for those who have Kindle at home and don't want to use Amazon's Infrastructure I prepared this blog post which describes how to jailbreak your Kindle and install open-source software on it :)

After you are done you will:

have KOReader installed
be able to load epub books into the Kindle via email
create epub books from browser tabs

Post here: Kindle Jailbreak

I believe that if you already have Kindle laying around it could be beneficial to use it without Amazon software instead of buying Kobo/another alternatives. Or course - don't buy a brand new Kindle just to do the jailbreak, you can invest your money to a different company

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[–] excral@feddit.org 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

If you have a Kindle that is recent enough to still get updates, chances are it can't be jailbroken right now and you should prevent it from automatically updating if you ever want to have a chance at jailbreaking it. There are no known exploits to jailbreak the most recent Kindle firmwares (>= 5.18.6) and if one is discovered, Amazon will likely release a firmware that patches it shortly afterwards.

In order to prevent updates, first connect your Kindle to a PC and delete already existing update files, if there are any (named update-???.bin or similar). Then you have essentially two options:

keep your Kindle permanently disconnected from the internet
fill your Kindle's storage with (junk-)files until there's not enough storage left for update files

See here for more info on preventing updates.

After your Kindle is successfully jailbroken, you can delete the junk-files and reconnect it to the internet without any issues.

[–] FarraigePlaisteach@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

My Kindle Oasis is still on 5.15.2 despite being connected to the internet. I wonder why that is.

Anyway, thanks for the specifics. I should look into this. I don’t like the jailbroken software as much, but I’m conscious of what Amazon might do to my Kindle next.

Obligatory: I bought my Kindle before I was aware of more ethical alternatives. I won’t be buying Amazon again.

[–] erebion@news.erebion.eu 1 points 1 week ago

Also, battery will last much longer. Nowadays I have a tolino, but back when I had a Kindle, I kept it offline. I had no need for internet access. I just added books via Calibre and USB cable every now and then.

I think newer Kindle firmware requires setting up with an Amazon account at least once before it can be used offline, though.