If you read on a Kindle and you have not paid attention to Amazon’s last two updates, you should. Not because the sky is falling, but because the ground under your library moved twice this month without anyone telling you, and most owners will not notice until they try to do something the Kindle used to do without thinking. This article is a triage list: a short, ordered set of moves you can make this week, ranked by how long each one takes, so you do not have to read a longer analysis to know what is worth doing.
Three things actually changed for Kindle owners. The DRM (Digital Rights Management, the lock that prevents easy copying of purchased ebooks) on the Oasis hardened in a silent firmware update. The Send to Kindle flow from Libby (the app most public libraries in North America use to lend ebooks) became less reliable. And Kobo, the only other major mainstream ereader brand, became the obvious comparison again for readers who care about backup options. None of that means you should switch readers today. It does mean you should run the steps below, in order, before the next silent update lands.
The first move: ten minutes, do it today
Open your Kindle, go to Settings, then Device Options, and find the firmware version. If you have a Kindle Oasis and the version is 5.18.2.1.1 or newer, the new DRM hardening is already on your device. If you have any other recent Kindle, check the Amazon device software updates page for your model, because the encryption upgrades have been rolling out across the lineup since 2025. Knowing your firmware version is the foundation for everything else on this list, because the next steps depend on which version is actually running.
The reason to do this first is that it costs you almost nothing and it tells you whether the rest of this article applies to you at all. If you are on the old firmware and your device is no longer receiving updates, you may already be in the smaller camp of users who can still sideload (transfer files onto a device outside the official store) and run Calibre (a free, open-source ebook management tool that, with the right plugin, used to be able to strip DRM from Kindle purchases) without trouble. If you are on the new firmware, you are in the camp that needs to act.
The second move: thirty minutes, do it this week
If you have any ebooks on your Kindle that you sideloaded (transferred onto your device outside the official store) in the past, back them up through the older Calibre workflow while you still can. Calibre with the DeDRM plugin (a community plugin that removes the lock from ebooks you have purchased) used to work on most current Kindles. The new firmware has closed most of that path, but if you have not updated yet, or if you have an older model that is not getting the new encryption, the door is still open. This is the part of the article I would do today rather than tomorrow, because there is no guarantee the older Calibre flow will work after the next update.
For most readers, the practical version of this step is shorter than it sounds. Most people who sideload at all have fewer than 50 books they would want to back up. The Calibre export takes about ten minutes for a library that size, and the DeDRM plugin is a single download with a five-minute setup. The output is a folder of DRM-free files that you can read in any app, on any device, forever. The point of doing it now is not that you plan to leave the Kindle store. The point is that you have a copy that you own, in the literal sense, in case you ever need it.
The third move: fifteen minutes, do it this week
If you borrow ebooks from your local library through Libby, install the Libby app on your phone today and try reading a borrowed book directly there. The reason is that the Send to Kindle flow has been hitting unexplained errors, and Amazon has not published a clear explanation. Books that used to appear in your Kindle library may not appear at all. The flow may error out or sit in limbo indefinitely. Some titles that were available last week may now show up as Kindle unavailable. Library staff are working around the issue, but they do not have a fix yet.
The point of installing the app and trying a borrowed book is not to switch reading platforms. It is to confirm that you have a working backup path if the Kindle flow breaks for you specifically. If the phone app works for a book you wanted to read on the Kindle, you have a fallback that does not depend on the broken integration. If the phone app does not work either, you know to expect that the book will be unavailable until the integration is fixed. Either way, you are not finding out at 11 PM the night before a flight.
The fourth move: one hour, do it this month
If you have been thinking about Kobo for a while, this is the month to actually walk into a store and pick one up. Kobo is the only other major mainstream ereader brand with real global support, and the people who have moved from Kindle to Kobo in the last few years consistently point to the same observation. Kobo’s DRM (Digital Rights Management, the lock that prevents easy copying of purchased ebooks) is more permissive, which means you can read your purchased books in third-party apps and on devices that are not Kobo’s own. That is the whole reason it keeps coming up in conversations about ownership, because it gives you a way out that the current Kindle firmware is closing.
A few honest trade-offs if you consider switching to Kobo:
- A narrower catalog of Kindle exclusives, especially for self-published work and Audible integration.
- Hardware that is solid but not as polished as the top-end Oasis, especially in the $200 range.
- Library lending works through a different flow, and the first time you use it will feel unfamiliar.
- Less aggressive content locking, which is exactly what many readers want right now.
None of those are deal-breakers on their own. The Kobo hardware in the $200 to $300 range is genuinely good in 2026, and the catalog gap is smaller than most people think. Whether you actually buy one is a separate question. The point of the in-person browse is to find out whether the Kobo feels right in your grip, which you cannot determine from a spec sheet.
The fifth move: decide what you are actually optimizing for
If you are a heavy library user, your answer is probably Kobo, because the Libby-on-Kindle flow that has been breaking this month is not a problem you would have on a Kobo in the first place. If you are a heavy Audible user, your answer is probably stay on Kindle, because Audible integration on Kobo is weak and you would lose the seamless sync that you have built your reading habits around. If you are a casual reader who buys two or three books a year, your answer is probably do nothing, because none of these changes affect your day-to-day reading at all. The triage list is the same for everyone. The decision at the end depends on what you actually do with the device.
A few honest things to keep in mind while you decide. The new DRM hardening on the Oasis is not retroactive. Books you already own still open and read. The threat is to your ability to back them up, not to your ability to read them. The Send to Kindle flow breakage is real, but it is also the kind of thing Amazon and OverDrive (Libby’s parent company) will probably resolve in the next software update, because library lending is too important to either company to leave broken. And the Kobo path is a real option, but it is also a smaller company with different incentives, and there is no guarantee Kobo will not tighten its own grip on purchased content over the next five years.
Trade-offs
The Kindle is still the easiest mainstream way to buy and read ebooks in 2026, and for most readers the correct call is to keep using it. The moves on this list are not about switching. They are about making sure you have a backup path, a working library flow, and a comparison in your hand if you ever decide the trade-off is no longer worth it. Each step takes less time than you think, and skipping them saves you at most an hour.
The real downside of acting on this list is that you may end up with a second ereader and a pile of books in two stores, and you will spend a small amount of ongoing time keeping them in sync. That is a real cost. It is also the cost of not being dependent on one vendor, and the calculus on whether it is worth it depends on how much you read and how much you care about the long-term shape of the market.
If you only have time for one step, do the first one. Knowing your firmware version is the foundation for every other decision on this list.
Bottom line
You do not need to switch readers this week. You do need to know your firmware version, back up any sideloaded books you can, install the Libby app on your phone, and handle the Kobo browsing in person. Run the four steps in order, take the hour, and you will be in a much better position than the majority of Kindle owners who have not noticed the ground moving under their library.
The biggest takeaway is that ownership of a Kindle book is starting to look like a long-term rental, and the only way to change that is to keep your own copy in a form that does not depend on Amazon’s DRM choices. Whether that matters to you personally is a separate question. For readers who care, the moves above are the minimum.