Longreads with Kindle

How to increase Kindle's usage

E-Commerce, eBooks, Prime Video & music even for some AWS. This is the list of items that my close surroundings say about Amazon’s domain. Kindle is mostly overlooked or not prominently known among people.

Kindle is a strange product from Amazon. Unlike its Video/music or retail site, Kindle appeals to a narrow circle - readers. Even among the readers, there is a split between ebook and physical book readers.

Firstly, it’s the only hardware product from Amazon. The hardware is not some cheap plastic. The device boasts a solid design, handy to carry around, easier to handle in a single hand. The battery is one of the key factors, once fully charged the device runs for weeks. .Secondly, unlike other products Kindle helps us to build a constructive habit - reading. Third, once you acquire Kindle you can circumvent Amazon entirely and no need to pay. The hardware superiority and goodness of reading have been covered by so many blogs. Here, I’ll explain how I’m using Kindle to use Kindle.

No more Ad breaks - thanks Pi-hole

While browsing through Raspberry Pi’s sub in Reddit, I came across Pi-hole.

Pi-hole is an interesting project, claims to be black hole of Ads. I guess the pi in the name refers to Raspberry Pi. As my Pi3 was lying in the corner unused, I went for the Pi-hole installation. Before continuing further on the experience, we need to discuss why the ads are bothering?

What’s wrong with ads?

I agree the ads are the revenue source of websites. They are good as long as they don’t obstruct the usage, but do they? If not, we wouldn’t have went for browser level Ad blockers in first place. Having an Ad blocker in browser works good. But, this may impact performance of the browser. There are news that claims Google may break the working of Ad blockers in Chrome. The situation of smartphones are mush worse. Especially, in Android. There are no regulation, even in the popular apps, the Ads are placed in every available real estate. The expectation is to hijack your attention when you accidentally touch these spaces. There are apps which can protect you from ads, you’ve to sideload them, but sideloading an app is not a safe option.