A week ago I bought my brand new Kindle 3 (with Special Offers & Sponsored Screensavers), saving 25 bucks over the traditional one.
The main difference resides on the preloaded screensaver ads. Not a big deal, but isn’t much fun having Visa ads all the time. I’ve seen another way to hide these ads, but here’s, in my opinion, the easiest solution:
- Connect the Kindle and mount the disk.
- Show hidden files (Ctrl + H on Ubuntu), and go to .assets folder on the root. Delete all subfolders on it.
- Then change its permissions to 444 with chmod command: “chmod -R 444 .assets”. This is done to prevent downloading again the screensavers when resyncing Amazon’s account.
* Windows users should have some way to change folder permissions. I think its right click and then properties.
** Mac OS X Users: /Volumes/Kindle/system/.assets Thanks to n8
If you wanna get creative, instead of deleting the subfolders on .assets, delete a few of them, and replace the ads images with yours. Consider matching with one of exact width and height :)
How to browse to a kindle drive. Need to know all commands in the terminal please.
Just connect it to the PC, should mount automatically, as any other usb disk. Which OS are you using?
How do I change permission on window 7 using chmod command? Thanks!
Hey Jing. I dont have idea how to do it on Windows, Im a Linux user. Think u gotta change permissions through right click, properties, u should see something like “permissions”. Or check Google on how to.
Hope it helps! :)
I changed the screensvr.gif to my own images I downloaded, it works great, the first time you go to a screen saver…. After that it shows the “Please connect wirelessly to download the latest special offers” on both the screensaver and the little ad box at the bottom of the home menu.
Any ideas how to get around this? I’m trying to find the file(s) that cause this but I have not had any luck yet. Funny thing is these special offer Kindles come out of the box as a regular kindle, it’s only when they are connected to wifi that the .assets directory is created and they switch from default screensavers over to showing ads.
Hi Gwnck! Try changing permissions so that when the Kindle is connected, it can’t write/rewrite your screen savers, or try to.
If you still having these problems tell me!
Yes I changed the permissions, I even had the wifi off while I changed the images but somehow the kindle still knew that the images were changed after it showed a custom screen saver once and reverted to the “please connect” banner and screen saver.
Another alternative is to run Duokan OS for kindle
But like I said out of the box the Kindle OS is that same as the $25 more non-ad kindles. If we find the file that tells the Kindle to run ads it could be deleted or disabled and there’d be no problems.
Yeah, I am having the same problem. Apparently you can’t actually change permissions on it, atleast not that way, maybe running as root, check this thread, http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=274435
I connected my Kindle 3 with ads to my Windows 7 based PC. I can only see three folders. Audible, Documents, Music. I have changed my settings to show hidden files, but no other folders appear. I know you’re not a Windows user, but any help you can provide is appreciated. I *hate* these ads.
Hi juanchorossi, I am no used to change permissions even though I use ubuntu, so I don’t know where to type de chmod command. I would really appreciate if you could give me the instructions to follow from th .assets window. Thanks a lot.
Buenas José, tenés que abrir un terminal, ver el path donde se te montó el Kindle y hacer cd PATH_DEL_KINDLE/
Ahí busca la carpeta .assets y tipeá “chmod -R 444 .” (El punto es que es sobre la carpeta donde estás parado)
Abrazo! :)
i’m using mac os x lion, how do i show this .assets folder?
Hi! The command to change permissions on Window$ is “attrib”, to setup Read only attibute on a file you must type “attrib +R ” where it´s supposed to be replaced with the filneme you want to modify. There are some apps to work more friendly (recursively and other things) you can google it :)
Hi! The command to change permissions on Window$ is “attrib”, to setup Read only attibute on a file you must type “attrib +R file ” where file it´s supposed to be replaced with the filneme you want to modify. There are some apps to work more friendly (recursively and other things) you can google it :)
Hola me sirvió muchísimo tu post, yo tamibien utilizo ubuntu y así logre deshacerme de esos asquerosos salvapantallas, pero tengo una pregunta, borré todas las carpetas de assets y está bien pero ahora pensé q mejor hubiera dejado algunas para poner este set de screensavers
http://s204.photobucket.com/albums/bb86/911jason/Kindle%20Screensavers/
mi pregunta es, hay alguna forma de que vuelvan las carpetas en .assets o de instalar estos en algún lado? gracias XD.
@paunocu: http://osxdaily.com/2009/02/25/show-hidden-files-in-os-x/
Hola!
Tengo el Kindle 3.2.1 pero la dua me surge pues al ir a la carpeta /media/Kindle/system/ y hacer un ls -la veo lo siguiente:
maxwell@maxwell-c655:/media/Kindle/system$ ls -la
total 56
drwx—— 5 maxwell maxwell 8192 2011-09-17 00:49 .
drwx—— 8 maxwell maxwell 8192 2011-09-16 21:52 ..
drwx—— 3 maxwell maxwell 8192 2011-09-16 22:00 .assets
-rw-r–r– 1 maxwell maxwell 560 2011-07-19 16:58 AudibleActivation.sys
-rw-r–r– 1 maxwell maxwell 923 2011-09-15 01:30 collections.json
drwx—— 3 maxwell maxwell 8192 2011-07-21 13:42 com.amazon.ebook.booklet.reader
drwx—— 2 maxwell maxwell 8192 2011-09-17 00:49 Search Indexes
Por mas que le haga chmod 444 .assets o con sudo, igual queda con 700
Que podra ser? A nadie le paso?
Saludos!
Hey, do the same instructions work with the new kindle that just came out this November? the 79.00 or the 99.00 versions? I would like to take advantage of the low price but only if I can get red of the ads… thanks!
Thanks!
I have a kindle keyboard 3 wifi, I followed all the directions but I can’t figure out how to change the permissions. I am a 13 year old computer geek. I can change the permissions once I find how to. I have tried on windows 7, windows vista, windows xp, and even on my moms mac air. But none will give me the option. The kindle software version is 3.3, source code 611680021, the first four digits of the serial number are b008. Please tell me how to change the permissions on windows 7
On Windows 7, with Kindle 3G, I started CMD screen.
The ‘.assets’ folder is in a parent folder called ‘system’. I renamed .assets to .assets.x (‘rename .assets .assets.x’) and made a new .assets folder (‘mkdir .assets’). Then I made it read-only using ‘attrib +r .assets’.
No ads so far.
Me again… didn’t work on Kindle 3G. Had to create a file called .assets instead, but now I get the message that I should “connect wirelessly to download the latest Special Offers”.
for Mac OS X: /Volumes/Kindle/system/.assets
You can also replace the default screensaver images with your own: http://www.pierotoffanin.com/2011/12/how-to-remove-ads-from-your-ad-supported-kindle-4-for-free/
Hola juanchorossi.
Acabo de comprar un Kindle 3 Keyboard special offers.
Después le leer los comentarios de tu blog, no me queda claro si realmente se puede eliminar la publicidad del kindle o no.
No soy muy habil con los ordenadores y antes de emprender esta tarea me gustaría estar seguro de no dañar el lector.
Muchas gracias.
Juliotec
I tried it and it works! thanks
I deleted subfolders and changed permissions to 444. Ads reappeared. I don’t understand how Amazon gets through when the folder is read only. Maybe I’m missing something?
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@n8: Thanks dude!
Hello, i did exactly what u said but when i change the permissions to 444 and change the screensavers i just got “Please connect wirelessly to download the latest special offers” and i have to reset factory to get them again… Im with kindle 3.3
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