Issue is reading device, not ebooks. I recommend pocketbook as better alternative to kindle.
this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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Privacy
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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
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I've never let my kindle connect to wifi. Mostly because of the tracking shit (that I now know they definitely do) but also so Amazon doesn't brick it with an "update".
You can block all their advertising, telemetry and even their software update domains with pi hole. The older readers allow you to set hardcoded DNS to your pi hole server. Not sure if the newer Kindle Fires and Paperwhites do or not.
If supported by your router, you can redirect any errant DNS queries back to your specified DNS server.
From the technical side, they run two 3.x kernel systems on their readers and the sdk was not touched since 2018. Which is why i bought a Android eInk, despite being from the same country like PB.
But i think they are more UI-centric and that part seems to be great, together with long battery life, stability and openness.
How is the battery of android based readers?
Way worse. Long battery live wasn't a requirement for my usecase. PocketBook apparently holds weeks there. I you only want a reader, PB is the better choice. I wanted nextcloud sync (although there's a community app for PB) and general hackability of the software, which is why Android.
Thanks for sharing! For me long battery life is a must, I have enough devices to worry about, I dont want to often charge my book… Pocketbook has amazing battery life and its one of the reason why I love it so much!
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A cookie banner with "Yes track me" and "Choose how much you want us to track you" button (on the retailer for my country, doesn't seem to appear on the dot com site) doesn't inspire confidence.
Hows their ink screens? I stayed with kindle primarily for their paperwhite, which is darn comfortable even in direct sunlight.
Capitalism has failed.
That's not true. The rich are extremely rich and with immense amount of power and influence, while the working class has little to nothing. That's capitalism working perfectly as designed, my friend
100% agree.
If possible, get your books in epub format, get an eInk Android tablet for less than £100 and enjoy.
Kobo masterrace checking in
Do you have a recommendation on which one to get? The different options seem fairly similar. Biggest concern is reading outdoors.
I have the Clara. It's smallish but I prefer smaller for an e-reader.
Most eink displays should do just fine outdoors, so you shouldn't worry about that.
Thanks for the advice!
Love my kobo libra h20, would highly recommend. Easy to sideload epubs with calibre.
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Libra 2. I use it outdoors often, the screen is very clear.
Good to know, thank you so much for the advice!
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Any recommendations on privacy friendly eink tablets?
Kobo
I got Onyx Boox and installed a firewall on it.
Most of the books I have on my reader are not available in epub or formats like it, rather as pdf/djvu scans. So I'd add it might be absolutely worth it to pay more for a big screen.
Also the device never ever connects to the internet. Gives you more freedom.
You can easily convert pdf files to epub then do a little light editing to make sure you don’t have weird artifacts like page numbers the book name or author name. I can process a pdf to epub in 20 minutes at most (most are a minute it two) for average novel length, which I understand is a big ask for lots of folks but it’s worth it to me to have the file in a format that I can keep and use on pretty much anything.
you could share your books uploading them to libgen. I mean, they are probably already there but in an annoying PDF format. Not everyone has the knowledge to convert a PDF to an epub with good formatting.
I would like to do something like that but I don’t want to be scrutinized about technically being a bootleg publisher.
The books I did it to are from small authors writing for niche communities and I don’t want to make it easier to pirate than buy in that case. Anyone else can find those same PDFs on a website easy to search and well recommended by the community so the information is available, and if they want an ePub they can format it themselves or just buy the version from Amazon and support the author.
Mind giving a rundown of how you do it? I tried it many, many times and never accomplished much
- Use convert.io to convert pdf to EPUB
- Import EPUB to editor software such as sigil
- Find editing issues in the text by hand, once you’ve found one issue that gets repeated like “AuThOr 78” for page numbers
- Use the search and replace function to replace all instances with blank
- Skim over the text for a couple minutes not reading, but looking for other weird breaks in the text flow
- When you think you have them all export the file and start reading, if you see any other less obvious issues mark them in the notes and do a final edit for aesthetics
You now have the book on EPUB to be placed in your personal cloud or whatever.
"Do a light editing" you mean read through a huge book? I have downloaded automatically-converted versions like this and they're unreadable at times. Also would that work well on complex math formulas?
Edit: might try doing so to upload for others, but looking through the whole book must be long, tedious work, definitely not something I'd do for every book.
”Do a light editing “ You mean read through a huge book?
No, I mean use your eyes to see if there are any obvious breaks in the text, most of the time they’re repeated and follow a pattern that is easily searched and every instance replaced with a button press.
Yes, but far from all mistakes are like this. You'd need to manually scan through a potentially long book. Fine if you do it occasionally for some books to contribute to Libgen, but you'd go insane if you try to do it to your whole library for personal use.
Edit: I meant not repeated and more or less obvious mistakes like these, rather those like "one term got mistaken for another real word", which you won't catch automatically.
I’ve been doing it for years to my personal books I download that I can’t find in ePub, I have no issues with my sanity. I also usually do this before I read the book, and double check my editing as I read it. 98% of the time I caught all the errors that were not present in the original text (it copies typos perfectly) .
Cool, I just don't have patience to scan through a 1000-page book prior to reading) Do you upload these for others to use? And again - what software?
Well, in the linked comment, on the second line where it says to import the converted epub into editing software like sigil,there was a link to a piece of software called sigil, it’s for editing EPUB files, and it’s called sigil. It’s the second link in the comment that takes you to the EPUB editor software called sigil.
I have been tempted to upload them for others to use, but all the authors that I’ve done it for are really small niche community authors, and I do not want to take support away from them.
Just because I’m a broke ass bitch and have decided to re-copy them however I see fit for my personal consumption, doesn’t necessarily mean I want to become a bootlegger publisher.
Probably controversial on my next few words but use your phone as an ereader.
Go through a couple of apps for ebooks (FDroid as a few) until you find the app that most suits your needs.
Amazon is not your friend, so try to explore other venues; Smashwords has a pretty interesting catalog. Project Guttenberg has a good number of older texts and public domain books, all for free.
I am sure other options exist, especially if willing to navigate the high seas.
Phone apps are absolutely not a substitute for eink screens. The reading experience is worlds apart. Support an alternative company like Kobo.
Solution: steal the book, email the author and ask how you can make a donation direct to them
I don't really use it but I have a Kindle oasis. Do I have any options for stripping Amazon from the equation? I'm no stranger to soft mods and hacks.
As long as you don't need audiobooks on it, you can essentially erase your wifi credentials, turn off wifi, and manage your ebooks through USB and something like Calibre.
The Kindle OS will continue to collect and store all sorts of telemetry, and will upload it later if you ever reconnect the device to the internet. Just something to consider.
Normally, I would just suggest avoiding Kindles but, like me, you already have the device so might as well use it.
FWIW I got a helluva deal second hand, so I didn't give Amazon money lol. I only used it a little bit with manually loaded files, so if I use it again I may just do this.
I’ve never tried sending ebooks to the Kindle Oasis via USB…that’s an option? Never even tried connecting it to my laptop. The Kindle and Calibre talk to each other pretty easily that way?
I have a Paperwhite myself, but from what I've read the Oasis works just as well via USB and is equally compatible with Calibre. The experience is pretty much plug-n-play after the initial setup wizard.
Honestly I just keep mine on airplane mode. Calibre was always a much better management tool, and libgen isn't nearly as creepy.
A jailbreak method called Language break was discovered relatively recently, so even if you're on a more recent firmware version, you could jailbreak and install KOReader on it.
If it's an older version of firmware, there are also other method of jailbreaking afaik.
Next to an iPad I use as one would expect, I also use a Kindle I disconnected from the Web (and Amazon) many years ago. It doesn't get updates (no need in order to read ebooks) and I have to manually load ebooks, which is fine by me. The battery is still great. And I know nobody is sniffing my reading habits.
I’ve been reading ebooks since I owned a Palm Pilot (yep, that was quite some time ago) and have always privileged digital over print since then: it's just more convenient.
But a very surprising thing started happening to me recently: tired of having to fight big tech to get some privacy and to avoid updates with always more useless 'features' pilled over my reading experience (I don't like at all how Apple Books is changing), I started purchasing print editions. Instead of the ebooks, I mean. More and more. To the point that last month and the first two weeks of December I purchased zero ebook, only print.
It's a a nice experience to be certain that no one is profiling my reading habits (I can still purchase books paying in cash if I want to), or enter my house to remove it from my bookshelves. I like it so much that I've also started using my notebook and fountain pen much more for note-taking instead of the iPad. Curious to see where it will lead me, if anywhere ;)
This type of shit with Amazon is partly what made me switch to just using audiobookshelf. It supports ebooks and podcasts as well as audiobooks and is all self hosted. It's a high recommend for anyone who has a bunch of digital books like myself. I just have an old tablet instead of a kindle.
I just use a Kindle 3 in airplane mode. Closest it's ever come to failing me was the battery going kaput and even then it's easily replaceable. These things last forever, and you can get then for like 25-30 dollars! Just load books on from you computer and enjoy yer reading. Recommend it for sure. Just make sure you pretend it has no internet functionality. (I've looked far and wide and I just cannot find something with the same level of analog functionality as the kindle 3. The physical keyboard is wonderful, and no touch screen is great imo)
Arrrrr...not for me
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