- WinterBreak is a new jailbreak for Amazon Kindle e-readers.
- Sixth-generation and newer Kindles are supported, covering hardware back to 2013.
- While Amazon’s latest software is vulnerable to WinterBreak, the company could break it with an update at any moment.
Amazon introduced a whole lineup of new Kindle e-readers last fall, and chances are that more than a few of you ended up with one as a holiday gift. After all, they’re hugely popular, pretty affordable, and who doesn’t enjoy a good book? While a Kindle is going to be quite a bit more limited with what you can do with it compared to a good Android tablet, you’ve still got some options for exploring outside Amazon’s walled garden, like support for sideloading other e-books. But if you crave even more flexibility from your new Kindle, we’ve got just what the doctor ordered, with news of a powerful new jailbreak.
Jailbreaking involves taking advantage of a software flaw in Amazon’s Kindle software that — thanks to the hard work of some dedicated community members — can be used to install unapproved, non-Amazon software. Efforts to jailbreak Kindles have been ongoing for years now, and as Amazon releases patches to close the holes that make jailbreaking possible, devs only end up finding new ones.