Kindle 3 "Special offers" edition Screensaver hack help - Page 2

Starko · 05-01-2011, 02:14 PM

It's just a matter of time someone writes a batch file or some other script to automate that process. From what you wrote i think it's really easy to do.

finrind · 05-01-2011, 03:21 PM

Well, another way to keep your Kindle without ads is to turn the wireless on for just a couple of seconds to register the Kindle, and then immediately sleep it, shut your wireless network, turn Kindle on, turn wireless on Kindle off, then restore your wireless network. This way Kindle will get enough time online to register (and thus enable all those features that are disabled on an unregistered Kindle), but won't have enough time to download the ads and you'll have the old good screensavers etc.
With this simple trick I managed to keep my KSO ad-free for a couple of days (until I decided to participate in an offer).

Now, did anyone try to just simply delete the ads from Kindle? (like, delete the folders containing these gifs?)

luvmy4brats · 05-01-2011, 07:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by metr0man

If anyone cares I have figured out how to replace the ad screensavers. At least temporarily. It's also a cumbersome manual process.

However, since I saw a special offer today that I liked and took advantage of (10 dollars off 20 dollar amazon gift card) i've made the decision to keep the ads. If i'm actually going to use this system I shouldn't circumvent it.

That's purely an ethical choice though. I'm a firm believer in the whole "you buy it you own it" principle of hardware. If you buy a piece of hardware you should be free to do whatever you want with it PERIOD as long as you're not breaking any laws. The ads are just GIF files sitting there on your hardware. It's your hardware, you should be able to mess with GIF files on your own hardware. It's your device. Just like a PC, or iPhone.

Of course if you break Amazon's TOS (not a law btw, and applies only to their 'service', not the hardware itself) they also have the right to, say, block you from their online Kindle store, you may own your hardware but you don't own the Kindle Store, I believe that as well. Those are the conditions they set down when giving you access to their online store.

I also have no idea what happens when wi-fi is on, and Amazon makes the decision to update the ads in the future. There must be some connection or mechanism for "switching on" certain ads (like aforementioned gift card ad which just appeared today despite sitting on the Kindle since day one). Will they detect that you've tinkered with the ads, and do something? I have no clue.

So the faint of heart or overly anxious should probably not try it.

Purely on research front, I tested it out by replacing an Oil of Olay ad with one of my own and it worked (I've since put the Olay ad back in it's original place). Long story short, you enable viewing hidden files in your Folder View options (PC), go into the system folder on your kindle and in an assets subfolders are number-string folders, each ad has it's own folder with GIF assets. It's literally just an image replace.

It's cumbersome because you would have to replace each one individually. Putting aside the ethical thoughts elaborated on above, it's just way too much effort for me. Curious that it's so publicly available and easily accessible. It's definitely a risk tinkering with them since Amazon could do any number of things if they found out.

That is interesting. I may actually give it a try. I don't want to get rig of the banner ad, but changing the screensavers might actually be worth the Hassle... I expect you'd need to do it every time a fresh batch of offers comes in (I think there are about 2-3 dozen in there now.) I'd probably switch out the ads, but leave the offers alone... Hmmm.... Off to test this!

luvmy4brats · 05-01-2011, 07:49 PM

Just so you know, this doesn't work... The new screen saver will show up on your Kindle 1 time and then when you wake the Kindle from sleep mode, that file will completely disappear from your Kindle. And the banner for that offer/ad will not show up on your Kindle.

mr ploppy · 05-02-2011, 07:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

You're apparently the guinea pig for the screensavers hack on 3.2. Everyone will appreciate the results of your experiment.

When that happens Amazon is likely to plug it again fairly quickly. The only reason they didn't care before was because there was nothing for them to lose financially by ignoring it.

DiapDealer · 05-02-2011, 09:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr Ploppy

When that happens Amazon is likely to plug it again fairly quickly. The only reason they didn't care before was because there was nothing for them to lose financially by ignoring it.

When what happens?

I just thought it was funny that someone would even think that the screensaver hack might work on the AdverKindle with newer firmware (firmware changed to display ads/offers via screensavers). Everyone who was thinking about buying a cheaper Kindle and just circumventing the ads, now knows that won't work... thanks to the OP's "experiment". I'm perfectly OK with that--in fact, I hope the AdverKindle stays unhacked.

mr ploppy · 05-02-2011, 10:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

When what happens?

I just thought it was funny that someone would even think that the screensaver hack might work on the AdverKindle with newer firmware (firmware changed to display ads/offers via screensavers). Everyone who was thinking about buying a cheaper Kindle and just circumventing the ads, now knows that won't work... thanks to the OP's "experiment". I'm perfectly OK with that--in fact, I hope the AdverKindle stays unhacked.

I think someone will do it, but now Amazon has an incentive to issue updates to put the adverts back again. That may or may not affect users of non-ad-subsidised Kindles, we'll have to wait and see.

DiapDealer · 05-02-2011, 10:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr Ploppy

but now Amazon has an incentive to issue updates to put the adverts back again.

Oh, I agree completely.
Or if it becomes too much of a hassle, they'll just stop selling the ad-supported, cheaper Kindle and cancel the special offers program altogether.

mr ploppy · 05-02-2011, 10:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Oh, I agree completely.
Or if it becomes too much of a hassle, they'll just stop selling the ad-supported, cheaper Kindle and cancel the special offers program altogether.

Oh, I don't know about that. Advertising would be too good of an extra revenue stream to give it up without a fight.

Barty · 05-02-2011, 10:43 AM

I'm not going to be happy if they go and plug the screensaver hack hole in the regular kindles too. I don't want to go back to seeing dead people.

emalvick · 05-02-2011, 01:33 PM

I have a feeling that if they plug that hack hole, it will be to put ads on the regular Kindles too. Given the limited price difference, I don't seem them selling both Wifi versions for too long. I'm not even sure I'd care. Ads are better than dead people, and while I enjoyed the novelty of putting my own screen-savers on my Kindle, I rarely even notice them anymore (this is mostly due to my inadvertant use of the "close the cover" method of not seeing screen savers

)

mr ploppy · 05-02-2011, 02:00 PM

I always switch it off by holding the button for a few seconds. I figure that might make the battery last longer but I don't know if it does or not. I can't really see them forcing everyone to have adverts, but I can see them being offered as something you can opt into with some pretext about it being a good thing to have. Like "free shipping" on Ebay

Lanoitarus · 05-06-2011, 11:50 AM

Hi All, thought chiming in here was interesting enough to finally join the forum:

I bought the KSO because I frankly *like* the concept of the ads, and because I figured amazon would either make them good or eventually ditch the program. But that doesn't mean I can resist the urge to play with it and see what happens

I replaced every special screen saver .gif with my own, and as someone mentioned, it worked fine-- at first. Then, when I eventually rebooted the device, it must have detected the issue and it refused to show any special offers at all, either on the home screen or screen saver or the "view offers" option: it just showed a placeholder image with an image of letters (printing press?) and a message to connect to wifi to view special offers. Interestingly, connecting to wifi and hitting refresh didn't change this until a day had gone by, and suddenly it worked again, reverting everything.

tarataqa · 05-12-2011, 01:53 AM

I agree with Lano. I bought the KSO because I already had a NookColor and wanted a cheap way to play with the pretty e-ink reader.(light-weight too!)

I looked at the ads and didn't think they were too intrusive.(could be worse...popups every minute that you have to close, etc.)

I didn't wanna jailbreak the 3.2 FW and possibly brick it. So I just installed Duokan since it rides along shotgun to the standard 3.2 FW.

Well now my KSO will auto-boot into Duokan. Never shows banner ads, and only shows screensavers pictures that I put in its system folder.

Sorry Amazon.

jimh12345 · 05-21-2011, 02:20 PM

I just bought a KSO in part because I heard the ads were actually sort of interesting. So far, they're about as interesting as a suburban strip mall and I'd like to get rid of them, at least the screensaver part.

There's an ethical issue, but Amazon knows a few geeks are going to JB the device no matter what, and none of the ads were anything I'm remotely interested in anyway. I wonder though if the ads might become more targeted over time based on your reading history.

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05-01-2011, 02:14 PM	#16
Starko Zealot Posts: 123 Karma: 998177 Join Date: Aug 2010 Device: Kindle 3	It's just a matter of time someone writes a batch file or some other script to automate that process. From what you wrote i think it's really easy to do.

05-01-2011, 03:21 PM	#17
finrind Junior Member Posts: 7 Karma: 10 Join Date: May 2011 Device: Kindle 3	Well, another way to keep your Kindle without ads is to turn the wireless on for just a couple of seconds to register the Kindle, and then immediately sleep it, shut your wireless network, turn Kindle on, turn wireless on Kindle off, then restore your wireless network. This way Kindle will get enough time online to register (and thus enable all those features that are disabled on an unregistered Kindle), but won't have enough time to download the ads and you'll have the old good screensavers etc. With this simple trick I managed to keep my KSO ad-free for a couple of days (until I decided to participate in an offer). Now, did anyone try to just simply delete the ads from Kindle? (like, delete the folders containing these gifs?)

05-01-2011, 07:49 PM	#19
luvmy4brats Connoisseur Posts: 52 Karma: 28302 Join Date: Jun 2010 Device: Kindle	Just so you know, this doesn't work... The new screen saver will show up on your Kindle 1 time and then when you wake the Kindle from sleep mode, that file will completely disappear from your Kindle. And the banner for that offer/ad will not show up on your Kindle.

05-02-2011, 10:43 AM	#25
Barty doofus Posts: 2,529 Karma: 13088847 Join Date: Sep 2010 Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kindle Voyage	I'm not going to be happy if they go and plug the screensaver hack hole in the regular kindles too. I don't want to go back to seeing dead people.

05-02-2011, 01:33 PM	#26
emalvick Groupie Posts: 166 Karma: 5358 Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Davis, CA Device: Kindle 3	I have a feeling that if they plug that hack hole, it will be to put ads on the regular Kindles too. Given the limited price difference, I don't seem them selling both Wifi versions for too long. I'm not even sure I'd care. Ads are better than dead people, and while I enjoyed the novelty of putting my own screen-savers on my Kindle, I rarely even notice them anymore (this is mostly due to my inadvertant use of the "close the cover" method of not seeing screen savers )

05-02-2011, 02:00 PM	#27
mr ploppy Feral Underclass Posts: 3,622 Karma: 26821535 Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Yorkshire, tha noz Device: 2nd hand paperback	I always switch it off by holding the button for a few seconds. I figure that might make the battery last longer but I don't know if it does or not. I can't really see them forcing everyone to have adverts, but I can see them being offered as something you can opt into with some pretext about it being a good thing to have. Like "free shipping" on Ebay

05-06-2011, 11:50 AM	#28
Lanoitarus Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: May 2011 Device: Kindle3 SO	Hi All, thought chiming in here was interesting enough to finally join the forum: I bought the KSO because I frankly like the concept of the ads, and because I figured amazon would either make them good or eventually ditch the program. But that doesn't mean I can resist the urge to play with it and see what happens I replaced every special screen saver .gif with my own, and as someone mentioned, it worked fine-- at first. Then, when I eventually rebooted the device, it must have detected the issue and it refused to show any special offers at all, either on the home screen or screen saver or the "view offers" option: it just showed a placeholder image with an image of letters (printing press?) and a message to connect to wifi to view special offers. Interestingly, connecting to wifi and hitting refresh didn't change this until a day had gone by, and suddenly it worked again, reverting everything.

05-12-2011, 01:53 AM	#29
tarataqa Our Lady of the Internet Posts: 11 Karma: 10 Join Date: Apr 2011 Device: NookColorCM7;Kindle3SO;iTouch 1G;LG Optimus V	I agree with Lano. I bought the KSO because I already had a NookColor and wanted a cheap way to play with the pretty e-ink reader.(light-weight too!) I looked at the ads and didn't think they were too intrusive.(could be worse...popups every minute that you have to close, etc.) I didn't wanna jailbreak the 3.2 FW and possibly brick it. So I just installed Duokan since it rides along shotgun to the standard 3.2 FW. Well now my KSO will auto-boot into Duokan. Never shows banner ads, and only shows screensavers pictures that I put in its system folder. Sorry Amazon.

05-21-2011, 02:20 PM	#30
jimh12345 Connoisseur Posts: 71 Karma: 2012 Join Date: May 2011 Device: kindle	I just bought a KSO in part because I heard the ads were actually sort of interesting. So far, they're about as interesting as a suburban strip mall and I'd like to get rid of them, at least the screensaver part. There's an ethical issue, but Amazon knows a few geeks are going to JB the device no matter what, and none of the ads were anything I'm remotely interested in anyway. I wonder though if the ads might become more targeted over time based on your reading history.

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