With a trial and error approach I have sucessfully jailbroken my ad supported Kindle Touch, blocked and removed the special offer ads, replaced the screen saver and the banner ad at the bottom of the screen. I am extremely happy with the result.
It took me awhile because I had no previous experience with Linux commands. Changing the screensaver and banner was made possible using Yifan Lu's jailbreak and USBNet installation (
http://yifan.lu/). Many thanks to him.
What is in the steps below is how to jailbreak, connect via SSH to a Windows7 PC using a Telnet client, block new ads and copy a screensaver and new banner graphics to your Kindle Touch. The banner replacement is optional, I think it looks cool to have some fancy scrollwork at the bottom of the page.
If you do not have basic computer skills, are not good at following instructions and figuring things out STOP RIGHT HERE and go back to reading your book. I take no responsibility for what you do. I am only saying what I did. Hopefully this will make it easier for others to do it, code a tool to make it more automatic and share it on their blog.
Place the screensaver image (600x800 greyscale .png) named screensvr.png and the ad banner replacement you want to use (600x90 .gif) named banner.gif in the main directory while connected via USB.
Step One:
On the Windows7 side you need to install RNDIS drivers. I got the driver by installing the Microsoft Windows Mobile Device Center Driver (
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en....aspx?id=21783). Also make sure you have Telnet Client turned on in Widows Features.
Step Two:
Jailbreak and install USBNet per Yifan's instructions. While you are at it also change your password with the instructions he provides. Then put your Touch into usbnetwork mode by entering ;un in the search field on the Touch screen (again read his instructions) and connect the Touch to your computer via USB cable.
Step Three:
The RNDIS adapter should now be visible in your Network Connections window. I found how to set up the adapter here (
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...95&postcount=8). The key here is to turn on "Allow other network users to connect through this computer's Internet Connection.
Here is where things differ a little from the instructions at mobileread.com. You need to set the IP address for Internet Protocol Version 4 to 192.168.15.1 for connection to the Touch.
Step Four:
Install PuTTY (free telnet/ssh client) on your PC. I already had PuTTY installed on my computer to run terminal commands on my iPhone. Run PuTTY and enter 192.168.15.244 in the Host Name (or IP address) field and click Open.
Step Five:
In the terminal window you will be prompted for the ID which is root and the password you created in step two above. At the promt type "mntroot rw" without quotes. This command allows you to change files.
Step Six:
Remove current ads and block their replacement:
rm -rf /mnt/us/system/.assets/
mkdir /mnt/us/system/.assets/
chmod -w /mnt/us/system/.assets
Copy your replacement screensaver and banner as follows:
cp /mnt/base-us/screensvr.png /usr/share/blanket/ad_screensaver/screensvr.png
cp /mnt/base-us/banner.gif /usr/share/blanket/ad_screensaver/banner.gif
Type exit and through the Touches menu option restart the Touch. Done.
Note: This is reverable by doing a Reset to Factory Defaults.
Update: Much simpler method without jailbreaking. Backup your Touches documents folder to your hard drive. Create an account at opendns.com (it is free). Using opendns's block feature, block address "adpublisher.s3.amazon.com". Enter OpenDNS's 2 DNS addresses in your router DNS fields or in your PC's IPv4 adapter settings. Do a Reset to Factory Defaults on your Touch. Copy the Documents folder you backed up back to your Touch, set up your Touch like you did when new and re-register. You will have the 19 sequential default screensaves and no ads. Turn off your wifi before leaving home and only use wifi at home or the ads will re-appear. Tested this on my wife's Touch and it works fine.