Tools Reasons/Benefits to Jailbreak a Kindle in 2019

[Almamida]

Hi,

I own a Kindle Voyage I decided to jailbreak years ago, and at the end I realize that I barely used any advantages of this jailbreak.

I'm about to receive a new PW4, and I'm debating the idea of jailbreaking it, just in case. But at the same time, why would I bother, when at the end I find that the Kindles firmwares are getting better / including functionalities that would probably require a jailbreak before (I'm thinking of customs fonts).

So I'm curious to know the reasons people have to jailbreak their device in 2019.

[knc1]

I paid for it, it is mine, not anyone else's nor any corporation's.

[montalex]

I like a choice of font, and I replaced screensavers with my own images, each with my phone number on it. As knc1 says, it feels like mine rather than a rental from Amazon.

[j.p.s]

1. I find the linux CLI convenient and use it all day at work and for all my computer interaction at home.

2. I prefer scp and rsync for file transfer rather than messing with USB mass storage.

3. Ability to actually power the kindle off for storage.

4. Ability to set the light to exactly the brightness I want.

5. Easily disable and (especially) re-enable sleep mode (to have a page visible for reference while working on something).

6. Ability to add any of the thousands of debian packages available if the need arises or the mood strikes me.

7. As others wrote, the freedom to use the kindle as I like.

A. I haven't done anything with sleep screens or collections yet, but it's nice to have the option. (I've tried amazon's collections, but they don't work for me.)

[ilovejedd]

1. automatic collections via Calibre Kindle Collections plugin + LibrarianSync KUAL add-on
2. KOReader for EPUB, CBZ, OPDS and Dropbox support
3. ebook cover as screensaver

Sure, some of these features are native to Kobo but ergonomics-wise, I prefer the Paperwhite over the Kobo ereaders I've bought (Aura HD & Glo HD).

[jhowell]

I have never bothered to jailbreak any of my Kindles. It is fine as is for reading. The only feature of interest to me would be screensavers, but because I have a magnetic cover I wouldn’t see them anyway. I just open the cover and it’s right back at the page I was reading.

[Tarana]

I jailbroke a kindle but never found it terribly useful for me EXCEPT for j.p.s. reason #5. Easily disable and (especially) re-enable sleep mode (to have a page visible for reference while working on something). I occasionally wanted to cook a recipe and it was forever annoying that the screen would go into sleep mode. Gave up on that though, flour is hard to get out of the corners, so print out the page and cook from that. Same with knitting - I just print the page I'm working with.

[Sol Arkite]

Originally Posted by Tarana

to have a page visible for reference while working on... a recipe and... flour is hard to get out of the corners

a simple hack for that. Put the device in a freezer bag. Secure to a pant hanger. Hang anywhere in the kitchen such as a knob on a cabinet door. The touch screen works through the plastic. Most any device will work in the bag. Device is flour free

[ritiek]

I jailbroke my KP3. The best thing that I'm able to mount my kindle storage on my laptop using SSHFS and use it to transfer e-books, modify ebook-metadata using my Linux machine, all wirelessly.

I was also able to cross-compile https://github.com/Blub/netevent for my Kindle and use my Kindle to remotely control the mouse pointer on my Linux machine and my android phone! Not very useful to me but I sure learned lots of stuff along the way.

[arooni]

Koreader Is vastly superior to the stock Kindle book reading experience. Especially so if you find your books outside of the Kindle/Amazon ecosystem

[Pajamaman]

Collections.

But Koreader is a good idea. I hadn't thought of that. I could browse book by folders.

[shamanNS]

@arooni: The only thing that is vastly superior in KOreader is the PDF reader component. Rendering and "layout-ing" of epubs and mobis is at "alpha" level for years now. It can't even deal with images (scale and position them) properly.

All the rest nice to have that look excellent "on paper" / all the added functionality (syncing reading position and stuff like that) doesn't matter if the main thing it should do is of sub par quality. Also dictionaries and dictionary lookup are meh.

[Sol Arkite]

Originally Posted by Almamida

So I'm curious to know the reasons people have to jailbreak their device in 2019.

There are a few games like chess
and you can add an interactive fiction engine (text adventure).
E-ink readers are uniquely suited for this kind of diversion.
you could try the Gargoyle extention.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...0&postcount=67

And find games at the "Interactive Fiction Database " to play on your kindle from here:
https://ifdb.tads.org/

such as "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
https://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=ouv80gvsl32xlion

As for KOreader, it stands out for its ability to use an inverted display as a night mode. I wish there were an extention to invert the display in the stock kindle reader.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by Sol Arkite

- - - - -
As for KOreader, it stands out for its ability to use an inverted display as a night mode. I wish there were an extention to invert the display in the stock kindle reader.

My PW4 has an "Invert Black and White" -> ON/OFF in the "Accessibility" section of "Settings".
ON -> White text on Black screen.
(Does a PW4 count as a stock Kindle reader?)

Changes both GUI and books.
(Don't know about all types of books, I only looked at one.)

[Sol Arkite]

Originally Posted by knc1

My PW4 has an "Invert Black and White"

Quite right. Pw4 has that feature. What I should have said was, I wish I had that function available on my PW2 with the standard reader. Sure, without page refresh, some people don't like the patterns that emerge. But I like it. It is a new kind of palimpsest for the digital age.