I don’t purchase Amazon ebooks anymore but I still own an old kindle Paperwhite that is working great (no matter how much I disagree with the way Amazon is destroying privacy and trying to redefine the notiion of ‘owning what one buys’, the Kindle itself was always nice to use). So, why not re-purpose it as an… epub reader, for the occasional ebook I may want to read from time to time in the future?
That is now a done thing, thx to WinterBreak, a Kindle jailbreaking tool that comes with easy to follow instructions (just, do not rush and double-check you’ve not missed some step… not that this could have happened to me), and thx to the KOReader app that one then need to install on top of the jailbreak, I can now read epub files natively on the kindle.
I’ve been using it a little yesterday evening without any issue and with quite a few pleasant surprises too, like the way one can change the page layout and also increase or decrease the text contrast, not forgetting the lack of ads on the screensaver. It was even more pleasant knowing I was not being tracked by Amazon while I was reading that epub.
Still, no matter how usable that liberated Kindle now is, I’ve moved back to print and ebooks will remain an exception. If only, because there is no need to side-load a traditional book before I can start reading it ;)
Published: 2026 Jan 10