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I have quite often seen people here and on other tech forums assume that purchasing a Kindle means being locked into Amazon's ecosystem, giving up personal deta

• cpach 6y ago
  What formats does it handle? Can it handle EPUB for example?
  • benologist 6y ago
    There are online converters for it all, the process is a little annoying but works fine and you can do it locally too with various tools: https://www.epubconverter.com/epub-to-mobi-converter/ https://www.epubconverter.com/epub-to-mobi-converter/
  • Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    The Kindle handles .mobi and .azw3. It is trivial to convert EPUB to MOBI before you send the book to the device over USB (it can even be done as part of a command-line script, for example).
    • anilakar 6y ago
      Having to deal with the .epub conversion was the main reason I ditched my Voyage and got a Kobo Aura One instead.
      • Mediterraneo10 6y ago
        Why ditch a device just for that reason? Again, the OP assumes that one will transfer books to the device over USB for privacy’s sake. In this case, creating a shell wrapper around cp to automatically convert any EPUB to MOBI upon copying the file (naming the command, say, kindlecp) is trivial.
        • AlotOfReading 6y ago
          Conversion can occasionally barf and completely screw up the formatting. It's annoying to have to go back and re-convert with different settings for a problem that's non-existent when native support exists.
  • crashocaster 6y ago
    Loading books using programs like calibre [1] allows you to covert EPUB to MOBI (the kindle format) seamlessly before transferring. In my experience this works perfectly. [1] https://calibre-ebook.com/ https://calibre-ebook.com/
  • UncleSam 6y ago
    No it cannot. It only supports Amazon's proprietary ebook formats: AZW and MOBI. I love the paperwhite, but the limited format support led me to choose a different ereader when I last bought a new one. Edit: I know I could convert between formats, but that process is not always perfect and can lose important formatting.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  • alongreyber 6y ago
    For this I recommend Calibre: https://calibre-ebook.com/ https://calibre-ebook.com/ It will convert any format of E-Book to a compatible format for the Kindle (usually MOBI) and allows you to upload it directly. I use it often and it's an amazing piece of software!
    • umvi 6y ago
      I actually prefer KindleGen[0] to convert EPUB to MOBI - I find it produces a superior e-book. Edit: Oh no, Amazon removed KindleGen! When did that happen? I still have x86 copies for Linux and windows if anyone wants it. Supposedly "Kindle Previewer" can do the same thing, but a cursory glance looks like it no longer supports Linux... [0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000765211 https://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000765...
      • sreevisakh 6y ago
        > Edit: Oh no, Amazon removed KindleGen! When did that happen? We know where this is going, don't we? Offering interoperability in the beginning and then gradually taking it away - the old bait and switch trick. We consumers fall for it again and again.
      • mobilio 6y ago
        It's replaced with Kindle Create: https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Create/b?ie=UTF8&node=18292298011 https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Create/b?ie=UTF8&node=18292298...
        • umvi 6y ago
          Again though, KindleGen had Linux support, it looks like this doesn't...
      • Tijdreiziger 6y ago
        Damn, they removed KindleGen?! What a bummer!
      • wjdp 6y ago
• belorn 6y ago
  If this practice ever get wide spread I would guess that the developers will limit airplane mode in someway in order to ensure that the device will call home at some point. But it is a pretty clever hack to get a hostile machine to not connect to the internet as airplane mode is (I assume) regulated behavior.
  • filesystem 6y ago
    Even if the developers take the egregious step of nerfing airplane mode, you can still "opt out" by not giving the device credentials for your WiFi network.
    • gvjddbnvdrbv 6y ago
      Only a matter of time before devices come with 5G data connections...
      • mikro2nd 6y ago
        ...which would require a valid SIM. So just don't add one. If the device comes with a pre-inserted/hardwired/virtual SIM, well... several countries in the world require KYC-style registration of the SIM owner before networks are allowed to activate the SIM, so there'd still be an opt-out path for the user in such countries. eta: My point being: Now you're in a twisty little maze full of corner cases, all different. Not the sort of thing much loved by Amazon (or any of the GRAFT).
        • gvjddbnvdrbv 6y ago
          Does this work with Teslas?
        • falcolas 6y ago
          FWIW, the original kindle used a cellular connection to do position syncing and book downloading. No user-provided SIM needed.
        • PeterStuer 6y ago
• BEEdwards 6y ago
  Why buy a kindle at all then? Any cheap budget tablet can read ebooks and stay off the internet.
  • Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    Any cheap budget table isn't e-ink, which matters for battery life and, at least for some people, reading pleasure. Also, I mainly use my Kindle for reading research papers in academia, into the hundreds of publications each year. So, after years of using these devices its UI (which I find admirably simple and straightforward) is burned into my muscle memory. So, switching to another series of devices would mean having to adjust to a new workflow that may well bring unwelcome complexities.
    • soledades 6y ago
      Do you have any tips for reading papers on Kindle? My experience with pdfs is they get pretty shrunk up.
    • int_19h 6y ago
      There are many cheap e-ink readers on the market these days, though.
      • dexterdog 6y ago
        I've never seen one that has the bang for the buck of a basic paperwhite. I got my last one for under $100 and I never use the amazon nonsense. I just keep it in airplane mode and load my own books.
  • vaylian 6y ago
    eInk is a lot nicer for reading books than LCD screens. The downside is that eInk currently only supports black-and-white and turning pages is roughly only as fast as turning the page of a book. Also, battery life is counted in days (and sometimes weeks) and not in hours.
    • 6y ago
• Kaze404 6y ago
  Does the dictionary feature still work? It's the main reason I bought a Kindle.
  • rerx 6y ago
    The dictionaries are stored offline and will work fine in airplane mode. Wikipedia won't, though.
• kilroy123 6y ago
  I now do the same. I never take it off airplane mode unless I send a PDF or something to the device.
  • blacksmith_tb 6y ago
    Same here - I only take mine off airplane mode when I am sending a library book to it, leaving wifi on eats through the battery significantly faster.
• pwinnski 6y ago
  I have also owned three generations of Kindle! Like you, I've never taken any of them online. Never supply a wifi connection during setup, and instead immediately engage airplane mode. USB transfer is easy with something like Calibre, which also handily converts ePub to Mobi for Kindle use. It used to be that you could buy Kindle books and download them to your computer for transfer to the Kindle via USB, but they seem to have made that more difficult in the last year or two. Other sources still work fine, though.
  • ghkklj 6y ago
    I tried to do this with a recent paperwhite but some features seemed to require registration - the main one I cared about being "collections". Had to make a fresh amazon account, register it, then put it into aeroplane mode never to be reconnected.
    • pwinnski 6y ago
      Hmm, maybe that's why collections doesn't work for me. I might enable wifi for a bit if that will help.
• fsflover 6y ago
  Not sure about Kindle, but iPhone and Apple watch collect your location history even in airplane mode (by saving the list of wi-fi access points): https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207056 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207056, see "Significant locations"
  • chipotle_coyote 6y ago
    That document doesn't mention anything about Airplane mode at all. Nor does it describe the Significant Locations feature as "saving the list of wifi access points"; in fact, I'm fairly sure that's not what they're talking about, and instead they're talking about the feature iOS uses to determine that you tend to go to the same place for lunch on Tuesdays or the same friend's house on Saturday afternoons and offer that as a Siri suggestion -- which is almost certainly GPS-based. Last but not least, Significant Locations data is not just described as "end-to-end encrypted and cannot be read by Apple", it's clearly in the list of items under "By enabling Location Services, location-based system services such as these will also be enabled": e.g., if you're really, really bothered by this, you can turn it off.
    • fsflover 6y ago
      Yes, this document does not tell how and when exactly it works. I took an Apple Watch and tested it myself before writing this. Even if you trust that Apple does not use it for anything else, you cannot check this (no source code) and you cannot be sure that they won’t start using it in the future. Opt-out tracking is not ethical. It should be opt-in.
  • pidg 6y ago
    I never turn off airplane mode, so my Kindle can collect all the data it likes! :)
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
• chipotle_coyote 6y ago
  I just tend to use non-Kindle applications/devices for this. It's always been extremely easy to get non-DRM ebooks into Apple's book reading app (formerly iBooks, now just Books, in Apple's ongoing quest to make most of their application names as boring as possible). Perhaps ironically this makes Books the "non-walled-garden" app for me. The pitfall in all this, though, is that there are a lot of commercial books that are only available from publishers that use DRM, and personally I don't consider DRM a sufficient justification for piracy -- so that leaves me stuck with locked books regardless. Lately I've been buying them from Apple rather than Amazon, although if I actually jump through whatever hoops are required to set up DRM stripping with Calibre for Kindle books, assuming that's still possible, I may switch back.
• Tepix 6y ago
  Same here (sans the Kindle). All eBook readers I have bought have never been connected to a WiFi network. If I want to change the books, i do it via USB. That fact that Amazon collects these very detailed metrics has been well known for a long time. You will find old discussions in the MobileRead forum. Here is a thread from 2013 "Block Big Brother": https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=205224 https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=205224
• DavideNL 6y ago
  > I activated airplane mode the second I unboxed the device and I never turned airplane mode off. Same, however I had to connect my Kindle Oasis to the internet 1 time after purchase though, if i remember correct it was to download the dictionaries (for translation) i needed. And i think there was a feature that was missing until i connected it to the internet once (i used a new/temporary account for that) but can't remember what feature that was though.
  • Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    You could have got those dictionaries from a filesharing community and simply copied them over to the Kindle via USB. No need to connect the Kindle to internet.
    • DavideNL 6y ago
      Yea, I tried that first but all the dictionaries i downloaded didn't work on my device for some reason, so in the end i gave up...
• PeterStuer 6y ago
  Would you agree that your usage pattern of the device is very atypical? I suspect (no hard evidence) tat 99% of Kindle purchasers use them primarily to read Amazon Kindle books.
• taneq 6y ago
  Same, although I just have the one old Kindle that I revived with a new battery. It's never had a network connection since I factory reset it. I just dump ebooks onto it via USB. It might be recording all sorts of analytics but I don't care because it'll never be connected to the outside world. Plus, for all the people saying basically "it's for your own good", the battery lasts much longer on aeroplane mode. For this device, for me, WiFi is an anti-feature.