Like Apple's app
| store, google play, steam, microsoft store (not like anyone
| ever uses that lol), content bought on itunes etc.
| int_19h wrote:
| Or their app, on any platform where you can get access to
| its file store (e.g. Android, Windows, macOS...).
| jsbisviewtiful wrote:
| Thanks. I feel like the commentary and "news blogs" around this
| have been very confusing.
| bo1024 wrote:
| This is far worse for me than the other possible interpretation
| - that you could download books but not transfer them. I buy
| Amazon e-books to read them on other e-readers, but now it
| looks like I can't.
| freeAgent wrote:
| That's the bottom line. Kindle books will now be fully locked
| into the Kindle ecosystem and if Amazon decides to take back
| something you've "purchased," you'll have no recourse. I'm
| done purchasing ebooks from Amazon because of this.
| barbazoo wrote:
| TIL that Kobo integrates with libraries, that means you can
| download and read library ebooks on your Kobo.
| arez wrote:
| yep, that's exactly why I got a Kobo, so much better
| cowsandmilk wrote:
| Kobo is owned by Rakuten who used to own Overdrive/Libby.
| mattl wrote:
| Kindle does this too via Libby.
| neilv wrote:
| For people already locked into Kindle, I don't know what to tell
| you. (Unless you DRM-crack, and get into the gray areas of the
| piracy culture that's _creating_ much of the DRM problems.)
|
| But it would be healthy for everyone if people supported a DRM-
| free and non-surveillance ebook ecosystem.
|
| One solution I found is to buy ebooks as DRM-free EPUBs and PDFs,
| and read them in open source desktop tools and on my relatively
| decent PocketBook InkPad Lite.
|
| Some details at: https://www.neilvandyke.org/ebooks/
| wkat4242 wrote:
| > (Unless you DRM-crack, and get into the gray areas of the
| piracy culture that's _creating_ much of the DRM problems.)
|
| Meh. Even if there was no piracy there'd be DRM. It's not only
| used to limit privacy but also how you can legitimately use
| stuff you bought. Like how many devices you can access it on.
| Or how many times you can view video content.
|
| In fact I think the presence of piracy helps keep prices low.
| I'm sure Netflix would raise prices even more if they weren't
| losing customers to piracy every time they raise prices or add
| crap like ads.. And really, DRM does absolutely nothing to
| prevent this. It's not as if the latest shows aren't on the
| pirate bay hours after they appear on Netflix.
|
| > But it would be healthy for everyone if people supported a
| DRM-free and non-surveillance ebook ecosystem.
|
| That would be very nice yes, if there were one. I don't think
| there's anything like GOG for books. But yes I do always buy my
| games on GOG if they are available there.
| buu709 wrote:
| ebooks.com does tell you if a title has DRM or not, which
| seems to be the best option currently. Outside of that I
| haven't found much.
| input_sh wrote:
| Not that I've ever encountered it in the wild, but I feel
| like pointing out that publishers _can_ opt-out of DRM on
| Amazon as well. You 'd recognise them by this in the
| description:
|
| > At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold
| without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
|
| I only know about it because of Cory Doctorow, never seen
| anyone else that does this. Heck, even re-packaged public
| domain books contain DRM for some inexplicable reason.
| goosedragons wrote:
| Kobo also does it. They tell you in the eBook details.
| It's the publisher's request. Publishers like Tor,
| O'reily and Baen go DRM free. If the re-packaged public
| domain books don't request it then on goes the DRM.
| neilv wrote:
| The link lists a few places that have DRM-free ebooks, and
| some examples of good technical books I've bought that way.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Hmm yeah but I don't tend to read technical books on
| ereaders. Most of them require a bigger screen to be
| usable. I only read fiction on my kindle.
|
| I haven't seen a good store that has the usual popular
| content without DRM. Well except on paper of course :)
|
| But yeah I didn't know that existed for tech books. In fact
| the ones I bought online were from big publishers and quite
| expensive compared to fiction books. But perhaps that's
| just my niche.
| sitkack wrote:
| That is what DRM is _for_. Same as the region locking in
| DVDs. It is about segmenting markets, preventing competition
| and ensuring that the publishers can sell the same content
| over and over again.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Yes I know, my point was that not pirating is not helping
| to remove DRM from the world as the OP was suggesting.
| sitkack wrote:
| Agree, my comment was for the room.
| loeg wrote:
| You can always load 3rd-party DRM-free books and I don't see
| Amazon removing that. Their hardware and ecosystem aren't
| _that_ much better than everyone else 's.
| daveoc64 wrote:
| > But it would be healthy for everyone if people supported a
| DRM-free and non-surveillance ebook ecosystem.
|
| I dream of a day when that's possible, but all of the massive
| publishers with over 80% of book marketshare insist on DRM.
| pmarreck wrote:
| > and get into the gray areas of the piracy culture that's
| creating much of the DRM problems
|
| This is an interesting framing, mainly because it can be
| flipped 180 degrees around. "Shinier and more impregnable DRM
| just creates problems that lock you into certain devices and
| usage patterns, which simply create much of the gray area of
| piracy culture"
|
| I mean, you're literally starting out by _not trusting the
| person who fucking purchased your product_ and then furthermore
| also _artificially limiting them in how they can use that
| content and on what devices!_
|
| Imagine if every marriage began with an un-shut-offable
| location tracker in your wedding band. You'd be complaining
| about the "cheating culture that has contributed to the need to
| install uncircumventable perma-trackers on the newly-married...
| and also, everyone who tries to disable them OBVIOUSLY just
| wants to cheat" /eye-roll
| thayne wrote:
| > One solution I found is to buy ebooks as DRM-free EPUBs and
| PDFs
|
| Unfortunately, for many, many books, this isn't possible, at
| least legally.
| mfashby wrote:
| > But it would be healthy for everyone if people supported a
| DRM-free and non-surveillance ebook ecosystem.
|
| I try nearly every time. The book I want (usually sci-fi
| recommended to me by friends) is never available from any DRM
| free shop I can find.
|
| I end up buying from Amazon because their DRM is the most
| convenient to remive. And I go to the effort to remove it
| because I want to keep the content I buy, not have it disappear
| when the DRM key holder decides to take it away from me.
| Retr0id wrote:
| By the way, all kindle models are currently jailbreakable:
| https://kindlemodding.org/jailbreaking/WinterBreak/
| rafram wrote:
| As far as I can tell, the main benefit of jailbreaking is to be
| able to install a reader that supports more ebook formats,
| since a stock Kindle can already browse the web and read ebooks
| from any source, but it only supports MOBI/AZW3, and the Send
| to Kindle EPUB converter is not very good. But it's easy enough
| to use Calibre to do a lossless EPUB -> AZW3 conversion without
| the hassle of jailbreaking. Is there some other benefit that
| I'm missing?
| jerjerjer wrote:
| Folders.
| aradox66 wrote:
| Ohhh shit
| beshrkayali wrote:
| It's a bit more than just supporting additional formats.
| KOReader for example is a highly customizable (and mature)
| reader that's hard to beat. Plenty of plugins exist also. In
| particular, one nice thing about the Calibre plugin is
| wireless sending of books and progress sync across device(s)
| and desktop.
| shasheene wrote:
| Oh finally! I have a Kindle Scribe, and it's really amazing
| hardware, but it's unusable for reading websites like Wikipedia
| and sending links to it using the Amazon bookmarklet is a
| pretty bad experience.
|
| The biggest issue is the web browser doesn't have pagination,
| ie a next page button. *It only supports smooth scrolling using
| the touch screen*. Which on an e-ink display is a completely
| awful, insanely frustrating experience that I can't believe
| they ship it (and the Scribe is an 11th generation product).
|
| Using a web browser to read pure text is a blurred mess that's
| takes several painful seconds to slowly scroll to the next
| page.
|
| Since I bought the Kindle Scribe (big mistake due to the above
| issue), I've wanted to jailbreak it to install a non-terrible
| Wikipedia browser.
|
| Eg the one available in the KOReader project -- the open-source
| alternative eink-optimized ebook app that is widely-supported
| across the eink ecosystem (including older Kindles).
|
| Thanks for heads up that a jailbreak is finally available!
| mattl wrote:
| The Scribe should be so much better but all the issues you
| mentioned put me off buying one.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43046995
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43039924
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43041726
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| Kobo has a sideloading mode that disables all connected-services
| by default (no need for an account, no online store necessary).
| Highly recommended alternative.
|
| https://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2022/01/21/kobo-software-u...
| wiether wrote:
| I hear the complaints about Kindle but...
|
| How are we supposed to do?
|
| In three "taps" I buy a book and 10s later I start reading it.
| Legally. The device just works.
|
| The alternatives? Libraries here (France) have a very limited
| offer of ebooks. Even for ebooks in English. I owned a Kobo circa
| 2013 and it was awful. I tried friend's devices more recently,
| and it's not the UX I expect from a "book".
|
| A simple comparison; "Parable of the Sower", bought it for
| 3.49EUR on amazon.fr, it's at 5.26EUR on ebooks.com and it still
| got DRMs.
|
| Even pirating is less convenient: some files are buggy, some
| files are weird OCR of physical books, you have to deal with the
| download and transfer...
|
| And I just can't read physical books. I hate that.
|
| So usually, if I really enjoy an ebook, I buy a physical copy in
| a local bookstore and give it to a friend/whoever I think is
| going to like it.
|
| I would love an open ecosystem where I could rent ebooks from a
| library, and buy books that can be read wherever I want. But
| that's not going to happen because the big guns of the industry
| think they know better.
|
| So that's where I'm at: buying & reading books in Amazon's walled
| garden, or doing neither at all.
| yreg wrote:
| > Even pirating is less convenient
|
| I stopped reading ebooks and actually moved to physical books,
| but from what I remember pirated books were super convenient. I
| had this giant library of tons and tons of scifi/fantasy books
| I once randomly copied from someone and it didn't even take
| that much storage space. It lasted me my childhood and I've
| only managed to read a small fraction of it.
| aradox66 wrote:
| Sci Fi more than a decade old is the golden zone for piracy.
| Everything else is harder. Contemporary books, very hard.
| goosedragons wrote:
| Sci Fi tends more likely to be DRM free. Baen has been
| selling DRM free eBooks for forever direct and TOR also has
| a DRM free policy.
| goosedragons wrote:
| What exactly is the UX you want from an eReader? I find Kindles
| and Kobos are pretty similar. So I'm curious what exactly was
| better about Amazon. I personally find Amazon has worse text
| options, font sizing, line spacing etc.
|
| I have purchased eBooks that were just bad OCRs, some
| publishers just don't care.
|
| Kobo will also price match with Amazon, you get credit back and
| an extra 10% too.
| Uvix wrote:
| I'm intrigued that you think Kindle has worse text options
| than Kobo; in my experience it's the other way around. My
| Kobo doesn't have the ability to justify just body text while
| leaving headings alone; my Kindles have handled that just
| fine for over a decade.
|
| What options does Kobo have for text that you think Kindle is
| missing?
|
| I use my Kobo for comics and buy those through them
| (specifically got one with a large screen since Amazon didn't
| have a similar device), but I don't know if I'd switch to
| Kobo for novels. I'd rather buy from Kobo and sideload to my
| Kindle.
| goosedragons wrote:
| Line, paragraph spacing, fonts and font sizing and margins.
| Amazon has like 6 options of each. One of which I consider
| almost tolerable (but not quite) and the rest are useless.
| Kobo has a LOT more play with these settings and much
| easier to get something I like.
| chipotle_coyote wrote:
| With my Kobo Libra 2, if I set justification to "off", it
| follows the justification that's in the ebook -- which
| usually tend to do exactly what you're asking, e.g.,
| justify body text while leaving headers alone.
|
| When I switched over to Kobo a few years ago, it seemed
| much easier to manage custom fonts, too, although I think
| Kindle has improved in that regard. I don't think there's a
| tremendous amount of difference between the two in practice
| anymore, though. (In terms of text handling, that is.)
| Uvix wrote:
| Unfortunately many ebooks don't specify a default
| justification on their body text, so with "off", my Kobo
| Sage will left-align the text in those books.
|
| Agree that I think Kobo better manages custom fonts from
| what I've seen. (I don't use a custom font so I'm not
| 100% up-to-date on the sordid details for either
| platform.)
| debo_ wrote:
| In Canada, I use my (now 8-year old Kobo) plus a public library
| app to borrow ebooks from our library system for free.
| Everything just works. It's terrific. I'm sorry to hear the
| same doesn't work where you are.
| chipotle_coyote wrote:
| I can't speak to the experience in France, but my experience
| with Kobo in the US has been that it's just as good as a Kindle
| in most respects, and better in some others, such as
| integration with Overdrive and Pocket. (My understanding is
| that Kindles have gotten better at Overdrive since I left that
| ecosystem.)
|
| I mean, I can buy a book on a Kobo and read it legally in just
| as few taps, and I can also _borrow_ a book on Kobo and read it
| legally.
|
| Also, Kobo plays more nicely with Calibre, including a much
| nicer DRM-stripping management plugin, which seems relevant to
| the overall topic of this thread -- all the Kindle DRM removal
| plugin how-tos out there stopped working reliably for me years
| ago.
| syntaxing wrote:
| Uhh what? There's like four tabs for the Kobo interface, one
| specifically for books. You literally just click the book you
| want to read...Not sure what more you want from an ereader or
| how much easier it can get.
| palata wrote:
| > I owned a Kobo circa 2013 and it was awful.
|
| I got my Kindle around that time, even though I had actively
| looked for alternatives. Nothing seemed to compare then.
|
| But I'm ready to believe that now in 2025, Kobo caught up? I
| read many comments here praising Kobo.
| bambax wrote:
| > _some files are weird OCR of physical books_
|
| Kindle store has those too.
| pmarreck wrote:
| I own Kindles and I have bought a lot of ebook content from the
| Amazon store over the years but they don't seem to realize that
| the more restrictions they put in place, the more they are
| incentivizing just someone going to the effort to decrypt/de-DRM
| everything to epub and shoving it into a Kobo (or apple's
| Books.app, or comic book reader, or anything else that reads the
| ebook or comic book formats)
|
| ...Which is exactly what I ended up doing. Decrypting 100% of my
| Kindle purchases so I can use them how I please, and using
| z-library when I was too lazy to even do so.
|
| Apple understood this when the first iPod came out. Offer a
| better service, not shinier handcuffs.
| runjake wrote:
| What do you use to decrypt your Kindle purchases? I haven't yet
| found anything that works with modern purchases.
| pmarreck wrote:
| Most forums frown on sharing such information, but seek and
| ye shall find. Also, it's good to leave speed bumps in place
| due to the ethical concerns.
|
| The last time I did it I had to basically procure an old
| Kindle app and get the content via that, because it used a
| weaker version of DRM. That loophole may have been closed in
| the meantime, though.
| daveoc64 wrote:
| >Apple understood this when the first iPod came out. Offer a
| better service, not shinier handcuffs.
|
| It's a shame they haven't tried to pressure the publishers into
| dropping DRM for books.
|
| The DRM used by Apple's bookstore is entirely limited to
| Apple's own apps on its own devices. You can't even read the
| books in a web browser.
| pmarreck wrote:
| Which is why I try to decrypt everything I purchase, or
| obtain a decrypted version after purchase. (The only grey-
| area exception is if I own the physical copy of the book, I
| consider it ethical to download the ebook, but this is of
| course debatable to a degree)
|
| I'm not trying to screw over authors and publishers, I just
| want to use my purchased content how I please.
|
| They could easily do what Apple did and leave things un-DRM'd
| but digitally-signed as having been purchased by someone.
| portaouflop wrote:
| Buying hard copies of a book and the pirating the DRM-free
| digital version is completely acceptable imo - as long as
| you buy the hard copy in a bookshop and not online ilk like
| Amazon. Most local bookshops also will offer shipping if
| you're too lazy to walk there a couple of times/year.
| t-writescode wrote:
| The first iPod and iTunes stores were very full of DRM.
| freeAgent wrote:
| Yup, and thankfully piracy outcompeted them so Apple gave it
| up.
| int_19h wrote:
| The vast majority of Kindle users do not possess the technical
| expertise or inclination to decrypt/de-DRM their purchases.
| But, also, I doubt that the kind of workflow that is affected
| by this change is something that would even register for most.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| How do I jailbreak Kindle books so they aren't later removed or
| restricted in weird ways?
| compootr wrote:
| something something library genesis
| amluto wrote:
| This is especially obnoxious for books that are already DRM-free.
| For example, one can presently buy a Tor (the publisher, not the
| onion router) book from the Kindle store, download the azw3 file,
| use a tool like KindleUnpacker [0] to more or less losslessly
| convert it to ePub, and read it anywhere. There's no DRM to
| break!
|
| [0] KindleUnpacker follows in the IMO utterly bizarre tradition
| in the epub tool writing scene of making it obvious how to run a
| really bad Tk UI wrapper and hiding the actual command-line tool
| in lib/. And of wanting an output _directory_ instead of a
| filename. And of leaving a whole pile of unnecessary temporary
| files around. And of forcing you to look through the temporary
| crap to even find the output. Oh well; the actual output is
| excellent.
| yohbho wrote:
| Stallman calls it Swindle, for a reason. Actually, many reasons.
| addicted wrote:
| I'm not sure why anyone buys Kindles when there are so many
| better options available.
|
| I bought a Kobo Clara years ago, and it supports regular MOBI and
| ePub files.
|
| My book purchases are no longer liked with the reader and I've
| never had a problem in all these years. And this wasn't even the
| best or best value for money device I could have bought.
|
| Today there are so many other better alternatives in all price
| points and form factors.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| I couldn't agree more. I use a Boox e-reader, and I had no
| interest in using the Kindle app, so stripping the DRM (on
| books I'd purchased, for my own use only) was a selling point.
| Without that I'm just moving my business over to Kobo, Calibre
| + a plugin and there's no DRM issue.
|
| I won't pretend to know if there are enough people like us to
| impact Amazon's calculus, but I hope there are.
| daveoc64 wrote:
| >I'm not sure why anyone buys Kindles when there are so many
| better options available.
|
| For me, the Kobo lacks something like the Send to Kindle
| feature.
|
| I can send books I've obtained from outside the Kindle Store
| (DRM free sellers, Humble Bundle, public domain etc.) and then
| store them in my Kindle library.
|
| These are then synchronised across all of my Kindle devices and
| apps - completely for free
|
| Kobo does have integration with cloud storage, but it's not the
| same feature.
|
| Plus it has the Kindle Store, which has the biggest selection
| of books for sale.
| palata wrote:
| > Plus it has the Kindle Store, which has the biggest
| selection of books for sale.
|
| Because Amazon abuses its position to get there, right? I see
| how it makes it more convenient, but I also see how that is a
| reason for not buying a Kindle.
| testfrequency wrote:
| Correct.
|
| Maybe more intensely, if a book is available on Kindle
| Unlimited, Amazon has exclusive rights to the book and it
| is not available on any other digital store.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Isn't that what Calibre is for?
| int_19h wrote:
| Calibre doesn't automatically sync books across all your
| devices, including last read position, bookmarks,
| highlights etc.
| tfsh wrote:
| Massive +1 to this, I'd recommend using Calibre to manage your
| library and any Kobo reader as the companion, I manage a
| massive 2000+ book library like like this, and never
| encountered issues with syncing, corrupt file systems, etc,
| which I did regularly with Kindle.
| Arainach wrote:
| People don't buy Kindles for the hardware. They buy Kindles
| because they work with a store that has the books they want to
| buy (and the hardware is good enough and cheap enough).
|
| Without data I believe that more than 99% of ereader users have
| no idea what a MOBI or ePub file is and have never attempted to
| manually move a file onto their device. Instead, they go to a
| digital book store, click "buy", and content appears on their
| device.
|
| Amazon does that as well as (better than?) any competitor, and
| crucially their store has the books people want.
|
| I don't want a subscription store filled exclusively with LLM-
| generated trash. I don't really want to have to find which of a
| thousand websites will sell a DRM-free copy of something so I
| can buy it, download it, transcode it in Calibre into a format
| my device reads, and transfer it to my device. I'd much rather
| pay a few dollars, click a button that sends some money to the
| author and sends a book to my device.
|
| This whole comments section reeks of "I don't understand why
| anyone uses Windows when Linux is so easy to get to", managing
| to simultaneously assume every user has a degree in computer
| science and overlooking all the rough edges.
| OvbiousError wrote:
| The alternative I see mentioned here is kobo. I haven't
| used/owned a kindle so I don't know what amazon do better
| than the kobo store. I can say that I've bought over 50 books
| on the kobo store, can't recall a single instance of it not
| having a book I wanted.
| ryantgtg wrote:
| Another reason people (e.g., my mother in law) buy kindles
| is that the price of ebooks is very often much less from
| Amazon than from the Kobo store. My mother in law wants to
| be like us and so she recently bought a kobo. But then she
| bought herself a new kindle as well simply so she can buy
| cheaper books and then transfer them (which she hasn't
| figured out how to do, and which according to this thread
| will no longer be possible).
| bambax wrote:
| It is (was) very convenient to buy ebooks on Amazon, download
| them to Calibre, and strip them of DRM so that you ended up
| owning them for real.
|
| If that's no longer possible then there's no point in using
| Amazon for this, yes.
| int_19h wrote:
| Three reasons for me.
|
| First, Kindle Oasis has a great form factor. I want a reader
| that is shaped conveniently to hold with one hand and flip
| pages without having to lift my thumb. Oasis does exactly that.
|
| Second, I find that Amazon is the most likely to have books
| that I care about. Other catalogs aren't as extensive, and
| depending on your preferences, this can get really noticeable.
|
| Lastly, I already have a very large Kindle library from way
| back, and switching to a different incompatible device means
| abandoning all of that.
| rochav wrote:
| Well, Amazon does have a global presence, for worse rather than
| better in my opinion, but I live in Brazil and, as far as I am
| aware, there isn't really any other decent e-reader brand
| selling its devices here officially and conversion rates plus
| taxes would make it really expensive to import anything else,
| so that could be a reason.
|
| I have an 2016 basic kindle that I use often, it is sideloaded
| with KOreader (official software didn't support epubs when I
| bought it) and I mainly use it for non-amazon books through
| Calibre or cable transfer.
| fractallyte wrote:
| I spent yesterday morning downloading _ALL_ my (~2400) Kindle
| books using the command line utility from
| https://github.com/yihong0618/Kindle_download_helper
|
| In case anyone else needs to do something similar: Log in to your
| Amazon account > Manage Your Content and Devices
|
| Copy the cookie and save it to a file ('cookie.txt'):
| https://github.com/yihong0618/Kindle_download_helper?tab=rea...
|
| Execute the Python utility (this example accesses amazon.co.uk):
| python kindle.py --cookie-file cookie.txt --uk -o DOWNLOADS
| --device_sn [Your Kindle serial no.] --mode all
|
| You can also download a JSON list containing details of all your
| Kindle books: python kindle.py --cookie-file
| cookie.txt --uk --list --device_sn [Your Kindle serial no.]
|
| There are other methods outlined in the README, but this worked
| best for me.
|
| I also extracted a list of cover URLs from the JSON file using a
| basic Python script (with output redirected to a file
| 'covers.txt'): import json with open('book-
| list.json') as f: json_data = json.load(f) for
| i in range(len(json_data)):
| print(json_data[i]['productImage'])
|
| And then I used wget to download them all too:
| wget --wait=3 --random-wait --input-file=covers.txt
|
| Of course, the books are still DRM'd, but it's trivial to DeDRM
| them later. The crucial thing was to _get the files before it 's
| too late!_
| int_19h wrote:
| Last time I tried to DeDRM my Kindle book collection, there
| were many books with "newer" DRM that wasn't possible to strip.
| Did that improve recently?
| linotype wrote:
| I just ordered a Kobo. Done with Amazon.
| rocky1138 wrote:
| Someone above mentioned all models are jailbreak-able.
| syntaxing wrote:
| I don't really get the Kindle hype. Kobo is a vastly better
| experience and the unlimited plans are more affordable. Kobo is
| $8 a month, $10 for books and audiobooks. Kindle is $12 flat.
| Kobo has g drive and Dropbox integration. Also the e-readers use
| the same screens (minus the "colorsoft" which is still a e-ink
| product).
| t-writescode wrote:
| Marketing, first mover advantage, brand recognition, entrenched
| userbase, ubiquitous company name.
|
| People use Kindles because they're the easiest to find, most
| well known, integrated with one of the most popular online shps
| on the planet that also encourages easy publishing, were one of
| the first, used to "just work", don't need to be changed,
| already have their books on there, and so on.
| josteink wrote:
| Uh. My Kindle cost me $100 like 8-10 years ago and has
| literally zero running costs.
|
| What are these figures you are mentioning?
|
| If a Kobo means a monthly fee, I swear I'll never even consider
| getting one.
| vohk wrote:
| They're referring to the subscription plans that give you
| unlimited access to their catalogue (or at least most of it),
| like Spotify versus buying an album. Both Kobo and Kindle
| offer individual purchases as well.
| tfsh wrote:
| Kobos doesn't require a subscription. I switched from a
| Kindle to a Kobo Clara Colour recently and it's honestly one
| of the best tech choices I've ever made. Kobos are hackable
| by default, so you can literally plug them into Chrome and
| flash new software onto them via WebUSB (or just via the file
| system). The real kicker for me though is the support with
| Calibre, I have a massive collection of maybe 2000 books, and
| this perfectly syncs with my Kobo supporting filtering,
| collections, etc. attempting this with even 10 books with my
| Kindle would routinely break down, books not appearing even
| after waiting hours for it to index, corrupt file systems,
| etc, the entire device is designed to push you towards Amazon
| store, including the scammy "pay PS20 more to remove adverts"
| and them disguising the actual price as "reduced".
|
| The fee GP pointed to is a monthly subscription similar to
| Amazon's Kindle book club offering.
| syntaxing wrote:
| I meant the book and audiobook subscription. It's equivalent
| to Kindle Unlimited.
| p1necone wrote:
| Idk about Kobo plus, the content available on it all seems to
| basically be the written equivalent of shovelware (unknown
| authors, questionable quality). I've almost never searched for
| a modern book I want to read and found it available on the
| subscription service.
|
| Agree everything else is better though, and Amazon's equivalent
| subscription library could be just as bad for all I know.
| Hackbraten wrote:
| I bought a Tolino vision color (a rebranded Kobo Libra Color with
| shittier software) a few months ago. If Amazon no longer allows
| me to download purchased books, I can no longer de-DRM them and
| read them offline on my phone, on my Tolino or on my computer. It
| seems that most stores outside Amazon have even shittier DRM than
| Amazon has. How am I going to be able to buy books in the future
| so I can actually read them?
|
| I'm absolutely willing to pay for ebooks. I always did. For me,
| removal of the download feature will absolutely be a bookalypse.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Kobo, I never had problems downloading the books and getting
| rid of the DRM.
| kqr2 wrote:
| Is there a script to download all your Kindle books?
| abawany wrote:
| perhaps this will help you as well:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43071284 .
| Dxtros wrote:
| does anyone know if this affects the older versions of kindle for
| pc? You're able to download your books from there still
| currently.
| bloomingkales wrote:
| Libby is the way to go. It's going to suck when they defund the
| library.
| nindalf wrote:
| I have a medium sized collection of Kindle books. I stay in the
| ecosystem because I enjoy the convenience of being able to read
| on my phone and tablet, and I enjoy being able to write and sync
| notes and highlights.
|
| I would have liked to have all the books on my hard drive, fully
| searchable. But it seems like it won't be possible now? I guess
| I'll have to make do with my notes.
| exe34 wrote:
| Thank goodness I made a habit of downloading and unlocking the
| books that I bought on Amazon. I would hate to rush and download
| >100 books one by one now.
| npteljes wrote:
| Good reminder to all of us to check the dependencies from time to
| time. Services don't last forever, which is not a problem at all,
| if people enter into contract consciously. What's painful is
| overly relying on a service, and then having the rug pulled from
| underneath the feet.
|
| I don't think that this instance is particularly painful, but the
| lesson is still the same. If it's important, it's worth to back
| up at least the metadata.
| NunoSempere wrote:
| I bought a Pocketbook after Amazon started nagging too much about
| connecting to the wifi. Would recommend.
| abawany wrote:
| Pocketbook is a solid choice. I've been very happy with my
| Pocketbok Inkpad Color 3 - their free cloud offering is great
| for transferring my ebooks around and their send-to feature is
| also great. I've never trusted the Kindle jail but in my
| various trials with eink devices, I've come to appreciate the
| clean experience that Pocketbook currently offers.
| samjohnson wrote:
| I've tried leaving kindle but keep coming back because of how
| well it syncs side-loaded (via email) epub reading progress
| between the physical reader and the kindle app on my iPhone.
|
| I recently got a Boox Palma, which I love, but the Android Kindle
| app can't display time remaining in a chapter for emailed epubs.
| I find this very surprising, considering both the kindle hardware
| readers and iPhone kindle app have no problem doing this. Sharing
| this story in case someone else has run into this and identified
| a solution.
| rand17 wrote:
| As of this writing I can still connect my kindle and then read
| the kfx file with Calibre and then convert it to azw3 or epub
| (with the dedrm plugin).
|
| Should I loose every way to backup my books, then probably I'd
| use tesseract, puppeteer and their cloud reader to re-ocr the
| books (it's better than nothing). Also note that the country I
| live in, libraries have no ebooks. Kobo drm is another nuisance.
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