Amazon has removed Download & Transfer option

[cgsmom]

Originally Posted by jhowell

They are supported because they can download over WiFi is certainly one interpretation, probably even the correct one. But not the only possibility. The door is open for Amazon to cut off older devices at any time by labeling them as "unsupported".

Just last year Barnes & Noble decided to stop supporting several older readers and they all had wifi capability. I don't see why Amazon couldn't do the same thing.

[lkmiller]

Originally Posted by heydrewskie

Hello,

New to the e-reader game. I got a Kindle 2024 for Xmas and want to swap to Kobo ecosystem. I have downloaded my 12 or so Kindle ebook files.

CAN SOMEONE REMOVE THE DRM FOR ME? Is this possible?

Cheers,

AHM

No, you can do it yourself.

[lkmiller]

Originally Posted by bluepeter

You might try using https://dedrm.com/ .

I think that's probably a really bad idea.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by bluepeter

You might try using https://dedrm.com/ .

As lkmiller says, that's probably a really bad idea. The person who runs that web site could retain a copy of every book you process with it.

[Jack Knight]

Mmh, tested it the other day but it looks like that my mom's kindle, while wifi enabled, can't receive ebooks anymore.

In her case, I won't forbid her to buy there, some of her favorite authors confirmed to me they are published by Amazon, after all. But I hope there is a way to get the books and DeDRM them via the Kindle App for PC.
Can anyone confirm ?

For me it's simple, I already bought two books on Kobo since the news dropped.
I never will leave the key to my bookshelf in the care of a company. Let alone Amazon.

[nabsltd]

Originally Posted by cgsmom

Just last year Barnes & Noble decided to stop supporting several older readers and they all had wifi capability. I don't see why Amazon couldn't do the same thing.

Although I believe there's nothing off the table for Amazon, the PR problem with locking out functional devices might be too large for them to want to tackle. There are a lot more older Kindles out there than Nooks.

For end users, there is no significant extra functionality in KFX format that justifies delivering only that format. Without something like a 100% discount on trade-in, Amazon will be hard-pressed to explain why a WiFi-enabled Kindle can't get books any more. Removing the cellular-only devices can be explained by Amazon not wanting to continue paying for service, and in some cases because the cellular service is so old that it is no longer supported by carriers. But all WiFi Kindle devices cost Amazon exactly the same as far as book delivery is concerned, and it can be argued that KF8 saves Amazon money, as the file sizes tend to be smaller compared to KFX.

OTOH, if Amazon gives a free upgrade from a non-KFX device to a similar current KFX device (i.e., Paperwhite to Paperwhite 6, Kindle to Kindle 11), then it would be hard for anybody to complain. I don't see that happening, though, as they are already supposedly losing money on the Kindle hardware sale.

[lkmiller]

Originally Posted by Jack Knight

Mmh, tested it the other day but it looks like that my mom's kindle, while wifi enabled, can't receive ebooks anymore.

While they cut the older Kindles off from the on device store, those can still sync and get books bought for that account.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jhowell

In one of our first interactions here on MobileRead you told me that "BPL" could only refer to the Boston Public Library and not the Brooklyn Public Library.

And it's still true today as it was then. BPL is Boston, not Brooklyn.

[maddz]

A question that's been asked elsewhere: will older wi-fi enabled Kindles still sync over wi-fi, and can you then import the books out of the device memory into Calibre? I don't know the answer as I don't own any Kindle device but it's a question that's been asked by someone I know with a couple of Kindle Keyboards.

I suppose at some point the ability to see the device file tree will be locked down too - probably with a firmware upgrade.

[Jack Knight]

Originally Posted by lkmiller

While they cut the older Kindles off from the on device store, those can still sync and get books bought for that account.

Strange. I never used wifi for transfer so I might be doing something wrong. I bought her a book, activated wifi on the kindle, and clicked send to kindle.
Nothing. And when I thought, ‘hey, I may need to click on sync on the kindle side’, it gave me an error along the line of unable to sync.

I mean, her kindle is old anyway, and a change was in the cards for this year, but firstly this wifi issue shouldn’t be happening, and secondly it still leaves me with the trouble of remembering how the hell I managed to DeDrm a KFX book some months ago (for her future Amazon purchases).

[DiapDealer]

You probably didn't do the very last update for the device. It had to do with updating an SSL cert to be able to continue communicating with Amazon servers.

[tlc]

Originally Posted by meghane_e

@Jedi, There's a branch for a manual version of the Bulk Downloader that was added to yours, it basically helps if Captcha keeps coming up:
https://github.com/WeLackDiscipline/...nual-login.zip

Thanks for this tip. The manual login version worked for me. One issue to look out for -- the downloaded book count didn't match what the program said it was downloading. It appears a download will overwrite a book of the same name.

AND the downloaded file name is not always complete. I had a Volume X overwrite a Volume Y, because they were downloaded without the volume portion of the name. Other volumes in the series did have the volume portion of the name.

Easy enough to work around (with manual downloads) for my few cases.

[dublincheri]

Never mind, this isn’t new apparently. I just never bothered to read it before.
“Due to device compatibility, we cannot guarantee all titles will arrive on your device(s).”

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The WiFi devices are supported as they have support to download eBooks. Amazon would not put out such a statement and then take away the ability to download eBooks on Kindles with WiFi.

I see too many people here interpreting this incorrectly. What I see it meaning is WiFi Kindles are going to be able to download eBooks and non-WiFi Kindles are out.

Please cite your sources, because everyone else here has only ambiguously worded scarey messages from Amazon.

Thank you.

[tomsem]

My working assumption ('prior' in Bayesian terms) is that WiFi devices are not going to get cut off any time soon.

It's based on nothing in particular apart from the fact that so far the only Kindles that have ever been cut off will be the cellular only models on Feb 24, most of which lost wireless connectivity some time ago. Even then they will still 'work' and you can side load anything in your digital library after converting it to mobi.

My Kindle Touch still has Kindle Store access. Why would they cut it off? If that's the case with the K3 and KNT as well, then I don't see this happening soon.

Cutting off Kindle apps has precedence: Amazon doesn't control the OS platforms and isn't going to support versions which the OS vendors themselves have sunsetted.

At some point Windows for PC 4.2.0 will stop working, but I think it will only be done as result of some refactoring or major change to the app that they want to push out (like to make it look like the Android and iOS apps, and let you view Scribe Notebooks).

I think had WSA (Windows Subsystem for Android) not been deprecated by Microsoft, they would have continued to rely on that as the preferred Windows solution. It was clunky having to install Amazon Appstore as well but didn't cost them any significant development resources to implement.

Perhaps what will eventually replace the native app will be Kindle for Android, with an emulation layer so it runs as a native app without WSA or Amazon Appstore to install it. It would only need to emulate the subset of Android OS APIs which Kindle app uses. They'd then only have 3 code bases: Kindle embedded, Apple iOS (macOS via Catalyst), and Android. Amazon surely has the resources to pull that off.

As for hardening on-device DRM they certainly had ample opportunity to do it with the 2024 Kindles, and they did not take that opportunity. So it's not clear they have intention to do that any time soon either.

It's prudent to keep in mind that they have ability to do so at any time.