Bookmarklet to check if Kindle "free" books are really free

[kakapo]

One of my favourite foraging grounds for free books for my Kindle was Amazon's Best Sellers in Kindle eBooks. That shows the top paid and free in the US books. Many books have stopped being free in the Asia-Pacific region so i wrote a bookmarklet to which ones were actually free to me. It will show the ones that are free to you by loading the pages with your login and region.

(If you've not heard of bookmarklets before, they're a bookmark that is some JavaScript code. So instead of going to a new location, they perform an action on the current page.)

I can't make a javascript: url in this forum, so it's a two step process to add it. Drag this link to your browser's bookmarks toolbar:
Kindle Best Seller price correction

Then change the url to:

javascript:amznJQ.jQuery('.zg_availability').each(function(){if(amznJQ.jQuery(this).html().trim()=='Currently%20unavailable'){amznJQ.jQuery(this).parent().parent().css('opacity',0.2);}});amznJQ.jQuery('.price').each(function(){var%20url=amznJQ.jQuery(this).parent().parent().find('a').attr('href').trim();var%20price=amznJQ.jQuery(this).html().trim();if(price=='Free'||price=='$0.00'){(function(price_node,old_price,url){amznJQ.jQuery.get(url,{},function(data,textStatus){var%20pos0=data.indexOf('class="priceLarge"');var%20pos1=data.indexOf('>',pos0);var%20pos2=data.indexOf('<',pos1);var%20new_price=data.substring(pos1+1,pos2).trim();amznJQ.jQuery(price_node).after('%20actual:'+new_price);if(new_price!='$0.00'){amznJQ.jQuery(price_node).parent().parent().parent().css('opacity',0.2);}},'text');})(this,price,url);}else{amznJQ.jQuery(this).parent().parent().parent().css('opacity',0.2);}});void(0);

Once you've done that, visit the Best Sellers in Kindle eBooks, wait for the page to finish loading and click on the new bookmark. It will check the actual price of "free" books and all the books that are not free for you will turn white.

Hopefully this is useful to someone.

If you'd like to modify the bookmarket (eg turn it into a GreaseMonkey script or Chrome extension) or just to see how it works, here is the code before i removed all the whitespace:

javascript:
amznJQ.jQuery('.zg_availability').each(function() {
  if (amznJQ.jQuery(this).html().trim() == 'Currently unavailable') {
    amznJQ.jQuery(this).parent().parent().css('opacity', 0.2);
  }
});
amznJQ.jQuery('.price').each(function() {
  var url = amznJQ.jQuery(this).parent().parent().find('a').attr('href').trim();
  var price = amznJQ.jQuery(this).html().trim();
  if (price == 'Free' || price == '$0.00') { 
    (function(price_node, old_price, url) {
      amznJQ.jQuery.get(url, {}, function (data, textStatus) {
        var pos0 = data.indexOf('class="priceLarge"');
        var pos1 = data.indexOf('>', pos0);
        var pos2 = data.indexOf('<', pos1);
        var new_price = data.substring(pos1 + 1, pos2).trim();
        amznJQ.jQuery(price_node).after(' actual:' + new_price);
        if (new_price != '$0.00') {
          amznJQ.jQuery(price_node).parent().parent().parent().css('opacity', 0.2);
        }
      }, 'text');
    })(this, price, url);
  } else {
    amznJQ.jQuery(this).parent().parent().parent().css('opacity', 0.2);
  }
});
void(0);

[CWatkinsNash]

YES, it is useful!!

Okay, one of the things that has been irking me about Amazon is if you sort by price, it includes "free for Prime lending" books in with the actual free books.

Your bookmarklet whites out the ones that are only free for Prime lending. Yay!

Thank you for this, and welcome to MR!

[KentE]

Very cool, Kakapo! And very kind of you to share the fruits of your labor!
I'm in the US, and have other methods of checking for free Kindle books, but I can definitely see where this is a big help for those in other countries!
Karma given, where Karma is due!
KentE

[Shelli508]

Wow! Thanks!

[DuskyRose]

Very useful! Thanks!

[eckyecky]

Greasemonkey script It makes finding free books really easy. (Sets height of result div to 0px for non-free books.) credits to kakapo

// ==UserScript==
// @name        Amazon Free Books
// @namespace   ecky.public
// @include     http://www.amazon.com/*
// @version     1
// ==/UserScript==

function runClear() {     
  unsafeWindow.amznJQ.jQuery('.zg_availability').each(function() {
    if (unsafeWindow.amznJQ.jQuery(this).html().trim() == 'Currently unavailable') {
      unsafeWindow.amznJQ.jQuery(this).parent().parent().css('opacity', 0.2);
      unsafeWindow.amznJQ.jQuery(this).parent().parent().css('height', 0);
    }
  });
  unsafeWindow.amznJQ.jQuery('.price').each(function() {
    var url = unsafeWindow.amznJQ.jQuery(this).parent().parent().find('a').attr('href').trim();
    var price = unsafeWindow.amznJQ.jQuery(this).html().trim();
    if (price == 'Free' || price == '$0.00') { 
      (function(price_node, old_price, url) {
        unsafeWindow.amznJQ.jQuery.get(url, {}, function (data, textStatus) {
          var pos0 = data.indexOf('class="priceLarge"');
          var pos1 = data.indexOf('>', pos0);
          var pos2 = data.indexOf('<', pos1);
          var new_price = data.substring(pos1 + 1, pos2).trim();
          unsafeWindow.amznJQ.jQuery(price_node).after(' actual:' + new_price);
          if (new_price != '$0.00') {
            unsafeWindow.amznJQ.jQuery(price_node).parent().parent().parent().css('opacity', 0.2);
            unsafeWindow.amznJQ.jQuery(price_node).parent().parent().parent().css('height', 0);
          }
        }, 'text');
      })(this, price, url);
    } else {
      unsafeWindow.amznJQ.jQuery(this).parent().parent().parent().css('opacity', 0.2);
      unsafeWindow.amznJQ.jQuery(this).parent().parent().parent().css('height', 0);
      unsafeWindow.amznJQ.jQuery(this).parent().parent().parent().css('overflow', 'hidden');
    }
  });
  
}
document.addEventListener('click',function (){setTimeout(runClear,3000)},true);
runClear();

[Sigyn]

Thank you very much!

[kakapo]

I'm glad everyone is enjoying the bookmarklet. I've written a new script for checking Kindle ebook prices directly in this forum. No more visiting a "free" link to find out it's not free for you.

Check it out at https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho....php?p=2152684