Jailbreaking your Kindle
Why would you want to do it?
This really is starting to become a constant theme with me. We’ve talked about taking ownership of your music in the past and we’re currently talking about taking ownership of your computer and now we also have to discuss taking ownership of our books.
The reason why is because Amazon has decided to disable your ability to download electronic versions of the books that you paid for, which means you have no ability to back them up or access them offline and can only access the versions that Amazon maintains. This means that Amazon is free to update the content, covers, whatever they want to those books. So if you have a favourite cover, you might lose it or the content of the book could be altered, updated or censored.
Taking Ownership
The only way that you can do anything about this now is to either purchase your books elsewhere, somewhere that still supports ownership, use a different service or as you probably guessed, Jailbreak your kindle.
This is because one of the other advantages of jailbreaking your kindle is that books your purchase from other sites, such as books in the epub format, will now be readable on your kindle.
Whats the downside?
The downside to this is that the jailbreaking process while relatively easy if you know your way around tech, it may prove too finicky if you don’t.
Plus once jailbroken, there is a different reader app (although you original Kindle files and reading experience will still be available unchanged), that is just a little clunky to get to.
If this still seems like something you want to try, then remember as with all mods, jailbreaks and efforts of this type, you do so at your own risk and you are entirely responsible for your actions.
How Do I Jailbreak the Kindle?
These are the steps in brief on how to perform the jailbreak but for a much more detailed guide, I recommend watching and following the Youtube video linked below.
Go to KindleModding.org
Identify your Kindle
Follow guide here to Jailbreak
Install the Hotfix (This allows the jailbreak to stay persistent)
Install KUAL and MRPI (These allow you to install applications e.g. KOReader
Disable OTA Updates - stops updates breaking the jailbreak
Install KOReader Download "koreader-kindlepw2-v*.zip" archive from here, and install it just by unzipping it to your Kindle's root directory (KOReader Manual)
