All kindles can now be jailbroken, thanks to new jailbreak method.

Huh, TIL, my gf has a relatively old Kindle, are all the models affected?

She uses Calibre to get her books.

Installing Koreader which can do a million things, but also playing around with terminal access, python, bash scripting, neofetch, usb-network, SSH. For older kindles: the screensaver hack was my first reason to ever jailbreak one.

According to that site you can downgrade the firmware (some people really disliked the various UI changes and the firmware is getting quite prescriptive)

You can also run your own homebrew apps so I found someone who installed KOReader which they claim is better experience than default reader especially for pdfs and also link better to personal cloud storage.

There's also ability to use locally stored Web Application Frameworks but I'm not 100% sure what the use case would be.

Read your own EPUB on KOReader, for free.

The main Reason I've done it is to install KOreader since it handles other formats, especially PDFs better than the stock Reader. Though you can also run your own homebrew apps as well like other people have pointed out. I personally don't bother though since Ereaders are usually best for a single purpose, reading ebooks on an eink display, and mediocre at best for other applications. The eink display tends to be its Achilles heel when it comes to anything that isn't reading ebooks, at least in my opinion.

For those of us who will only buy electronics used, kindle is usually the only option. And far cheaper too. So its nice that the device can be opened up a bit.

I'd never heard of these, thanks! I been trying to find old Kindles for sale, but this looks like a much better choice.

ETA: they're also a Canadian company, win-win

My partner has a 'Boox' that runs android, complete with apk side loading its basically an android tablet! Super cool so far - there's even a model with a color screen!

I slapped the Nextcloud app on there and she has been syncing her books between her phone and the Boox!

Edit= the brand name is called Boox! Autocorrect makes a fool of me yet again

what is a good kobo to invest in on the cheaper side?

I have kept à disconnected kindle for a few years after I completely stopped using amazon for anything - today I wouldn't even be seen with one as carrying one is a bit like advertising for the company

These are the best ereaders period, my kobo Clara 2e is sluggish, night mode is shit, USB connection to Calibre is "when I want, if I want"... But I'm not a billboard for that business. Too bad, really good devices, and hurray for all the people who will enjoy them away from amazon

Great idea

Apparantly you can install Android on some Kindle devices. Then you'd have many possibilities.

I tried this on my already jailbreakable kindle and it wasn't very fruitful

As far as I know, it's literally just Linux, so anything is possible

This seems wise, is there any perk of having wifi on if you only load books with USB?

I don't think there are many tangible benefits if all you want to do is read. You're likely using Calibre anyway for sideloading books and it converts everything to a compatible format automatically.

The only somewhat useful things the jailbreak allowed me to do is add custom fonts, custom screensavers, install KOReader as an alternative ebook viewer (although I rarely used it) and prevent updates because the interface became a lot worse after an update at some point.

So I'd suggest, unless you really really need some obscure feature, Calibre+Kindle is nowadays perfectly fine, and maybe you shouldn't risk bricking your device.

Uhm... Well about that... You will not be able to transfer books onto you kindle via USB in about a week. Amazon is going to remove that feature from all Kindles next week. The only way to do that may be through the method you described. But how long will they offer that, if they say they are removing the USB feature because of piracy? You cannot pirate books onto your kindle, when you cannot transfer books from outside of Amazon onto it. (Also this is a nice reason for them to block you from buying books anywhere else than on Amazon, of course)

https://www.theverge.com/news/612898/amazon-removing-kindle-book-download-transfer-usb

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Kindles are easy to come across 2nd hand for free or a few bucks

Haven’t done a thorough research so take this with a grain of salt, but it seems in my country kindles are significantly cheaper than kobos.

mood

Behind me I have physical copies of books I want to read SO BADLY and they’re all like 40-69 pages in and haven’t been touched in months

Why are we like this

Custom sleep picture is one of the features of KOReader. Pretty easy to spot it in the settings.

If just for reading ereader is much easier on the eyes and amazing battery life. Completely different products I think.

You can set a specific folder as the "home" folder on koreader by long pressing the folder where your files are located. I put all my epubs in there with moisaic viewing style.

Well for one, koreader is awesome.

It has preferences I like, syncs reading position to anything else running koreader, and syncs my current reading queue from Dropbox.

Isn't a cracked (old, I think?) Kindle the only way to pirate KU/DRM titles? At least, that's what I recall from the last time I looked into it. There's a book I really wanted to format shift from KU since Google TTS was fucking up all the proper nouns, but I gave up. (It was an obscure book that isn't available anywhere pirated.)