Amazon has been heavily expanding the Kindle range in the last few years, adding its first color e-ink display in the Colorsoft, as well as the large Scribe note-taker. Unfortunately for fans, Amazon has also been working hard to lock down its e-readers, adding new DRM to keep e-books stuck on Kindle, and swatting jailbreaking methods down.
Amazon probably thought it had struck a fatal blow when it recently introduced a new DRM system that encrypted e-books on the device and locked them away. This, coupled with the removal of the ability to download your books to your PC, made removing DRM close to impossible. However, the jailbreaking community has proven to be as resourceful as everyone suspected. A new jailbreaking method has found an ingenious way onto the device, freeing up Kindles once again.
New Kindle jailbreak uses ads to get in
Safe to say we won’t be going into detail of how you can actually perform this jailbreak. If you’re interested — purely from an academic standpoint, of course — you can check out this excellent and in-depth video on how to do it.
The jailbreak itself is called AdBreak, and it uses a vulnerability in the way Amazon serves ads to jailbreak your device. You’ll need access to a computer and a data cable to do it, but the procedure is relatively straightforward, and it shouldn’t take too long to get it working.
Once jailbroken, you’ll be free to download new software to your device. Of the ones available, the most highly rated are the app store KindleForge, and the e-reader app KoReader. But you’ll also want to make sure you install a piece of software that stops your Kindle from updating permanently, as any updates will remove the jailbreak. Any good guide will include installing these though, so you don’t need to worry too much about forgetting those steps.
But this does mean it can’t be used on some models
Of course, because this exploit uses ads to jailbreak the device, it doesn’t work on models which don’t have the ability to display ads. That means this method will work on the standard Kindle and Kindle Paperwhite, but not any of the Colorsoft or Scribe models, including the new Scribe Colorsoft.
It’s a little bit amusing that anyone who’s paid more for their Kindle won’t have as many options as those who opted to save a little bit of money, but that’s the nature of the beast where jailbreaking is concerned. Rest assured that new methods for ad-less Kindles are likely being tested as we speak.
But as always with jailbreaks, it’s a given that Amazon is also working on a way to freeze this exploit in its tracks. So, if you’re interested in this at all, then make sure you jump on it as soon as possible.
7.5/10
- Resolution
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300ppi, Carta 1300
- Storage
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16GB
- Screen Size
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6 inches
- Processor
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1GHz
