For the most part Amazon’s “Send to Kindle” program has worked out extremely well for them. It creates a convenient means to send just about any readable content you have on hand to your Kindle with no hassle. Anybody with an internet connection can use it and there is absolutely no complexity to the interface. You simply select your document and send it.
Apparently that wasn’t enough. Now it is possible to pick up Send to Kindle for Firefox. This takes a slightly different approach, though it delivers much the same functionality as the desktop integration we’ve had a chance to get used to.
Initial reviews have largely been positive. There was some concern with compatibility as the browser plugin was not properly updated to account for one of Mozilla’s frequent software updates and that seems to have cost Amazon a large share of its overall rating in the Firefox Extensions rating system. Since the last software update there have been few written complaints.
Rather than replicating the experience of the desktop app, Send to Kindle for Firefox takes on the likes of Instapaper. It will allow the preservation of web pages for viewing at the reader’s convenience without the need for perpetually open tabs or being stuck in front of the computer at all. Content can be read, preserved for reference, or even archived in the user’s Kindle documents.
The only real problem that seems to have come up so far, at least based on my own experience, is the inability of the new extension to push documents to the whole range of Kindle apps. Kindle for Windows 8 is unable to retrieve these documents as is the Kindle Cloud Reader. These are two of the most-used options available when a Kindle device is not on hand and neither will even acknowledge anything that isn’t purchased directly through the Kindle Store.
That’s a problem that has been needing attention for a number of reasons for quite some time now. While it is a problem that these apps can’t access user content, it is hardly fair to let that color a review of an unrelated service beyond the obvious noting of such a problem. If you need to have access to saved content in places beyond your mobile device or eReader, it might be best to avoid getting too excited about this one.
This will be of the most interest to people who truly despise ads in the web reading. It allows you to conveniently read anything you want on your Kindle ad-free without recourse to tedious copy/paste options. There are still some problems, especially in badly coded or complexly formatted sites, where you can end up with jumbles of code. It isn’t a perfect application and you’re certainly not going to be able to consider it completely finished just yet. As it stands, however, this is a valuable tool and adds a great new feature to the “Send to Kindle” application toolset.