Amazon’s new Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD might be hack resistant

The good thing about Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablets is the fact that they are not overly expensive compared to alternatives such as the iPad which will set customers back a few hundred dollars more. Of course the specs are different but for those who are looking for a tablet just for surfing and some light entertainment, the Kindle Fire tablets certainly have the ability to get the job done. However some have also viewed the Kindle Fire tablets as relatively affordable Android tablets that they can hack and customize, thus removing Amazon’s customized version of Android from the device itself.

Now the bad news is that if you were hoping to pick up the new Kindle Fire or Kindle Fire HD and root it and flash a custom ROM onto it, here’s something to consider. According to a thread on the XDA forums, it seems that some developers have discovered that hacking the new Kindle Fire tablets might be a lot harder than they thought to the point where it might be hack resistant. This is apparently thanks to the new security features offered by the Texas Instruments’ processor and the locked bootloaders. Given that Amazon was relying on its ecosystem to generate more revenue we can understand why they might have installed extra security measures to make sure that those who buy their tablets will have to access to use their services.

This might not be a big deal to those who are perfectly happy using Amazon’s services, but for those looking to grab a cheap tablet to mod, this is definitely worth taking into consideration. Not all hope is lost as it has been suggested that a workaround is possible using the same method deployed for the Nook Tablet, but since we’re not developers or hackers, we will be leaving this to the professionals. If you’d like to monitor the situation, the XDA forum thread can be found in the source link below.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Tablets
Tags: Amazon, Kindle Fire HD