by Jim Cheshire
2. Tap Clear All Cookie Data to clear any cookies that Silk has stored.
3. Tap OK to clear the cookies.
Clearing the Cache
Silk caches (stores) pages as you browse so that they load faster on subsequent visits. Over time this can accumulate a lot of data you might not need. You can clear this cache to free up some extra space.
1. Tap Clear Cache.
2. Tap OK to confirm.
Clearing History
In addition to clearing your browser’s history from within the Silk browser, you can also clear it from the Settings page.
1. Tap Clear History.
2. Tap OK to confirm.
Controlling Form and Password Data
By default, Silk saves data you enter into forms and prompts you to save passwords. You can disable these features and clear saved data.
1. Tap to clear the Remember Form Data check if you don’t want Silk to remember form data.
2. To clear form data, tap Clear Form Data.
3. Tap OK to confirm.
4. Tap to clear the check on Remember Passwords if you don’t want Silk to prompt you to remember passwords.
5. Tap Clear Passwords to delete any saved passwords.
6. Tap OK to confirm.
Accelerating Page Loading
By default, Silk attempts to accelerate page loading by funneling all of your browsing traffic through Amazon’s servers and attempting to serve you a cloud version of a page stored on Amazon’s servers when applicable. This is supposed to speed up browsing, but tests have shown that it doesn’t seem to help much. If you’d like, you can turn this feature off.
1. Tap to clear the check on Accelerate Page Loading to turn off the feature.
2. Tap to check the box to re-enable the feature.
Setting Your Silk View
When you visit a website, the website detects what browser you’re using. When you visit a site using a mobile device or a tablet, some sites serve you a site with a minimalistic, mobile-friendly design. You can use the Desktop or Mobile View setting to control whether this happens.
1. Tap Desktop or Mobile View.
2. Select Desktop to always view sites using the non-mobile version.
3. Select Mobile to always show an optimized view for mobile devices if available.
4. Select Automatic (the default setting) to let the website determine how to display the page.
* * *
Identifying your Browser
When you visit a website, your web browser sends information that allows the website to determine what kind of device you’re using to access the site. Websites can use this information to decide how to display the site in a way that works best with your device.
When you visit a website using Silk on your Kindle Fire, the website sees the following information.
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_6_3; en-us; Silk/1.1.0-84) AppleWebKit/533.16 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0 Safari/533.16 Silk-Accelerated=true
This information (called a user-agent string) tells the website that you’re using Silk version 1.1.0-84. The website developer can use this information to serve you the site formatted in a way that looks best on the Kindle Fire.
Incidentally, you may also notice that Silk identifies itself as running on a Macintosh running OS X. It’s pretty common for user-agent strings to lie about what kind of device they are coming from, but it is a bit strange to see the Kindle Fire reporting that it’s running on a Mac. Stranger still, the user-agent string on the initial builds of the Kindle Fire showed it was running on Linux, a completely different operating system. In fact, the Kindle Fire (as you know by now) runs on Android. Go figure.
* * *
Index
A
accelerated page loading (Silk), 254
accessing
Amazon Cloud Drive, 39
Kindle Cloud Reader, 50-51
Manage Your Kindle page, 94
Music Store, 148
accounts (email), 198
basic accounts
adding, 198-200
removing, 206
IMAP accounts
adding, 200-201
configuring, 204-205
POP3 accounts
adding, 200-201
configuring, 202-203
Add Account button, 200
Add to Favorites button, 21
albums
adding to playlists, 142-143
browsing, 129
downloading, 127
sampling and buying, 149-150
Always Show Images option, 217
Amazon
Cloud Drive, 37-38
accessing, 39
adding files to, 41
creating folders, 40
deleting folders, 40-41
downloading files from, 42
recovering deleted items, 41
saving purchased music to, 47-48
Cloud Player
creating playlists, 45
downloading songs to computer, 46-47
launching, 43-44
playing music, 44
saving purchased music to Cloud Drive, 47-48
Instant Video, 48-49
Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, 59
purchases, updating payment settings for, 105
registering with, 15-16
app library, 174
browsing, 174
installing multiple apps, 176-177
installing purchased apps, 175-176
uninstalling apps, 177-178
updating apps, 178
applications. See apps
approved email addresses, adding/deleting, 100
apps
app library, 174
browsing, 174
installing multiple apps, 176-177
installing purchased apps, 175-176
uninstalling apps, 177-178
updating apps, 178
Appstore
browsing apps, 179
purchasing apps, 180-181
subscriptions, 182-184
viewing apps, 180-182
Audible, 188-190
browsing in Appstore, 179
clearing app data, 186-187
crashes, 181
ES File Explorer, 193-195
force stopping, 185-186
Gallery, 191 installing, 175-177
Pandora, 192
purchasing in Appstore, 180-181
uninstalling, 177-178
updating, 178
viewing in Appstore, 180-182
Appstore
browsing apps, 179
purchasing apps, 180-181
subscriptions, 182-184
auto-renewal, 183
changing, 183
viewing, 182
viewing apps, 180-182
archiving, disabling, 101
artists (music)
adding to playlists, 142-143
browsing, 126-127
Attach button, 219
attachments (email), viewing, 218
Audible app, 188-190
audio books, listening to, 188-190
audio plug, 11
author name. See metadata
auto-renewal, turning on/off, 183
Automatic view (Silk), 254
AZW format, 113
B
Back icon, 24
basic email accounts
adding, 198-200
removing, 206
battery, charging, 10-11
bookmarks
in books
adding, 77
moving to, 78
removing, 78
in Silk
bookmarking current page, 239-240
bookmarking hyperlinks, 240-241
deleting, 243 editing, 242
viewing and following, 241
books
bookmarks
adding, 77
moving to, 78
removing, 78
borrowing, 59
browsing,
63
buying, 57-58
converting to EPUB format, 120
covers, finding, 118
defined, 94
deleting, 97, 121
downloading, 64
downloading to computer, 97
downloading with Kindle Cloud Reader, 51
font styles, changing, 68
formats, 113
highlights
adding, 75
deleting, 76
importing into Calibre, 114
lending, 60-61
looking up definitions, 67-68
metadata
downloading, 116-118
editing manually, 119
navigating, 66 notes
adding, 70
deleting, 74
editing, 72-73
viewing, 71-72
reading, 52, 65-67
removing, 65
sampling, 57-58
searching for new, 115
sending to Kindle devices, 96
sending via email, 122-123
sideloading, 61-62, 120-123
typeface, changing, 69
viewing, 95
Borrow for Free button, 58
borrowing books, 59
browsing
albums, 129
app library, 174
Appstore, 179
artists (music), 126-127
library, 63
to websites, 232
Video Store, 156-157
buttons. See specific buttons
buying. See purchasing
C
cache, clearing in Silk, 252
Calibre, 61
books
downloading metadata, 116-118
editing metadata manually, 119
importing, 114
searching for new, 115
sideloading to Kindle Fire, 120-123
configuring, 112-113
canceling
downloads, 130, 247
subscriptions, 102-104
taps, 16
Carousel, 18
changing
font styles, 68
Screen Timeout, 12
subscriptions, 183
typeface, 69
volume, 11
charging battery, 10-11
checking device information, 27
checking out Kindle books, 59
choosing. See also selecting
email folders, 207-208
inbox, 207
Clear All button, 244
Clear All Cookie Data option, 251
Clear Cache button, 252
Clear Form Data button, 253
Clear History button, 252
clearing
all songs from Now Playing queue, 139
app data, 186-187
cache, 252
Silk history, 252
Close All Tabs button, 238
Close Other Tabs button, 238
closing tabs (in Silk), 238
Cloud Drive, 37-38
accessing, 39
adding files to, 41
creating folders, 40
deleting folders, 40-41
downloading files from, 42
music in. See
music playlists, 140, 146
recovering deleted items, 41
saving purchased music to, 47-48
cloud items, downloading, 19
Cloud Player
creating playlists, 45
downloading songs to computer, 46-47
launching, 43-44
playing music, 44
saving purchased music to Cloud Drive, 47-48
Cloud Reader
accessing, 50-51
opening and downloading books, 51
reading books, 52
cloud services, 37
Amazon Cloud Drive, 37-38
accessing, 39
adding files to, 41
creating folders, 40
deleting folders, 40-41
downloading files from, 42