Last night it took 3 hours and much yelling to register. i was ready to smash it. it seemed to type on its own. Today typing is easier but i am clueless on how to use it. 

It was a much wanted gift but is a browser right now.  What is a free book site to experiment from?

i cant even find the owners instructions    ugh

Just go to Amazon, type in the kind of book you're interested in, then sort on price "Low to High". That'll bring up the freebies first. Pick one, (you can always delete it later) and when you 'buy' it have it sent to your KF.

If it's a new machine, did you make sure to charge it long enough so it could work without running out of power? I don't know why it would be sluggish.

Here's a web site with various articles that may help. Here.

Here is the Amazon help page for Kindle Fire HD

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_200127470_fire_hd?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200939330

Another good place for help is the Kindle Help Forum.  Search for questions similar to yours before posting a new question, and when you do post be sure to tell which kindle you have. http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/forums/kindleqna/ref=hp_ss_comp_kindle_forum_C

Yu can also contact the Kindle Support team directly at https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/contact-us?ie=UTF8&nodeId=&  Use chat mode or phone rather than email.  If you select phone, they will give you a prompt call back.

A good source for Free books is FreeReadFeed.com.  You can pick which genre you want to find, and then bookmark the page.

Experiment a little with the settings to make it display the way you want it.

Every day you can have it search for all of the books which are free in that genre.  I have it set to show me only the ones which are free since I last checked.  New books are added overnight and ones no longer free are removed.

There is a Get It button that takes you to that book's Amazon page.  You may have to sign in to your Amazon account as you do this.  Off to the right of the Amazon page for the book will be an Orange/Yellow Buy Now with 1-click button and beneath that a button to select where to deliver it.  If it isn't showing your kindle Fire, be sure to switch it to that before hitting the Buy Now button.  If your Kindle is connected to wireless or 3g, it should download the book.

A tip: Anytime the kindle seems to be really acting wierd, the first thing to try is charge and reboot.  Let it charge several hours.  Unplug the charger. Press and hold the power button a full 30 seconds, ignoring any lights or screen messages that come up in that time.  Release the power button, then press and quickly release it once more.  Give it a few minutes and it should reboot.

Any time you see the power level getting low you should recharge it.  Games and videos will suck down battery power fast.  You can't hurt it by over charging, so it is fine to leave it on charge overnight.  And if you have any cell phone chargers for house or car that fit into the kindle charger port, they can be used too.  They just might not charge as fast as the Kindle charger.

freereadfeed.com seemed to send me to amazon . This is my first day and i was reading about one book a month thinking it meant one free download a month.  

so i can go to amazon and download more than one free book?

Amazon has a paid prime membership option that only allows you to get one book a month that isn't ordinarily free, for free.

But yes, you can get way more than one free book a month at Amazon.  If FreeReadFeed lists a book as free, and the Amazon page you go to still shows a price of $0.00, then you can "buy" it for free.  BTW, Amazon will send you an email for each free "purchase".

Gwen- go to amazon.com, go to the book page. On the right hand side should be top 100, next to that tab is top100 free .. that will show you all the popular free ebooks.

You can download any free ebook, that says is 0.00 BUT the ones from the PRIME limit it to one. You can down load as many NON free Prime books as you want!

so i can go to amazon and download more than one free book?

Sure. 

Heck, I've been collecting free ebooks on Amazon for years now. I have thousands. 

Amazon has a paid prime membership option that only allows you to get one book a month that isn't ordinarily free, for free.

This is a loan, not a free ebook to keep. But you do have the whole month to read it, rather than the 14 days on the other loaned books.

thanks   i just downloaded a,few   

This is a loan, not a free ebook to keep. But you do have the whole month to read it, rather than the 14 days on the other loaned books.

No, there is a free book each month as well. It's not the lending library that comes with Prime.My DD has a Kindle and Amazon Prime and occasionally I'll order a book that wouldn't normally be free (it's denoted on the same page with all the other book info) on her Kindle that I can't get on my Nook. I only read it when I'm at her house or she's at mine, which is why I know each book I've ordered is in her library, and there well over a month.

I am getting a Kindle Color HD for my birthday so soon I'll be able to get my own. I love my Nook Color but the Kindle is a great addition.

Actually, the way the Kindle lending library with Amazon Prime works is the book is a loan, but it doesn't have any due dates.  You can keep it as long as you want, but you have to return it before you can get a new free book from their lending library.  In addition, you are limited to a maximum of one book per month from the "lending library".  Also, you do need to have an actual Kindle device to make use of their lending library.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?ref=lp_mem_help&nodeId=200757120

On the other hand, Amazon does often have freebies unrelated to their lending library.  These are unrelated to Prime membership, and you do not need a kindle to have access to these.  (They work on tablets, pcs, smart phones, etc--anything that has the Kindle reading ap loaded on it.)  I've got a lot of books this way--some fairly popular ones that were only free for a limited time.  I have several that I have yet to read.

No, there is a free book each month as well.

As Laura pointed out there, are a lot of freebies that aren't related to Prime. Anywhere from 20 to 2000 new ones posted a day. They're usually free for at least 90 days, and after that they may have the price go up or the author can chose to repost it. (So if you missed one once, it might turn up as a 'new' freebie, three months later.) But those really are free to keep forever. Some are even lendable. And there are various places you can go to find which books are free at any given time. Some places list them all, some only list a selected few.

So the free ones you're looking at aren't connected to Prime, and they number a lot more than one a month.

I think Prime is well worth the money, though, just for the shipping alone. Hopefully they'll keep other perks along with it.