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Kindle to end store downloads and registering for 1st-5th gen kindles in May
- Havoc 6mo agoThe old kindles only support the book format with the weak encryption. ;) They also killed the ability to download books from the website a while back so directly of travel is pretty clear here.
- rationalist 6mo agoYep, I will never buy another Kindle.
- scblock 6mo agoIt was a good compromise, including for Amazon. DRM is immoral when you're "selling" books, because that means I don't own the actual book. I still bought plenty of them when I could easily strip the DRM. But now I'm done, never buying another DRM encrusted book from Amazon.
- Nicholas_C 6mo agoThis kind of stuff is why I no longer use a kindle. I use a kobo which IMHO is not as good of a product but it's worth not supporting this behavior.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- kolinko 6mo agoBecause Amazon stops supporting devices after 14 years? (while they can still be used to read books already downloaded) Really?
- Nicholas_C 6mo agoIn my post I said "this kind of stuff" which also includes their DRM policies (which is the real reason they are ending the users' kindle support).
- kelnos 6mo agoIn this case the reason for dropping support is most likely that the only DRM they can support on that older hardware has been broken. There's no technical reason why it can't be supported, and I doubt it would cost them much (or even anything) to continue support. Meanwhile, I can still read physical books I've had since I was a child, 40 years ago. The Kindle is undeniably more convenient than physical books, but this is absolutely an unnecessary sunset of these devices.
- mavhc 6mo agoyou can still remove the drm and sideload them
- JojoFatsani 6mo agoMy Kindle 4 hardware works great, I still read it nightly. Since it doesn’t feel like it’s obsolete (in fact it has physical buttons so may be slightly better than a modern Kindle), it feels like a blatant cash grab by Amazon to get us to buy new devices that probably are laden with ads or other revenue generators.
- alistairSH 6mo agoWhere do you buy your e-books? I've stuck with Kindle, but that's 80% inertia (Amazon has most books, the device works well enough) and 20% existing library is Kindle e-books.
- roughly 6mo agoKobo has a bookstore that’s pretty comprehensive - I haven’t found anything missing. Not sure that gets you out of DRM land, but at least you’re not giving money to Jeff Bezos.
- avgDev 6mo agoOne could buy a physical book, and then "find" digital version of it. Seems fair to me?
- phs318u 6mo agoSeems fair to me too. I have done and continue to do this. I have no ethical qualms doing so. Should I?
- alistairSH 6mo agoI don’t. I just don’t want physical books. I don’t have the space to store them. And the kindle is far more portable.
- 6mo ago
- neilv 6mo agoI don't approve of a company shutting off network service for a device it sold, but... If this is a hint at much more formidable DRM coming out, could a silver lining for authors and publishers be more sales? Or is mass piracy going to just continue, full steam ahead? (Authors and publishers need any bit of good news they can get right now.)
- Beretta_Vexee 6mo agoDRM has always been a means of protecting a monopoly; copyright protection is merely the excuse given to justify the measure and the monopoly.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6mo agoDoes stronger DRM lead to more sales? It was my impression that actual studies were at best pretty mixed.
- sbarre 6mo agoAnecdotal: DRM actively discourages me from purchasing digital goods.
- timdiggerm 6mo agoYeah but HN commenters are not a representative sample of the ebook consumer base
- AdmiralAsshat 6mo agoMan, Amazon is really going above-and-beyond to cripple the last bastion of Kindle devices that carry a DRM scheme we can crack.
- ratg13 6mo agoI hate Amazon more because than most people, but let’s be realistic. These devices came out in 2007-2012 14-19 years is a respectable lifetime for a handheld electronic device.
- exe34 6mo agoThe device still works. It's being crippled on purpose.
- AdmiralAsshat 6mo agoYes...but let's also be realistic. Very few people are still using this Kindle as their daily driver. They've already upgraded to a PaperWhite or something better. But there's a very simple reason that Amazon is cutting support for these. Many people (myself included--I have a 4th Gen still kicking around) keep one around because, after Amazon removed the Download option for Ebooks awhile back, having one of these old Kindles is the only way to download ebooks in a format from Amazon that can have their DRM cracked. All Kindles newer than a certain date use the KFX format, with an encryption scheme that is constantly changing (basically any time someone figures out how to break it, Amazon updates it). Killing support for these old devices is basically Amazon's last step in removing "legacy" encryption schemes that can still be broken. It would be the equivalent of Nintendo delivering a new firmware update for their Wii and Wii-U systems, in order to patch out a recently-discovered exploit. It serves no other purpose than to demonstrate the extreme contempt for Amazon's end-users and the lengths they're willing to go to combat user-freedom^W "piracy".
- xyzzy_foo 6mo agoGood news: People are working on removing the latest KFX DRM, and it has already been cracked. Bad news: Amazon is monitoring them and hasn't let up on efforts to update the DRM.
- seam_carver 6mo agoSide tangent: I’m the developer of Kindle Comic Converter. Kindle updates 5.19.2+ have completely broken the sideloaded manga reader with bugs like huge margins, pages being on the wrong side in 2 page landscape mode, no panel view, no % read tracker, and laggy page turns. I’ve documented the problems here and the first report was 50 days ago. https://youtu.be/Eo6K7omlE7g https://youtu.be/Eo6K7omlE7g And I haven’t even touched all the problems with normal sideloaded books like broken embedded/publisher fonts. Kindle settings > help > contact us > email if you want to voice complaints.
- abadar 6mo agoThank you for making such a great tool. KCC got me back into reading manga and there are so many that are so great. For anyone looking for recommendations, I really enjoyed Pluto, Yokohama Shopping Log, and Young Ladies Don't Play Fighting Games.
- heliumtera 6mo agoThank you!! I bought a new Kindle because of this amazing tool. Unfortunately, I can only use the device after deregistration. Have to dismiss sign-in/login every time. Hopefully I can survive long enough a new jailbreak comes in.
- sigzero 6mo agoThe 5th generation kindle came out in ... 2012. That's a pretty good run.
- ravetcofx 6mo agoI own books approaching 100 years old. 14 years is pretty sad
- JojoFatsani 6mo agoIt still works fine, so I don’t know why it needs to be replaced.
- damontal 6mo agoI have an old kindle keyboard I keep around for nostalgia that still works. I’m guessing this will be affected. Hoping I can still add books via usb
- 72deluxe 6mo agoYou can add books using the Calibre software which converts epubs and mobi files I think. I use this with a Kindle Paperwhite 2nd Generation and avoid Amazon interaction.
- zokier 6mo agoWhile everyone is commenting about drm, there is another factor to consider: TLS. These old Kindles definitely do not support up-to-date TLS ciphersuites and understandably Amazon wants/needs to drop insecure ciphersuites from public endpoints at some point. I'm pretty sure that is also the reason why the Wikipedia integration for these old Kindles broke ages ago.
- JimBlackwood 6mo agoSoftware updates exist, I’m sure they could support it if they wanted to. Ed25519 isn’t so new that the hardware wouldn’t be capable.
- SilverElfin 6mo agoDoes anyone use a Kindle anymore? I feel like the writing was on the wall ten years ago. It’s a dead end product that no one cares about. And all the shady stuff like forced deletion of books was a sign. But also, I think people have really become tired of sitting in front of screens. Physical books are more popular among friends than Kindles or other digital books are, and that wasn’t the case ten years ago.
- kelnos 6mo ago> It’s a dead end product that no one cares about. I think you are very much out of touch with the average book/e-book consumer.
- theshrike79 6mo agoPeople literally own MULTIPLE kindles with different covers on them for different situations.
- wombatpm 6mo agoWe have 4 in our house, plus the kindle software on phones and iPads. I routinely email epub docs to my kindles.
- sdh9 6mo agoI bought and use a Kindle specifically because it has zero distractions. All you can do is read. You're not interrupted with a text, or another app's notification, or anything like that. There's no temptation to use another app, because there are no other apps. It's just you, and your book.
- lordleft 6mo agoI've used a kindle for years and have bought hundreds of ebooks through Amazon's platform. The convenience of being able to carry a library with me in a single device is undeniable. ~14 years of support seems reasonable, especially in the context of modern tech. And yet decisions like this always upset me. For all the limitations of physical books, I can hand my physical books to my literal children and grandchildren when I die. As long as I tend to the book, I have it. The fact that this isn't guaranteed for DRM-locked ebooks, for all their advantages, makes me feel like we are somehow going backwards, despite our progress technologically. Instead of a future where products get unambiguously better, the future seems filled with products that come with significant trade-offs. The trade-offs are beginning to not feel worth it to me.
- Larrikin 6mo agoWe are going backwards. The concept of a library would be illegal if invented today. They are only allowed to exist today because they've been around for hundreds of years. There are still people who attack them and try to shut them down.
- Insanity 6mo agoI buy both physical and digital books and much prefer digital, reading on my kindle is more convenient (especially to adjust the font size). For sharing with family, I have a family library set up with Amazon and the experience is really smooth. I do enjoy owning physical copies of books I liked, and they are part of the “decor” at home at this point. I have limited space so I have 2 completely stacked bookshelves, and then piles of books around the kitchen on top of the cupboards etc. So I don’t think it needs to be “either or”. :)
- arifmeticus 6mo agoAre you okay with losing your entire Kindle library in case you lose your amazon account?
- bityard 6mo agoLots of us felt the same way since the beginning of ebooks. If you lose your Amazon account, you lose your books, which means you never really owned them. There are (and have been) DRM-free eBook stores. You _might_ be able to strip the DRM from your Amazon books. However, the process and ease of doing so seems to change often, I don't know if it's easy or hard right now. In the future, consider supporting ebook manufacturers and stores that don't lock down your device, and sell DRM-free books. Kobo is one example. We have a bunch of these in our household. They don't require an account, I can just upload books via USB port on any computer, and they are pretty hackable.
- johanyc 6mo agoLooks like my Kindle voyage's days are numbered :(
- isghoor 6mo agoJailbreak and repurpose as an e-paper dashboard? I have two kindles used this way. https://github.com/usetrmnl/terminus https://github.com/usetrmnl/terminus https://github.com/usetrmnl/trmnl-koreader https://github.com/usetrmnl/trmnl-koreader (I built the koreader plugin)
- hemant6488 6mo agoDid something similar with my 7th gen paperwhite, turned it into a little weather and calendar display. Wrote up the process if anyone wants to try it, also the battery life on these things as a dashboard is insane, barely need to charge it. https://terminalbytes.com/reviving-kindle-paperwhite-7th-gen/ https://terminalbytes.com/reviving-kindle-paperwhite-7th-gen...
- seam_carver 6mo agoLater discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47690049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47690049
- soundworlds 6mo agoCalibre lets you put non-Amazon eBooks on these very same devices. It made me start using my old Kindle again: https://calibre-ebook.com/ https://calibre-ebook.com/