Kindle Fire Tips & Tricks: Download Free eBooks from the Kindle Store [Kindle Fire Users Report Bug That Lets You Temporarily Download Books Without Paying for Them]

Posted on TFTS by Chris Smith on Friday, 18. November 2011 under: Computers & Computing, Mobile/Cell Phones, PCs, Notebooks, Netbooks & Tablets

Amazon’s Kindle Fire Android tablet hit stores a few days ago and since then we’ve already seen it disassembled and rooted, not to mention that the retailer has also released the source code for the device that allowed developers to install Google’s Android Market on the device alongside other Google services that are otherwise unavailable on default Fire Android installations.

Today we hear that an existing bug apparently lets Kindle Fire users download paid eBooks from the Kindle stores free of charge, at least temporarily. Here’s how it works, according to Android and Me:

When browsing the Kindle store, Amazon wants it to be simple for you to purchase content, utilizing their one-click ordering system. Before you’ve had a chance to finalize your purchase, Amazon begins to download the book in question onto your Kindle Fire. If you cancel the purchase and quickly navigate back to your home screen and launch the purchased book, it will continue to download the book to your device while the cancel order sits out there as pending.

But once you close the Kindle app the book will be automatically deleted from the device since, after all, you have not purchased it. In order to finish a book you’ll probably have to repeat the procedure a few times, unless you plan to read it from the beginning to end in the first sitting. However this is still a trick that can be used to access eBooks free of charge, although we won’t advise you to go down this path. After all, writers should also make a living off of their publish works, and that’s not possible in case their books end up being temporarily downloaded and read free of charge. Furthermore, you should expect Amazon to patch up this security hole in the foreseeable future, so don’t get too excited about this new “feature!”

In case you happen to specifically appreciate Amazon’s collection of eBooks but you decided to purchase a Barnes and Noble Nook Tablet instead of a Kindle product, you should know that there is a way to install the Kindle Android app on the new Nook device, alongside other third-party apps thanks to a different kind of bug, in order to access content outside of Barnes & Noble’s environment.

Source