Database Users

Lock down apps to prevent kids from bankrupting you

My wife went to the bathroom today and my 6 year old grabbed her Fire and promptly bought $30 worth of videos and apps. So I started looking into options to lock that down since Amazon dropped the ball on that one. The best answer I've found doesn't require root and was already installed on my phone, ZDbox. It's a free download from the Amazon app store and among other tools it has an app lock. You can choose a group of apps to lock down and apply a single pin or password to all of them. You can easily switch an app from protected to unprotected as well. Every time you try to run it you will be prompted for the pin. So far it has not fail to ask for the pin when I run the "dangerous" apps.
http://amzn.to/q4KOtP
Sent from my Kindle Fire

Perfect
Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk

Good info to know... I've had others ask about that.
There should be a way to set a password on the purchase option for confirmation just like they do on their web page... but they don't on a device which could be walked away from you.
animez said:
My wife went to the bathroom today and my 6 year old grabbed her Fire and promptly bought $30 worth of videos and apps.
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That sounds better than my 2-1/2 yo grand daughter who followed my daughter into the bathroom and started taking pictures with her iPhone which posted automatically on Facebook...

krelvinaz said:
That sounds better than my 2-1/2 yo grand daughter who followed my daughter into the bathroom and started taking pictures with her iPhone which posted automatically on Facebook...
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Lol, that sounds like something my daughter would do.
Sent from my SoaBliss Thunderbolt

krelvinaz said:
Good info to know... I've had others ask about that.
There should be a way to set a password on the purchase option for confirmation just like they do on their web page... but they don't on a device which could be walked away from you.
That sounds better than my 2-1/2 yo grand daughter who followed my daughter into the bathroom and started taking pictures with her iPhone which posted automatically on Facebook...
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Click to collapse
The app store has some parental controls that you can enable in settings, I haven't really used any of the other amazon apps but I'm surprised they wouldn't have the same thing.

neilrl79 said:
The app store has some parental controls that you can enable in settings, I haven't really used any of the other amazon apps but I'm surprised they wouldn't have the same thing.
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Click to collapse
Yeah, a bit of an oversight on Amazon's part IMO. I've seen forum posts where people have been told by customer support that Amazon is looking at adding better parental controls to the Fire.
Sent from my SoaBliss Thunderbolt

and nothing to stop someone from just picking up your kindle and buying crap like crazy. Nice protection.

return to stock

any way to get this back to stock yet... so I can return it to walmart... or do you think I can return it anyway. haha
Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire using XDA Premium App

Do you have TWRP installed ??? If you have just go to amazon website to download the ROM. Rename it to *.zip then copy to your sd and install, but remember to wipe your device by 3 options on the top (sry I forgot the name)

Here is a video on what to do.....
http://www.jayceooi.com/2011/12/28/how-to-restore-stock-software-on-kindle-fire-video/#comment-77962

and this gets rid of twrp also?
Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire using XDA Premium App

Trekfan422991 said:
and this gets rid of twrp also?
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Yes. The standard method of updating completely reformats the system and overwrites everything. No root, no TWRP, No FIREFIREFIRE. You should just wind up with the stock launcher.

thanks a ton guys!!! takin it back today... gonna get the asus memo 7 in. it has the tegra 3 and expandable storage starting at 16 gb for $249. coming out in a couple months.
Cant Wait!!!
Sent from my LG Thrill 4G...

Can't wait? You better be able to wait since I'd bet iit won't be out till fall.
Sent from my Kindle Fire using xda premium

q2. that means spring time. its either this or the padfone..
Sent from my LG Thrill 4G...

In the real world, Q2 means fall because I don't believe for a second it will be by the end of June.
Sent from my Kindle Fire using xda premium

I did pretty much exactly this today and still have TWRP...

rolyatkcinmai said:
I did pretty much exactly this today and still have TWRP...
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Click to collapse
If you still have the triangle, that is FireFireFire, not TWRP.
If you put the downloaded file into the /sdcard/kindleupdates
And then used Settings -> Devices and then Update
After it was complete and it reboots, there should be No FireFireFire and TWRP as the update formats the /system directory where these were stored.

What's the use of getting something if it will have little dev support ;p
You can always bet the Kindle Fire will have dev support. It's the most affordable/popular android tablet out right now.

Now back to stock. Had an unnerving .acore error with no true solution but return back to square one again. Every twrp restore turned to be identical to to one trying to leave? Wish I could sell this.
Happy you can return yours.

I'll give you a hundred for it. A long as it's back to stock.
People complain that manufacturers are making it harder to unlock devices but after reading these forums, can you really blame them? I wonder what percentage of Android device returns are because of user error.
Sent from my Rezound using Tapatalk

nrfitchett4 said:
I'll give you a hundred for it. A long as it's back to stock.
People complain that manufacturers are making it harder to unlock devices but after reading these forums, can you really blame them? I wonder what percentage of Android device returns are because of user error.
Sent from my Rezound using Tapatalk
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Bricked devices would not exist if manufacturers unlocked their hardware. How many computers get bricked because someone messed up installing linux? Oh that's right, zero.

Article regarding buying the Kindle Fire as non-US user

Hi all,
i wrote an article about the Kindle Fire for non-US customers, explaining what works out of the box and what kind of options you have if you want to make use of the full potential of the device.
http://smartphoneblogging.com/2012/03/review-kindle-fire-how-usable-is-it-outside-of-the-us/
this is not meant as an faq for technical stuff like rooting, but more of a overview of whats possible with this tablet. this is hopefully interesting for people thinking about getting a kindle fire which don't live in the USA and are not familiar with Androids possibilities.
Please let me know if there are any questions...

Edited first post as the URL has changed...

Hi
That is a very good article, and something I have been looking for as I live in UK.
You state:
Amazon pushes out updates to the Kindle Fire pretty often, which would normally be a great thing, but not so much if you are using a rooted device with the stock ROM. Updates are forced and there is no way to deny them, other than using the Kindle Fire only offline which of course makes no sense. The problem is that each update will break your root access so you have to wait for the community to again root the new version and provide an walkthrough for it. This cat and mouse play can get very annoying. Chances are that you don’t really need to stick with the stock Kindle Fire ROM anyway as most Amazon services can’t be used outside of the US. This is where custom ROMs come in handy
Does this mean that if you keep the stock ROM updates can still be pushed to the device but by changing the ROM it will freeze the pushed updates or is there no way that these can be stopped currently?

meso100 said:
Does this mean that if you keep the stock ROM updates can still be pushed to the device but by changing the ROM it will freeze the pushed updates or is there no way that these can be stopped currently?
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Click to collapse
Yes, that's right. Keeping the stock ROM will mean OTA updates will be pushed to your device, and you might lose root.
With a custom ROM like the CM7 or CM9 Rom this will not happen, as you basically have a different device with that ROMs.
Sent from my Nexus S using xda premium

Thanks for your help.
I have bookmarked your website for future reference and liked it on G+
Nice one!
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

Thanks for the feedback!
meso100 said:
Thanks for your help.
I have bookmarked your website for future reference and liked it on G+
Nice one!
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
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Click to collapse

Thank you so much for writing this article. =]
This will come in handy when I move out of the states shortly. lol

Cheshire.Love said:
Thank you so much for writing this article. =]
This will come in handy when I move out of the states shortly. lol
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Click to collapse
Thanks. As far as i know you should be able to use your Kindle Fire normally outside of the US, if it has been activated using a real US Amazon account with a real credit card. All services should work.
But of course this won't last if you move to another country permanently (change address) and don't use your US credit card anymore...

The only thing missing now is an official CM9 build and hardware acceleration. Hopefully we will see this soon as it would really push the kindle fire capabilities.

[Q] Incentives for stock Nook

Are there any incentives for dual-booting stock and a CM firmware?
Is there anything stock that the official B&N app can't do?
I have a feeling I would never even boot into it, and don't want to waste my time

figarofigaro said:
Are there any incentives for dual-booting stock and a CM firmware?
Is there anything stock that the official B&N app can't do?
I have a feeling I would never even boot into it, and don't want to waste my time
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The official android B&N Nook reader app cannot read interactive children's books. Only the version on the stock ROM can read them. That is because those books are really interactive applications that look like books but only run on stock. That and worrying about warranty issues are the main reasons folks leave stock on emmc and run CM on SD.

leapinlar said:
The official android B&N Nook reader app cannot read interactive children's books. Only the version on the stock ROM can read them. That is because those books are really interactive applications that look like books but only run on stock. That and worrying about warranty issues are the main reasons folks leave stock on emmc and run CM on SD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then there is literally no incentive for me to dual boot... I bought my Nook solely for the purpose of the tablet modification... I ran stock firmware for about 20 minutes in total, right when I took it out of the box!
Thanks for the reply!

If you registered your stock software, de-register it before you flash the new CM rom. That way if you ever want to sell or give away the Nook to someone else, it is unincumbered to your account. You can still put the nook app on CM and register that.

I got it for news aggregation. Magazines and the Sunday paper that you can't get on the app. If you want a tablet, kindle and nex7 are better. I'm a B&N member and use it.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium

The latest B/N app allows you to read papers and magazines. I thought that covered them all, or is it only certain ones?
Robert
boborone said:
I got it for news aggregation. Magazines and the Sunday paper that you can't get on the app. If you want a tablet, kindle and nex7 are better. I'm a B&N member and use it.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
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Click to collapse

Robertjm said:
The latest B/N app allows you to read papers and magazines. I thought that covered them all, or is it only certain ones?
Robert
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Click to collapse
Huh. Well when I bought it back when it came out it didn't.
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That was one of the biggest features people were complaining about when they were running the Android app, vs. the Nook Color app. Haven't tried any of the magazines myself other than a preview of NatGeo they sent out this Summer, but it was nice to see the option!
To the OP, the biggest things I miss are the free reading of anything from the eBook store, where you could sit inside a B/N Cafe and read for an hour. Also, they used to send out freebie coupons which you'd then show to the barista, such as a free frappacino or large-sized latte. Not sure if they do that anymore since I rooted, and eventually changed up the ROM completely.
Robert
boborone said:
Huh. Well when I bought it back when it came out it didn't.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
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Click to collapse

Robertjm said:
That was one of the biggest features people were complaining about when they were running the Android app, vs. the Nook Color app. Haven't tried any of the magazines myself other than a preview of NatGeo they sent out this Summer, but it was nice to see the option!
To the OP, the biggest things I miss are the free reading of anything from the eBook store, where you could sit inside a B/N Cafe and read for an hour. Also, they used to send out freebie coupons which you'd then show to the barista, such as a free frappacino or large-sized latte. Not sure if they do that anymore since I rooted, and eventually changed up the ROM completely.
Robert
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mine updated and lost root. Haven't gotten around to doing it again. But yeah, when I got it I was a member of their club. Got discounts on everything, spent alot of time there. City I was in had no local coffee shop, so I went to b&n all the time. Starbucks coupons made it worth it. But I don't get the expensive drinks anyways. Unless I get a gift card. I mainly drink black eyes or espresso shots. That's normal price coffee.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium

Kindle Fire hdx Rom development??

Anybody know any rumors / talk of someone working on a stock android Rom for this?? Or kit Kat even... I'm definitely not interested in Fire OS in the least bit.
Thanks
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

Bootloader is locked meaning no customs roms until then unless you go with the safe strap method and from what I seen people are having problems with memory and some crashing of the problems and if you have a 8.9 hdx safe strap is not supported but I have faith in this community and belive we will have roms in the future
Sent from my SPH-L900 using xda app-developers app

Really? Because there's already root tutorials in kindle fire hdx > android development.
Unless those are "safe strap"? Idk I didn't look into it too much because I don't have the kindle yet (got it for Xmas I'm pretty sure lol)
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

So custom ROMs are totally possible, and I'm sure there will be one or two soon, but the issue as stated above is the bootloader is locked. This means no custom kernels which means no AOSP ROMs. This currently rules out Cyanogen, AOKP, Paranoid Android, everything like that. Everything will be Fire OS based until the bootloader is unlocked. Before yesterday there wasn't even working Play Store downloading. Progress is being made, and the bootloader could be unlocked in a couple weeks, or it may never happen. Until then you just got to stick with what we've got, which is pretty nice as far as I'm concerned. The hardware is quite nice, and with a custom launcher and Gapps Fire OS isn't terrible.

Thank you! Good to know
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Well, i have one based on stock almost ready With all amazon stuff removed and full google experience. I still have a few noob problems but i think it shoud be ready after christams.
Also note that any rom could be ported even CM thanks to safestrap. The kernel is not a problem. Im not sure i'll have the time to do so but if so i'll prove it
Merry Christmas !
Sent from my KFTHWI using xda app-developers app

Cpasjuste said:
Well, i have one based on stock almost ready With all amazon stuff removed and full google experience.
I still have a few noob problems but i think it shoud be ready after christams.
Merry Christmas !
Sent from my KFTHWI using xda app-developers app
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Yay thank you!!! ?❤
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floodingaugust said:
Yay thank you!!! ��❤
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Click to collapse
THOR = Hdx 7"
Only working rootable versions are 14.3.1.0 for the 8.9" && 13.3.1.0 for Thor
Kindle Fire HDX 8.9" Rooting tut
Kindle Fire HDX 7" Rooting tut
Hashcode's modified TWRP safestrap ONLY FOR Thor
Working Google Play ROM ONLY FOR Thor
Hope this points you in the right direction. Just search the threads.

Anyone know if it's hard / going to take a long time to unlock bootloader?
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May never happen
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murso74 said:
May never happen
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Is there a reason for that?
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floodingaugust said:
Is there a reason for that?
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One reason is Amazon security on the chips they use.

floodingaugust said:
Is there a reason for that?
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Click to collapse
these companies are getting better at locking them, and there is less and less incentive for people to break them. look at the bounty thread.. only 145 bucks. i have a Moto X which is over 1000 dollars and that still hasn't gotten cracked. i wouldn't hold on to the kindle hoping it will get cracked... if i didn't have amazon instant i would probably send this thing back (i may anyway, as i'm having wifi issues)

murso74 said:
these companies are getting better at locking them, and there is less and less incentive for people to break them. look at the bounty thread.. only 145 bucks. i have a Moto X which is over 1000 dollars and that still hasn't gotten cracked. i wouldn't hold on to the kindle hoping it will get cracked... if i didn't have amazon instant i would probably send this thing back (i may anyway, as i'm having wifi issues)
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Click to collapse
Even if the boot loader didn't get unlocked working google play and a custom loader or exposed is all you really need and all are somewhat working now. I have almost every tablet ever made in this household. Nearly all have boot loaders either bypassed or broken. Already the 7 inch boot loader has been bypassed on this, a new device. The truth is the more popular a device is the quicker it is modded. If sales are high on this device it is likely to get dev attention. Try not to be such a Debbie downer

conan1600 said:
Even if the boot loader didn't get unlocked working google play and a custom loader or exposed is all you really need and all are somewhat working now. I have almost every tablet ever made in this household. Nearly all have boot loaders either bypassed or broken. Already the 7 inch boot loader has been bypassed on this, a new device. The truth is the more popular a device is the quicker it is modded. If sales are high on this device it is likely to get dev attention. Try not to be such a Debbie downer
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Click to collapse
Exactly, thank you!
I have been around Android since the beginning and have to say that out of all devices I have seen or bought.... this one has the least amount of bloat and is one of the best...
Quad core running 2.2ghz, 2gb ram??? nothing I have thrown at it has lagged or been slow!
Best tablet out right now, fast, portable, good battery life and did I mention it is easy on your wallet too? lol

RandumAccess said:
Exactly, thank you!
I have been around Android since the beginning and have to say that out of all devices I have seen or bought.... this one has the least amount of bloat and is one of the best...
Quad core running 2.2ghz, 2gb ram??? nothing I have thrown at it has lagged or been slow!
Best tablet out right now, fast, portable, good battery life and did I mention it is easy on your wallet too? lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Recon that! If only we could have working widgets and some fully working alternative launcher .. Play store doesn't bother me that much, since I get all the apps either from an alternative store or I download them on my phone and sent them to the tablet, so no big deal till now.
Sent from beneath my cloak of magic

conan1600 said:
Even if the boot loader didn't get unlocked working google play and a custom loader or exposed is all you really need and all are somewhat working now. I have almost every tablet ever made in this household. Nearly all have boot loaders either bypassed or broken. Already the 7 inch boot loader has been bypassed on this, a new device. The truth is the more popular a device is the quicker it is modded. If sales are high on this device it is likely to get dev attention. Try not to be such a Debbie downer
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well the device was a gift I can't just bring it back.
Basically Amazon banned me for some dumb ass reason literally like my neighbor got in trouble so now I can't use it. and when I try to buy **** on the kindle I can't use that store either so I am praying that there is some type of movement on the boot loader because otherwise this going to be one expensive paper weight.
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

floodingaugust said:
Well the device was a gift I can't just bring it back.
Basically Amazon banned me for some dumb ass reason literally like my neighbor got in trouble so now I can't use it. and when I try to buy **** on the kindle I can't use that store either so I am praying that there is some type of movement on the boot loader because otherwise this going to be one expensive paper weight.
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
I'm not sure you are following. 1mobile market and or side loaded apk's along with a custom loader bypasses all of what you just said right now. Also, in the last few days, the play store has even been made to download on both the 7 inch and 8.9. In other words go to the general section and read, root, and install working play store on kindle and then use apex and wallpaper fix with widgets and you basically have a Google tablet with an Amazon options bar. As people get exposed framework going it will get even better than that. Boot loader crack is not necessary to make this a Google tablet. As for pure Google well that would be great for some, or cm 10.3 for others but in the end all of that is really just ui and a few options. The necessities of downloading from Google market and some customization can all be accomplished right this second. I have very few apps from Amazon on my tablet in fact. Most are Google market apps. As the bright boys spend more time with this tablet it will become even easier for the less experienced users to accomplish these things as well.

conan1600 said:
I'm not sure you are following. 1mobile market and or side loaded apk's along with a custom loader bypasses all of what you just said right now. Also, in the last few days, the play store has even been made to download on both the 7 inch and 8.9. In other words go to the general section and read, root, and install working play store on kindle and then use apex and wallpaper fix with widgets and you basically have a Google tablet with an Amazon options bar. As people get exposed framework going it will get even better than that. Boot loader crack is not necessary to make this a Google tablet. As for pure Google well that would be great for some, or cm 10.3 for others but in the end all of that is really just ui and a few options. The necessities of downloading from Google market and some customization can all be accomplished right this second. I have very few apps from Amazon on my tablet in fact. Most are Google market apps. As the bright boys spend more time with this tablet it will become even easier for the less experienced users to accomplish these things as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really? So is the carousel thing on your kindle is gone? Just the top bar? Sweet.
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floodingaugust said:
Well the device was a gift I can't just bring it back.
Basically Amazon banned me for some dumb ass reason literally like my neighbor got in trouble so now I can't use it. and when I try to buy **** on the kindle I can't use that store either so I am praying that there is some type of movement on the boot loader because otherwise this going to be one expensive paper weight.
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk
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How in the hell does one get banned from amazon?!?