Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th
by tech234a on 4/18/2026, 3:54:37 PM
https://goodereader.com/blog/kindle/amazon-is-discontinuing-kindle-for-pc-on-june-30th
Comments
by: AdmiralAsshat
Combined with the announcement that they're killing the old Kindles as well...this is 100% about preventing people from liberating DRM from their books. Full stop. They are closing each and every remaining hole.
4/18/2026, 4:18:19 PM
by: shrubble
After Anthropic wholesale pirated millions of books, and got only a slap on the wrist and no jail time, and Meta did almost the same, I've decided that "Anna's" plus used physical books plus printed new books are the right combination.
4/18/2026, 4:59:42 PM
by: wrxd
I’m so happy I downloaded all my Kindle books when I still had a chance and then moved to the Kobo ecosystem, which albeit not perfect is much much better
4/18/2026, 4:41:13 PM
by: Multicomp
I never bought into Kindle because of this lockdown attitude. I buy audiobooks from audiobookstore and ebooks from google play books when lazy and itch and the other usual independent sites that sell drm free files when I'm not doing a jit in time purchase. I have a kindle I USB sideload or put files on sd card, because it has a physical keyboard.<p>But with the state of digital goods disrepect for the customer and locking us in mustache twirling reasons, I have better ways to spend my income. Yes I am not above reading shadow copies of books at times, but I'd rather kindle sell all titles as DRM free on rootable devices and their convenient storefront would be enough for me to direct my business there more.
4/18/2026, 4:20:22 PM
by: ravenstine
They're likely doing this because it's likely the only remaining loophole to their new DRM scheme. Too bad for them it's caused me to buy all my ebooks elsewhere.
4/18/2026, 4:17:25 PM
by: nightski
I have a smattering of books on Kindle, mostly fiction/novels. But the vast majority of my book conllection consists of non-fiction/textbooks and I recently switched to Booklore on my NAS. I have over 900 textbooks and can access them anywhere via a WireGuard VPN. It's so slick!<p>Booklore seems great, but I'll admit there may be even better options. However this is the future of books for me. I'd like to start replacing more and more of my physical books with pdf/epub copies. It's been hard because there is nothing I love more than sitting down with a physical book. But this is definitely far more convenient.<p>I now want to start building up a research paper library in the same system.
4/18/2026, 5:00:18 PM
by: elicash
> The company has disclosed to Good e-Reader that Amazon is developing a new Kindle for PC app, but it will only be compatible with Windows 11.
4/18/2026, 4:16:13 PM
by: lores
These convenient and cheap book/game/video platforms sure killed piracy. Now that piracy's gone forever, we can enshittify the whole thing again! At least I imagine that's how it went in the meeting of 35 year-old corporate suits.
4/18/2026, 4:57:52 PM
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4/18/2026, 4:15:31 PM
by: j45
Good thing I'm discontinuing Kindle for me.
4/18/2026, 4:27:49 PM
by: wiether
It's funny that the top product recommendation on the website is the "Kobo Remote Control", which is the main thing that is making me think of going to Kobo once my Kindle Paperwhite is dead.<p>Amazon abandoning +14yo products, I don't care. I'm surprised they kept them alive that long. And they'll still work, just not with the store.<p>The DRM/Kindle for PC thing, I don't care. I'm perfectly aware that "buying" a digital good is actually a temporary license. I'm paying for the convenience, not to own "something". And since I've paid my fair share of "copie privée" tax, if I want to grab a persistent copy of an ebook I purchased on Amazon, I got it from the high seas.
4/18/2026, 4:47:52 PM