I don’t know why people buy an stuff like this and get surprised when this happens.
Plenty of other electronics that you have full control over.
Plenty ? Really ? And what are those ?
Four times the prices and from four years ago ?Kobo e-readers are 1-to-1 alternatives that allow you to easily transfer epubs or PDFs to it with a USB cable.
As far as I can tell, Kobos are bootloader locked now https://old.reddit.com/r/kobo/comments/1ewadpc/kobo_is_now_using_secure_boot_on_at_least_one_of/
I am honestly surprised it took this long! Kindle has been around a long time and it’s not like Amazon was any less evil back then. It makes me wonder if the competition has been starting to make them nervous!
Yarrrrrr
Remember to pay your local pirate.
Amazon can go suck a fuck!
How exactly does one suck a fuck?
DRM-free.
One just does
Get the fuck drunk enough and it will suck itself.
You never saw a video where someone cleans up their partner after the good time?
I’ve been slowly filling my wife’s Kindle Oasis full of pirated books over the last 2 years. I got it initially because it had internet service everywhere and I could just email her the epubs to simplify loading things.
A couple of weeks ago, even though airplane mode is always on for this thing, (so no wifi either) – this thing wipes something like 400 books from her library overnight. Granted, they were all pirated, but they’re doing some nasty stuff there. It looks like there’s renewed effort to combat this.
Sooooo, I sold it and bought her a Kobo Libra Color. Now, I just have her open up https://send.djazz.se/ – give me the 4 digit code, and I can upload books to her that way. Goodbye Amazon. Don’t let the door hit you.
That’s weird and sounds like some kind of software problem. I can’t see how that would happen otherwise. I have a Voyage and don’t have wifi configured on it at all, just add books with calibre and it’s been fine for a decade.
It’s not a software problem, the Oasis has free cellular service for life.
If you turn your Wifi off on an Android phone for example - it still scans and uses the wifi to keep track of your location, for instance. It’s an anti-consumer pattern that companies are using. Airplane mode? – Sure, for YOU. But Amazon probably still allows cell service to connect every couple of hours for exactly this kind of thing.
The error message she received wasn’t sly about it either. It said something very direct along the lines of “We have determined that you are not eligible to read this book so we have removed it from your device”
- https://www.gutenberg.org/
- https://openlibrary.org/
- https://www.planetebook.com/
- https://archive.org/
- https://www.smashwords.com/
- https://books.google.com/
- https://www.freetechbooks.com/
- https://www.getfreebooks.com/
- https://www.openculture.com/free_ebooks
- https://www.goodreads.com/
- https://www.oreilly.com/ (trial)
- https://annas-archive.org/
- https://pdfcoffee.com/
- https://singlelogin.re/
- https://www.ereaderiq.com/freebies/
- https://www.bookbub.com/ebook-deals/free-ebooks
- https://digilibraries.com/
- https://www.overdrive.com/
- https://manybooks.net/
there’s so many others and of course torrents
The best books are on IRC.
It is remarkable how many books available for free on Gutenberg are sold in the same format on Amazon (it’d be one thing if they were special editions, new translations etc, but they’re the same!)
You can also use Book Bounty to integrate LibGen support into Readarr. It’s a workaround for one of Readarr’s biggest weaknesses, as torrents historically aren’t great for ebooks.
Didn’t readarr get discontinued a few weeks ago?
It was officially unsupported, but it still works just fine if you use a third-party metadata provider. There haven’t been any breaking changes on the backend, so (unless sites change things) it will continue to work fine.
Don’t buy Amazon products. Fairly simple concept.
The problem is some authors signing exclusivity deal with Amazon, which means breaking the DRM and converting it is the only way to read it on a different e-reader.
Too bad. Then theres no sale unless I can crack the DRM ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The problem is some authors signing exclusivity deal with Amazon
Well then those authors can go straight to corpo-sellout hell and die a painful death, I’d rather never read a book again than buy from amazon.
Yep, I had a Kindle library of a few dozen books, when they started their shenanigans locking down the desktop client earlier this year I downloaded all of them, de-drmed and converted to epub with Calibre. Hosting them on Calibre-web and accessing with KOreader on a Kobo. I continue to buy books on Kobo and Google Books, which let me download copies (albeit with DRM).
Makes me wonder after all these years why Amazon is locking down ability to move books around. I wonder if they’re starting to feel some real competition and feel threatened! The market of cheap e-ink Android ereaders seems to be growing more and more
I started that process and hit a road block after getting all the books downloaded to my pc. Can you recommend any tutorials or guides that might help get everything converted?
I used this guide from a thread on Reddit. It relies on Calibre and a set of plugins https://www.reddit.com/r/Calibre/comments/1c2ryfz/2024_guide_to_dedrm_kindle_books/
Awesome, thanks!
I’m shocked at this unforeseeable turn of events.
The current timeline is truly a constant stream of unanticipated surprises
OK, so kindle is off the list of potential readers.
Any recommendations for a good reader that can do epub, PDF, and maybe even html with CSS?
I like my kobo
Also saying Kobo. I’ve got the Kobo Libra Colour and love it.
It’s the only ereader I’ve ever owned but I used the spouse’s Nook and Kindle a couple of times in the past and the Kobo kills it. Granted, we’re talking about a nearly new release of the Kobo vs a 5+ year old Kindle so it’s not a fair comparison.
Because of eInk and auto-sleep, the battery lasts me well over a month of casual reading (~30min before bed) with the occasional multi hour weekend session. Backlight is present and is totally readable in dark areas at <10% brightness; 100% brightness is like a supernova in your face. While the Libra Colour is not specifically a note-taking tablet like a reMarkable, it does just fine for quick notes/todo lists/etc but I did splurge on the ($60) stylus. There’s a “notes” application that comes pre-installed.
eBook support for writing in margins (or over text), underline/circling, highlighting, etc is really nice but occasionally the highlight is flakey when trying to highlight the end of a paragraph. That seems to have been specific to certain epubs rather than an “always” thing, but it happens in around 20% of epubs I’ve used.EDIT: Notes and highlights you do in an epub (and presumably other formats) are exportable to your PC via Calibre (“Annotations”). I love this because I like to highlight things I find interesting, particularly good quotes, and this gives me an easy way extract them while retaining a reference to which book it was and where exactly in the book it was. Example attached.
I use my remarkable 2 for that. Pretty expensive compared to other typically ebook readers but I use it to take notes too and it’s basically a pen and paper replacement for me.
You might try one of the larger Kobos to be able to read PDFs comfortably. The little ones might be a bit cramped with most PDFs. For html I’ve never tried that with Kobo, but a lot of people swear by the Android e-ink tablets from Onyx and Boox, though those are sometimes pricey!
Tangent, but I have had an incredibly poor experience getting a library eBook onto a kindle. Libby gives out time restricted epubs - fair enough, I am actually borrowing the book, that makes sense. Kindle, despite being the “goto” ereader, and epubs being a standard format, cannot read them.
So, despite wanting to legitimately borrow and read the book, instead I am borrowing and DeDRM’ing it (which is its own convoluted process).
Why is Amazon pushing so hard for piracy? Its one thing to make their store easier to use, but breaking all other valid use cases just leaves the one remaining option…
I have a kobo ereader, it connects to my local library through the overdrive system and I am soooo happy.
Yeah, definitely considering that as a replacement.
I got a Kobo about a year ago (Libra Color) it is just great. The kobo store keeps having sales on books I want for $2 so as much as I intended to use the overdrive connectivity, I just keep buying books on it!
Which is the right way to do it, make the ereader work properly, and then make the store so attractive that you use it anyway.
I think this explains why Amazon is locking down their books and making libraries non-portable. There is more competition
Seconding their enthusiasm. I love my Kobo Libra Color.
I have owned 5 kobos over time, and just love them.
This one is my second but the first one is still working fine many years later. I just wanted color.
How is the color? I’ve been told it makes the screen less sharp, is it noticeable? I kinda want one, been using a tablet for comics lately and it’s nowhere near as good at night.
That’s what they want. If you don’t agree don’t get a kindle.
They list EPUB as a supported format. Nothing on their site says DRM EPUB doesnt work.
Amazon is full of shit. EPUBs only work by using send-to-Kindle which converts it to a file that works (either AZW3 or KFX. Despite the misinformation, EPUBs do not work on Kindle, except if you jailbreak, as you can then use KOReader to read them natively.
That last point is salient, as it means the hardware supports the format just fine. Amazon intentionally does not directly support EPUBs in their software.
Amazon and Kindle have always been upfront about only supporting their proprietary format and people just chose to ignore it.
Never had any trouble with my Nook.
I dont think that is true at all. They describe it as an e-reader and its reasonable to assume that that means it can read e-books. They even list EPUB on the supported formats section of the specs. No caveat there about only partially supporting EPUB.
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I transitioned from a Kindle to an iPad. It just works better and you can get refurbished older iPads with an excellent
OLEDscreen and warranty for less than a new Kindle in most cases.
Ok look an article from 1997 which predicted this very thing
I have an ereader and I’ve never bought an ebook. The fact that they’re priced the same as paperbacks is absurd.
I like to go check out the book I want from the library, and when it gives me the Amazon DRM version I just go search for the epub version online and download that. IIRC, completely legal as I have legal access to the book…somehow.
IDC personally. I remember publishing houses basically forcing the Internet Archive to stop letting people downloading books during the fucking pandemic. They killed fair use, fuckem.
Oh no, clumsy me, dropping these links, what a mess.
They’re also facing problems ripping books from Amazon, sadly.
Yes, but they will probably have older titles 9 out of 10 times.
When I got a kindle (10 years ago) I did it on the basis that it was possible to strip the DRM of the books and load them on another device. I’m not going to be tied to some shitty platform for ever more. I must say though that when I have bought books on other places, the process of stripping the DRM and getting the book onto the device has been an absolute ballache - presumably the same for any device when you’re not using the native store.
I won’t be going back to physical books though. I bought a hardback for the first time in ages and my wrists don’t like it. Nor does my partner when I’m reading while they’re trying to sleep.
Same, I used to have some Caliber extension that stripped DRM. Last used it 2-3 years ago and worked for Adobe DRM at least.
Buy a pocketbook and don’t log into any accounts. Fuck em. I keep mine airgapped.
