Kindle 3 w/3G data browsing info for homeless friend (incl usable www for IM login?)

[ninja_250cc]

Hello, I was hoping someone might already have an answer to something, even though I could experiment to figure it out myself i'm afraid of exhausting the 50meg limit thing.

I recently got a pair of Kindle 3's. I discovered that the 3G experimental web browser still works! Which amazed me, as years ago articles say they at least capped it to 50megs/month after some dummies did tethering to laptops and similar. I'm wondering if anyone knows is this still the case? (I didn't want to exhaust this or/and abuse this feature so after browsing to 3 websites I stopped.) Just verified that it would log into gmail and be capable of sending email albeit clunkily.

I am trying to set up one of the kindles for a friend of mine whom is extremely poor. (for whom the $7/month Tracfone cell/data plan is beyond their budget, and i'm a college student eating Ramen every night not much better off to give them more than the kindle) I'll be giving them the one that has the better keyboard as they may need to use it for email and i'm just using mine for ebooks. Mostly for emergency communication where there might not be any wifi available - even if it's only 50 megs, that's a decent amount of email if ads can be avoided and if never touched except in an emergency.

What I was curious about is if I can extend this usefulness further. Has anyone ever experimented with Instant Messenger services, either dedicated or multiple-standard (like Trillian or whatever it is called) to know whether the built in browser supports the frames, javascript and such needed adequately?

I don't suppose anyone has ever figured out a driver for the built in microphone to try and use it with something like Google Voice for that free phone stuff have they?

I am wondering if any other older generic android apps can work on it if jailbroken taking into account the lack of touchscreen and limited input options. Just practical things whatever that might be.

[Cinisajoy]

Quick answer.
That browser is s l o w.
I can't say for sure but that browser works on some websites but not other websites even on wifi.
I wouldn't try to use it as an everyday computer.

Oh, if you and your friend are in the states, numerous places have free wifi to save your data.

[eschwartz]

The Kindle doesn't run Android, so you can stop that line of thought right now.

AFAIK you still get 50 MB monthly on those old devices.

My only experience with the browser TBH is the skipstone browser available as a jailbroken addon for touchscreen Kindles only. You will have to explore which websites work yourself.
(Javascript-heavy sites will often crash the browser though -- probably because of the lack of RAM. )

...

I think someone (twobob?) tried to get a VOIP client running on the Kindle, can't remember if anything ever came of it.

[montalex]

I use my Kindle 3 browser regularly to receive and send email (my email is forwarded to Gmail) when I am in the country on weekends. I have never had any difficultly with limits. I check BBC news, and get my NYTimes delivered to the Kindle also. It's been incredibly useful in locations where there is no internet connection. I have 4 Kindle 3s that I use, and one Kindle DXG -- the browser really sucks on the DXG -- or, I should say, the 3G module sucks. I can barely get a connection at all in places where the Kindle 3 3G works fine.

[Little.Egret]

My Kindle Keyboard 3G browser still works fine.

The 50MB cap, as I understand it, only applies when out of country so US resident and not in US, UK resident and not in UK.

Very clunky, true, but handy for weather forecasts, next bus and next train and looking at my ISP's service status when my broadband has gone wonky.

[nurseshelly]

Another thought if you are somewhere that there is free wifi around ... you could get a cheap first gen kindle fire and root it and then it would have sound and be able to all sorts of things with android. They are super easy to root and install android on. I haven't explored the development forum on this site for kindle fire, but there should be plenty of info on how to do it in there. I just joined recently and my first gen kindle fire days were a while ago but they were fun to experiment on.

When I had my first gen kindle (not the fire) which was 3G I did experiment with the web browser and sending emails. It was pretty slow, but it did work. You could also browse some web sites, but it was a very basic browser. Not something to do if you had other options, other than to mess around with for fun. Although emergency use would work too.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by ninja_250cc

What I was curious about is if I can extend this usefulness further. Has anyone ever experimented with Instant Messenger services, either dedicated or multiple-standard (like Trillian or whatever it is called) to know whether the built in browser supports the frames, javascript and such needed adequately?

I don't suppose anyone has ever figured out a driver for the built in microphone to try and use it with something like Google Voice for that free phone stuff have they?

As others have said, I never heard of this working for the 3G. Your experience with K3 3G Gmail is mine -- it is slow, but in a pinch still works almost anywhere in the world.

The way I think about this whole area is that the Kindle Keyboard is a reader optimized for long texts. This includes the so-called experimental browser.

Until this year, I used said browser a lot for reading text-heavy news web sites, as well as weather, using a mobilizer URL speeding up retrieval by eliminating non-text elements and automatically rendering in my desired large font size. Unfortunately, Google made a change breaking this, and I can't figure out how to get around that.

Regarding the problem, for which I'd love to get some advice, see:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=159

and

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=273397

[eschwartz]

I use this minimal interface for Gmail (possibly an endpoint for apps?).

http://m.gmail.com

[ninja_250cc]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Quick answer.
That browser is s l o w.
I can't say for sure but that browser works on some websites but not other websites even on wifi.
I wouldn't try to use it as an everyday computer.

Oh, if you and your friend are in the states, numerous places have free wifi to save your data.

Interesting factoid - that browser may depend upon where you are in part. I'll try to get a definitive answer next time I see the friend but it seems many big cities are overloaded on 3g data towers, but sometimes rural places it actually is comparably fast.

It's not meant to be an everyday computer - just an emergency email terminal for where there is no wifi including while traveling by bus rurally.

[ninja_250cc]

Originally Posted by montalex

I use my Kindle 3 browser regularly to receive and send email (my email is forwarded to Gmail) when I am in the country on weekends. I have never had any difficultly with limits. I check BBC news, and get my NYTimes delivered to the Kindle also. It's been incredibly useful in locations where there is no internet connection. I have 4 Kindle 3s that I use, and one Kindle DXG -- the browser really sucks on the DXG -- or, I should say, the 3G module sucks. I can barely get a connection at all in places where the Kindle 3 3G works fine.

Have you used more than 50 megs in a month "for sure" before? I am in part curious if anyone has hit the limit what they see happen - if it gives a special page for instance, or a warning, or just goes dead suddenly at the tail end of the month.

[ninja_250cc]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Until this year, I used said browser a lot for reading text-heavy news web sites, as well as weather, using a mobilizer URL speeding up retrieval by eliminating non-text elements and automatically rendering in my desired large font size. Unfortunately, Google made a change breaking this, and I can't figure out how to get around that.

What is a mobilizer? I'm actually an internet idiot.

[ninja_250cc]

Originally Posted by nurseshelly

Another thought if you are somewhere that there is free wifi around ... you could get a cheap first gen kindle fire and root it

When I had my first gen kindle (not the fire) which was 3G I did experiment with the web browser and sending emails. It was pretty slow, but it did work. You could also browse some web sites, but it was a very basic browser. Not

I'll totally agree, it's not much fun to browse with it, even moving around the page is a pain in the butt because youre using the arrow key to move about 2 character widths at a time and a page formatted to not wrap nicely is a nightmare. However for the purposes of sending emails for homeless people (or those who cannot afford $7/month Tracfone) it's great - communicate a bus/train schedule, send emergency messages, weather warnings (going to be cold tonight be sure you are at the shelter in time else call me if you cant get in), updates (bus is held up from a breakdown, we will be 30 minutes late). If you only care about the functional it works. It's not for writing long stories, fan fiction, and political diatribes.

For the android angle, i'm trying to get them also set up with a deactivated Tracfone smartphone. The android ones always have full wifi ability as well, they have a faster browser (though a tiny display and on screen keyboard obviously) but moving around a poorly designed page is easier with the touchscreen plus the pinch-big and pinch-small function. This also lets them use 911 if they have to which works even on deactivated phones, and when can be afforded can reactivate the phone with a card from walmart, from friends online who have the phone's ID through the web, and I think through another phone if you have the tracfone's card number. So the friend can send an emergency email to someone willing to buy them a $10-20 activation card if there is something serious going on without needing the phone activated outside emergencies. Properly set up the tracfones can even run android apps with some minor hacks on an external SD card. It's worth saying this is all theoretical/someone else told me this is possible but I haven't had a chance to set anything up like this yet. (still the internet idiot but learning how to do this soon I hope)

But a deactivated Tracfone smartphone is still useless for email without wifi. The kindle provides a little entertainment of things to read, or mp3's to listen to, plus "browsing/email anywhere" when the coffee shop is closed or turns off the router late at night. That's the system i'm trying to set up for others i'm doing it for and why. And yes a working IM client would dramatically help - though I made another specific post on that already.

[montalex]

Originally Posted by ninja_250cc

Have you used more than 50 megs in a month "for sure" before? I am in part curious if anyone has hit the limit what they see happen - if it gives a special page for instance, or a warning, or just goes dead suddenly at the tail end of the month.

I have never hit the 50 meg limit. I have no idea what the "cost" of checking my gmail account and sending the occasional email is. I always keep images disabled and javascript enabled.

http://www.marinesatellitesystems.co...hp?page_id=867