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 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Seems like a good tip, but I’m from the EU so other than physical books and outdated PC’s with dialup (okay, dialup might be going too far haha) I don’t think there’s anything else at the library here.
Even german libraries have ebook lending. You should probably take another look at your local option
Well Germany is pretty much one of the best examples on EU. If you said something like even Bulgaria has them I’d be surprised…
I’m from Portugal so I doubt we have those on the libraries. But, I’ll have a look, I have a library 5mins away on foot.
You’d be surprised how ass backwards Germany is with elevtronic stuff…
Regarding e-lending: Surely depends on the local offers around you. Totally (sadly).
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Oh well. Back to piracy am i right?
I don’t know where you’re from, but I’m from the Netherlands. With a library subscription you can basically download any book (in Dutch or English) and keep them forever
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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
Second this! Also a fantastic resource is https://standardebooks.org/ They take public domain books and reformat them for ereading for free! You can download them in kobo specific formatting and it looks so good! Edit: auto correct and more details
Completely agree. Kobo is way better. No ads and no need to root just to unlock things. Pair it up with Calibre or Calibre Web to sync books wirelessly.
I have a kobo for years and never managed to sync it wirelessly, is there a way to make automatic syncs as soon as I add a book?
I self host a Calibre-Web server that my Kobo syncs to. I had to edit a setting in my Kobo to point to it. In Calibre-web I have a kobo ‘shelf’ that you add books to and whenever I press sync on the Kobo it syncs to that shelf.
This is exactly what I’m looking at. This + notifiarr +readarr sounds like I can finally have my family getting ebooks without my help 😀
Didn’t know about Kobo but apparently that model seems to be out of stock in the EU. Also the devices seem a bit more expensive than amazon’s. Not sure if this is just amazon selling at a loss or that the quality or something might be better on the Kobo.
I’ll have a look on the local 2nd hand market, maybe I’ll have some luck.
From what I can tell the H20 is an older product that’s been mostly replaced by the Libra 2. I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon sold at a loss, breaking a kindle out of the Amazon ecosystem is more work than most people will do, so they end up being audible subscribers and buying books from Amazon. Personally I think they’re worth the slightly higher price tag to avoid the headache but ultimately it’s your money
You don’t need to crack anything, pirate your ebooks (I’ve recently had good results from annas-archive.org for fiction books) and send them to kindle as personal documents.
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.
When you buy a Kindle you get an email address for it (find it in your Amazon account in the device information section). You can add that email address to Calibre and just email the pirated books to it. It will auto-convert to the appropriate format (though they keep on sending me an email saying this is going away) and keep it in your Amazon cloud library. That way the books don’t have to stay on the device and you can download them to any Kindle you own in the future or anywhere you have the Kindle app installed.
It used to be that kindle supported mobi not epub, now they are transitioning to support epub not mobi. This makes it even easier since most ebooks are epub, so now there’s no need to convert in Calibre.
Whoa, I never thought about combining Calibre with the email functionality. Didn’t even know that was possible. Now if only Calibre had a mobile version I wouldn’t even need to open the laptop.
Do you know if there’s a way to auto mail them as soon as they’re added to calibre? Does it work with kobo?
There’s a checkmark option next to your email account to auto-send when a book is added. As for Kobo, I don’t have any experience with those devices.
Ok, that’s fantastic, can finally automate adding books to my parents ebook! Cheers
This. Kindle natively supports Calibre. I download books, convert them, put them on Kindle. Bingo bongo.
After initially setting up your kindle, just keep it in airplane mode. Upload new books with calibre
Do you do it for privacy or just so that new updates don’t break it?
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.
According to another post here, is done so the kindle doesn’t overwrite the cover of each book
Privacy mainly
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.
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.
The kids version reactivates ada of your not in child mode, just fyi. Came up during the recent sales and Prime Day.
Ah, didn’t realize this. I never connected mine to WiFi.
They just fixed this. They raised the price of the kids version, ads turn back on if you turn kids mode off.
Ah, didn’t realize this. I never connected mine to WiFi
I just called Amazon and complained about the ads, they turned them off. I am Amazon prime though
Took me far too long to realize that there is a kids version of the kindle that you were talking about, and that you weren’t just referring to other users as kids.
I got an Oasis for not a lot from Woot.
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’ve read that amazon is going to stop support mobi and just convert to epub. So eventually epub would be natively supported I guess?
Calibre can convert to *.kfx native Kindle format
That’s great news. Seems like I’ll go the calibre route.
If using Calibre, I suggest convert your books into Kindle-native *KFX format. Also, filling out some metadata in Calibre even enables sync with Good Reads for sideloaded books
Does Overdrive work on a Kindle? (I use it on my phone.)
I haven’t used it in a long time, but Overdrive has info here.
Thanks for the Overdrive link.
I don’t think any particular kindle needs to be cracked or modded, you just have to pirate the files and make them compatible with software like calibre then put them on your kindle that way. Same with stuff like kobo. I downloaded a bunch of stuff into my kobo glow to read on planes or during long trips when I don’t wanna drain my phone battery.
Yes, it’s super easy. Amazon has an email address for your kindle, all you need to do is email the epub or pdf and it shows up on the kindle automatically. This is the first guide I found on Google. https://www.howtogeek.com/798894/how-to-transfer-epub-to-kindle/
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.
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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.
They should all be the same, right?
And besides, there isn’t much you can do with jailbreaking. Kindles already support sideloading books, fonts and dictionaries, and the two links the other guy posted are all you really need to start pirating ebooks. The devices themselves are so weak that you really can’t do anything other than read books on them. Kindles nowadays also support book cover screensavers, which was a big reason to jailbreak in the past (apparently). That should tell you about the kind of functionality jailbreaking gives you.
I will say that if you end up buying a Kindle, you should install the KFX plugins for Calibre, they’re the proprietary format that Kindle store-bought ebooks come in. The Kobo equivalent is Kepub.
Owner of a paper white. I usually read manga so it’s kinda cumbersome to export the pages from Tachiyomi and convert it into an ebook format.
To download ebooks I usually visit z-library or something similar. If it’s not there: Time for research into the depths of the internet!
Calibre with the DeDRM plug-in, then “borrow” books from Overdrive.
Calibre can also convert other formats into the format used by Kindle.
You can use a kindle with non-drm ebooks without any major work, jailbreak and root not required, just drop them into the right folder on the device via USB, if they aren’t supported then Calibre can convert them.
OR look at any of the dozens of non-kindle e-readers out there that are more open, Personally I have an Onyx Boox Note3, it’s a bit older now but works beautifully for all formats of text, comics, manga, and as a general android tablet.
I am using a Tolino Vision 6 and I am very happy with it. No cracking or modding neccessary. All my ebooks are synced with Calibre, it recognizes the device without a problem. I wouldn’t want to support amazon if I can avoid it.
Free ebooks at my town: borrow an ebook at the local library and convert it with https://www.acsmconverter.com/ from the .acsm format to epub. Although it doesn’t work all the time…
If anyone knows a more reliable way to convert from acsm, please let me know.
