Jailbroken Kindle

I’ve never had a proper e-reader. For years, I’ve been reading digital books on my phone. I tried a Kindle Fire a few years ago but didn’t like the experience. The device didn’t have an e-ink display, it was really slow and adding PDFs or e-books not bought via Amazon was a major hassle. After that experience I went back to my phone and forgot about e-readers. At least until last week.

Last month I started coming across some videos about jailbreaking Kindles. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to try something new. Also, I haven’t been reading much lately, and I thought a new single purpose device could help me get back on track. After some searching, I found a good deal for a second hand Kindle Paperwhite and bought it right away.

Why the need for the jailbreak?

So I can read the digital books I already have without hassle and not have to worry about Amazon deleting books, banning my account or spam me with “special offers” ads I don’t want to see.

I also like giving old devices a new life. The Kindle I got for this experiment is from 2015. I guess is similar to installing Linux on old ThinkPads. It is just a cool small project to try.

Breaking the jail

The jailbreak instructions are in The Kindle Modding Wiki. They are easy to follow if you are somewhat computer-literate.

The guide recommends filling almost all the storage in the device to prevent automatic updates. I had success running the jailbreak without the need to fill the storage, but your millage might vary. I would suggest following the instructions to fill the storage just in case.

After following the instructions you will probably want to install KOReader. The whole jailbreaking process seems like foreplay for this.

KOReader is amazing. You can tweak lots of options for how to display your books, connect to Calibre, use Wikipedia, add custom screensaver or even make add plugins to interact with LLMs or Zotero.

Wrapping up

I like the idea of single purpose devices. I’ve been reading more without distractions, enjoying the experience of the e-ink screen and actually looking forward for the next book. The device I got is a bit old, but it serves me well. I hope I can use if for many years to come.