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.
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Seems like a good tip, but I’m from the EU so other than physical books and outdated PC’s with dialup (okay, dialup might be going too far haha) I don’t think there’s anything else at the library here.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.
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
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.
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.
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.
After initially setting up your kindle, just keep it in airplane mode. Upload new books with calibre
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.
