Not necessarily? There was a post just a year ago on how somebody jailbroke the kindle books from the web UI.

I think the more plausible and likely explanations are:

1. Kindles take a beating when people actually use them instead of putting them in a drawer. Not many older kindles are still in circulation that are old + used. How good is a 14 year old lithium battery at best doing?

2. Added to the above, how is a 14 year old CPU doing when trying to support modern features and eBooks that now have metadata that did not exist at the time, such as fancier typesetting and color?

3. As for the Windows app, it's terrible. Horrible. Awful. Nobody liked it. Nobody uses it. It will not be missed.

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n8henrie 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I strongly disagree. If it's doing well enough for the owner then it's doing well enough. I don't understand how one can tell someone else that their computer is unacceptably slow for that other individual's personal use.

This is a really unfortunate move by Amazon. My next e-reader will be one that I own (instead of just rent).

Glad that I took the time to jailbreak and pause updates on my 2017 kindle paperwhite while I could.

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alexgieg 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'd suggest cheap Android-based Chinese e-Ink e-readers if you want flexibility. My current one is a Bigme B6, which was for sale in my country a few months ago.

Their main advantage is providing access to all e-reading apps available on the Google Play Store, including Amazon's own Kindle app, as well as sideloaded ones such as KOReader.

On the downside, the battery life on those isn't as good as that of dedicated Kindles, Kobos, or other lightweight e-readers, but they still hold a charge for four or five days if one turns off their antennas, which is plenty of time to recharge them.

As for the ebooks themselves, I switched to purchasing from Kobo and other ebook stores. Some sell DRM-less ePubs, which is nice, while those that come with DRM can be easily liberated. And for the occasional Kindle-exclusive that is struck with (temporarily) unbreakable DRM, the Kindle app, although annoying, works well enough.

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lostlogin 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Kobo, syncing with a home library (CalibreWeb) works well.

I do miss physical buttons a little, but that’s minor gripe.

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elabajaba 2 hours ago | parent [-]

You do know that both the Kobo Libra and Sage have physical buttons, right?

	▲	lostlogin an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Thanks. I didn’t know, but looking at them I must have noticed when I settled on the Clara - the price of the Sage is a lot higher, almost double. I struggled with reviews when buying as I do love having a local library and the ease/difficulty of setting this up is never in device reviews.

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abnercoimbre 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm pleased with OBOOK5. It runs Obook OS which is a Linux OS. Never nagged me to connect to WiFi or anything, I simply plugged a cable to transfer my local stuff.

Also hearing good things about XTEINK X4.

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sbarre 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I have an XTEINK X4. It's quite small, but if that's ok with you, then it's a fantastic little reader.

	▲	aaronscott 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Same here, I quite enjoy it. Plus there is open source software available, such as crosspoint. It’s easy to flash and an opus call away to change the behavior if you want something to work differently.

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cbdevidal 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I’ve had a pair of Nook Simple Touch for over ten years and they are wonderful for PDFs. Stored 100% offline. Good for prepper books.

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sgiratch 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Both my Kindle Touch and my Kindle Paperwhite gen1 are still completely fine. And I havent noticed any typesetting etc that doesnt work.

All of these discontinued devices support the AWZ4-format (which can be de-drmed and what im guessing this whole thing is about), but the newer ones use KFX which locks you perfectly into the Amazon and Kindle-ecosystem

	▲	snailmailman 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It’s more difficult, but KFX drm is still possible to break.
	▲	gjsman-1000 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[dead]

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datatrashfire 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

both my kindle and wife's work great and we have been using them regularly. they are actually very well made and durable devices.

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Washuu 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Not necessarily? There was a post just a year ago on how somebody jailbroke the kindle books from the web UI.

I used that research to build something similar. It only works for manga and comics right now, but I have been tinkering with implementing glyph support as well to be able to handle full books.

https://github.com/Alexia/kandle-downloader

The original research is here, but the web site is down right now. https://blog.pixelmelt.dev/kindle-web-drm/

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AdmiralAsshat 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Probably not the best place to ping for technical support, but, since you claim to be the author, and I don't see any "Issues" on your GH...

Any idea why your script does not seem to flag as a valid greasemonkey script when I try to use it in the Falkon (KDE) browser? Even if I attempt to add it manually, the script then disappears from my gm scripts.

	▲	Washuu 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> I don't see any "Issues" on your GH... Issues and PRs are available to open.(I just have not gotten any yet.) > Any idea why your script does not seem to flag as a valid greasemonkey script when I try to use it in the Falkon (KDE) browser? Honestly, no idea. I have only tested it with Tampermonkey on Firefox. Manually installing it should still work.

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boznz 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

an ePub book is basically a zipped HTML folder with static pictures and text. A 18 year old kindle can still render it easily. I expect Amazon are adding a lot more DRM and hoops than required. I also noticed if you havent read a book you downloaded for a while it wont let you read it again without re-connecting. Just glad I pulled everything onto my PC and Kobo a few years back. Agree the PC interface is pretty crappy though.

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lopis 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I just replaced the battery on my Kindle 3rd gen (2010?) and it's basically as good as new now. Batteries are easy to find online.

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unethical_ban 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I still own my voyage from 2014 era. Amazon forcing new formats is their choice. Deprecating old kindles is a choice. This is all about ending people's ability to remove DRM from books they bought.

I'll never own a kindle again. Does anyone know which platforms work with Calibre De-DRM? Or do we need to build a screen cap tool for transforming books to an open format?

	▲	tlavoie 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I've had good luck with my Kobo, for those books bought through their store. (I strip DRM from everything I can, if I can't buy without in the first place.)
	▲	Larrikin 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Kobo seems to be the current leader. You can also load KoReader and Tailscale on it

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lovelearning 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Nobody uses it. It will not be missed.

Well, I happen to use it everyday. I honestly don't know what exactly is "terrible/horrible/awful" about it. I'm neutral about its UX - neither memorable nor despicable. It may be missed if the new app's UX turns out to be worse on whatever metrics you're using.