Kindle Is Making It Harder to Switch to Rival eReader Brands – How-To Geek

On February 26th, Kindle customers will lose the ability to download eBook purchases directly to their PC. If you want to switch to a rival eReader brand in the future, I suggest that you use the soon-to-be discontinued “Download and Transfer via USB” feature to archive your Kindle library.The “Download & Transfer via USB” feature predates Wi-Fi Kindles. It initially served as an alternative to Kindle’s cellular downloads feature—if you didn’t have cellular service, you could just download the books to your PC from a web browser, plug a USB cable into your Kindle, and drag-and-drop the eBooks into your Kindle’s file system.Amazon hasn’t explained why it’s getting rid of this functionality. However, I suspect that the company is trying to keep longtime customers locked into the Kindle platform. Competing eReader brands like Kobo and BOOX have exploded in popularity over the last few years, and although these rival platforms support the Kindle app, there are a lot of people who hate the Kindle app. Longtime Kindle customers who make the switch to a rival brand often use Amazon’s legacy “Download & Transfer via USB” feature to grab their old Kindle purchases, strip away the DRM, and convert the files to an open format like EPUB. That way, they can open the books in whatever reader app they like.This move may also force some old-school Kindle users to upgrade their hardware, as book downloads will now require a Kindle with Wi-Fi connectivity. Though, admittedly, every Kindle model introduced after 2011 supports Wi-Fi, and I don’t think we have too many Kindle DX users in the audience.Of course, I’m obliged to mention piracy. The “Download & Transfer via USB” feature makes it easy to remove DRM from Kindle eBooks, and if you want to illegally distribute copyrighted content, you gotta remove the DRM first. Realistically, 99% of people who remove the DRM from their Kindle purchases are doing it for personal use, which is legal in most jurisdictions. But as book publishers and authors grow more vocal about piracy (and as billion-dollar companies like Meta inflame the problem by pirating books to train AI) Amazon may feel pressured to lock things down.Two eReader giants go head to head.I honestly doubt that the death of “Download & Transfer via USB” will have any real impact on piracy. It will primarily affect people who are trying to switch from Kindle to a rival platform. The irony is that affected customers may use piracy to rebuild their digital library after switching to a different brand of eReader, as Amazon is making it much harder to download and modify old eBook purchases in a legal manner.For the record, I’ve reached out to Amazon for a comment. I’ll update this article if the company responds.If you want to download old Kindle eBook purchases to your PC or Mac, simply visit the Manage Your Content and Devices page on Amazon, press the “More Actions” button next to an eBook, and select “Download & Transfer via USB.” This feature will stop working on February 26th, so do it while you still can.Source: Amazon via RedditWe want to hear from you! Share your opinions in the thread below and remember to keep it respectful.Your comment has not been savedYou should clarify that Kobo does NOT support downloading a Kindle App. You can transfer Kindle epub files to your eReader via Calibre, but not books borrowed through Kindle Unlimited.Devices like Boox or Meebook run on an Android operating system and allow you to download any of the apps, like Kobo, Kindle, Libby, etc – plus you have access to Google Drive (or other cloud storage apps) and the native e-reader app to read ebooks you’ve downloaded from other places.Just a small note, some higher end Kobo devices also support Gdrive and Dropbox if you didn’t know It’s a good step and I hope it’s adapted by more companies so I wanted to share that.You can also install Calibre which will create a folder with all your kindle books in it. You can convert them to epub so you can drag and drop them to a kobo if you so desire. I still use my old original Kindle, with it’s physical keyboard and 3G connection. Not for much longer though it seems….Thanks so much for the warning. I buy tons of Kindle books. I’ll be downloading them all right away. Novels are one thing, but educational materials and instruction manuals – IMO – require the ability to easily search. Searching books for specific information is easy on my PC, not true of the Kindle. The quality you know and love from iFixit has entered the soldering game.Retro.Helpful tools and gadgets don’t have to be pricey.Come with me if you want to live, fish.Womp womp.Which was the style at the time.

Source: https://www.howtogeek.com/kindle-discontinues-download-transfer-via-usb/