The new Kindle Fire tablet has many useful features, but uncontrollable automatic updates isn’t something all users appreciate. Especially if you root or tweak your Kindle’s settings, then an automatic update may haphazardly wreck all of your hard work and customization. To avoid this, all you need to do is disable OTA (over the air) update security, here’s how to do it.
Requirements:
- For this to work your Kindle Fire will need to be rooted.
- You will need to have ES File Explorer installed. It is available in the Amazon App Market.
Open up ES File Explorer and tap the menu button and open up settings. From the main settings screen open up “Root settings.”
If you haven’t already done so, check every box on the Root settings page. Superuser will request giving ES File Explorer elevated permissions, you will need to accept it to continue.
Now ES File Explorer will function like a full-fledged root browser. Use the Up button to navigate to the /system/etc/security/ directory/. From there either delete otacerts.zip, or move otacerts.zip to the downloads folder for safe keeping. You could technically store otacerts.zip anywhere, it just needs to not be in the security folder if you want to keep the Kindle Fire from automatically updating.
Once otacerts.zip is taken care of, you won’t receive anymore updates over the air. This means you’ll need to update your Kindle manually using the manual downloads provided by Amazon. The upside to this is that you won’t have automatic updates that break your root, or removing your Google Play store install from your Kindle Fire.
Manual updates may sometimes still break root, but at least you now have control over it.
4 Comments
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Misty
February 24, 2016 at 5:32 am
I wish I saw this yesterday morning. The update hit while I was at work. I did not root my kindle fire but the most recent update has made it very unpleasant to use. Is there a way to roll back the update and then I can use your instructions to block the update? It is killing my battery. I have been on 1 game for 10 minutes and searching for info about the crap update for 10 minutes and it has used 10 percent. Yeah, they changed the keyboard and I don’t feel like figuring out how I am supposed to find the symbol for percent. I really hate this and am thinking of buying something else from another company completely because it is so irritating.
Tooth
May 6, 2016 at 6:48 pm
there is a way to downgrade your fire but it may brick your device
dee
July 21, 2016 at 8:55 pm
This is a great way to cycle sockets to chew battery. Please also disable ota services.
Dan
August 11, 2016 at 9:40 am
Their latest update deleted my browser history, bookmarks, and offline pages. Another infuriating upgrade from a deeply dishonest company. Trying to install Firefox just gives a blank gray screen. And why must I connect to a real computer to root my Fire? If I had access to a real computer, I wouldn’t be using this awful doorstop that pretends to be a computer.