Privacy best Reader

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Solicitous

Hell no. If ADE did phone home about all your ebooks, then people would avoid ADE and look for another solution (or use it simply as an intermediate step between purchasing and liberating).

A few might, but most people would either not know about it or wouldn't really care until it affected them directly. Just like they are with DRM now. It's not as if Amazon's ability to do it has put many people off buying Kindles.

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You can copy books onto the Kindle via a USB cable, just as you do with most other readers. This is completely separate to the "Kindle for PC" application.

So let me get this straight, if you downloaded the 1984 onto your pc it would NOT have been deleted from there only from the Kindle?

If that is the case, again it simply points to the fact that people should be more diligent about backing up their books.

Thank you for the info Harry. That's good to know. Now if only they didn't lock you forever into Amazon, I would use them for all of my book purchases in a heartbeat.

[nashira]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

So let me get this straight, if you downloaded the 1984 onto your pc it would NOT have been deleted from there only from the Kindle?

If that is the case, again it simply points to the fact that people should be more diligent about backing up their books.

Thank you for the info Harry. That's good to know. Now if only they didn't lock you forever into Amazon, I would use them for all of my book purchases in a heartbeat.

I don't think the point has much to do with peoples backing up practices, but with the fact that companies (Amazon, in this instance) can and will remove peoples files if they think of a reason too (that they probably won't in the near future is true. But how long will they keep it up? You can't know.). Some people don't like this. Most people won't give a stuff until it effects them. But the fact remains people shouldn't have to have the risk of a company remotely deleting their purchases, even if they have backed them up out of reach.

And as for 1984 as an example, people lost notes and such that they had saved about the book when Amazon yanked it too, I believe, which is definitely an issue.

[cfrizz]

Oh don't get me wrong, Amazon absolutely should NOT have done what they did. (it cost them a potential customer - ME) But again the backlash against them was severe & if there is one thing I know is that anything that can have a bad impact on a companies bottom line, said companies will think twice before pulling a stunt like that.

Businesses are going to do whatever they can to make money & screw us over if they can that's a given. However, we shouldn't live in fear for what MAY happen & it is usually easy to avoid getting trapped/used by these companies.

I'm about taking precautions the easy way. I avoid wifi, I download & backup my books to make sure I can keep them. In this day and age it is simple enough to do research online to find out what you need to do to protect yourself. However, if you are too lazy to do so or know what you should do & can't be bothered, then I have no sympathy for you even if whatever was done to you was wrong.

Some of you prefer to go to extremes in doing what I do, even to the point of either refusing to buy books you would enjoy because of drm, or going through a whole time consuming complicated proccess to strip the drm, blithely recommending to everyone else that they should do the same.

Not everyone wants to go through all of that ESPECIALLY when they are brand new to the technology nor do they have to. I wonder how many newbies you all scared off of ereaders/ebooks all together because of your militant stance.

All I'm suggesting is a more balanced view. Is drm bad? Yes, but there are other options out there besides either not buying books you enjoy because of it or trying to turn oneself into some uber computer geek to strip it out.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

Some of you prefer to go to extremes in doing what I do, even to the point of either refusing to buy books you would enjoy because of drm....

I don't consider that an extreme.

Sure, I refuse to buy books I would enjoy because they're DRM-restricted. But I also refuse to buy books I would enjoy because my TBR list is too long already, or because they cost too much, or for any of a number of other reasons. Sometimes it comes down to rejecting a book because its cover is ugly. There are millions of books, and I have only one lifetime to read them in. Since I already have more books on hand than I'll be able to read in the foreseeable future (and thanks to my suggestion of setting up a book announcement forum, I keep buying more!) I'm losing nothing by voting with my tiny little wallet against something as consumer-hostile as DRM.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

Some of you prefer to go to extremes in doing what I do, even to the point of either refusing to buy books you would enjoy because of drm,

I don't consider it extreme to avoid buying something that refuses to give me control of my purchase. I don't buy physical books that can only be read with the manufacturer's approved lightbulbs, either. Nor do I have a bicycle that only works on some streets.

I don't buy new hardcovers, either, because I don't like the format. I don't consider this to be "limiting myself." There are not only more ebooks on my to-read list than I can get through--there are more free, legit ebooks on topics I'm interested in showing up online than I can keep up with.

Publishers who don't provide books in formats I'm willing to read don't get my dollars. Authors who work with publishers who don't provide books in formats I'm willing to read don't get my attention. Shrug. I'm not anywhere near running out of good reading material; if publishers *want* my money, they can provide something I'm willing to pay for.

Not everyone wants to go through all of that ESPECIALLY when they are brand new to the technology nor do they have to. I wonder how many newbies you all scared off of ereaders/ebooks all together because of your militant stance.

How many newbies have bought one ebook, had an hour and a half's trouble trying to get the software installed only to discover they were supposed to do that *first* and now can't read their book unless they re-purchase, and gave up on ebooks? How many discovered the hard way that their "ebook reader" couldn't read books from a rival company's ebook store?

If publishers & bookstores were clearer about what DRM is and how it works, rather than saying "it's simple! Just click here and you'll be ready to go!" a lot of anti-DRM people wouldn't be nearly as adamant.

All I'm suggesting is a more balanced view. Is drm bad? Yes, but there are other options out there besides either not buying books you enjoy because of it or trying to turn oneself into some uber computer geek to strip it out.

Of course there is. There's also "buy something you can only use in limited ways, and hope it'll keep working after you upgrade your computer." Which, for a lot of people, is sufficient.

But since I don't like the DRM business model, I'm not going to encourage it by suggesting newbies to ebooks support it. I don't buy Nestle products, styrofoam, or items from WalMart, either. People are welcome to support those; I'm not going to help them. I don't expect my personal decisions to have any notable impact on the greater marketplace, but I don't support what I think are unethical business practices.

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I don't consider it extreme to avoid buying something that refuses to give me control of my purchase. I don't buy physical books that can only be read with the manufacturer's approved lightbulbs, either. Nor do I have a bicycle that only works on some streets.

I don't buy new hardcovers, either, because I don't like the format. I don't consider this to be "limiting myself." There are not only more ebooks on my to-read list than I can get through--there are more free, legit ebooks on topics I'm interested in showing up online than I can keep up with.

Publishers who don't provide books in formats I'm willing to read don't get my dollars. Authors who work with publishers who don't provide books in formats I'm willing to read don't get my attention. Shrug. I'm not anywhere near running out of good reading material; if publishers *want* my money, they can provide something I'm willing to pay for.

How many newbies have bought one ebook, had an hour and a half's trouble trying to get the software installed only to discover they were supposed to do that *first* and now can't read their book unless they re-purchase, and gave up on ebooks? How many discovered the hard way that their "ebook reader" couldn't read books from a rival company's ebook store?

Oh please, in order to get ebooks you have to have a pc, it's just common sense that if this is your first time buying an ebook, you will click on the link as to how the whole proccess works, and every store that sells ebooks has those links. And last time I checked all stores had a "Your Library" online so that after downloading the software, they can easily redownload the book.

Do you actually know someone who was foolish enough to do this or is this another what if scenario that you like to dream up?

I just got into ebooks in Dec. I spent 2 weeks researching the whole thing including joining this site.

If publishers & bookstores were clearer about what DRM is and how it works, rather than saying "it's simple! Just click here and you'll be ready to go!" a lot of anti-DRM people wouldn't be nearly as adamant.

With multiple stores & multiple readers, again it is just common sense to research & find the stores that have the best prices and what not before taking the plunge and you quickly find out that each Major store that sells its own reader is incompatible with the others.

Of course there is. There's also "buy something you can only use in limited ways, and hope it'll keep working after you upgrade your computer." Which, for a lot of people, is sufficient.

But since I don't like the DRM business model, I'm not going to encourage it by suggesting newbies to ebooks support it. I don't buy Nestle products, styrofoam, or items from WalMart, either. People are welcome to support those; I'm not going to help them. I don't expect my personal decisions to have any notable impact on the greater marketplace, but I don't support what I think are unethical business practices.

Good for you do that, in the meantime I will make sure to also point out that they can purchase the books they want & back them up without all the bother that some of you going through.

[Elfwreck]

Oh please, in order to get ebooks you have to have a pc, it's just common sense that if this is your first time buying an ebook, you will click on the link as to how the whole proccess works, and every store that sells ebooks has those links.

(almost) Every store that sells ebooks has a "download ebook reading software" link. Only the DRM-infected ones hide what devices & operating systems they work on, implying that *whatever* system you have, it'll work for you.

"Dug for the system requirements and noticed that the eReader Guide (which, as noted above, lies) only notes the OS needed -- OS 8.6 with CarbonLib or OS X version 10.1 or later, 10.5 recommended; I am running 10.5.8 -- the hidden Requirements tab on the website specifies 10.5 or later and PowerPC Macs not supported."

"In one case, the library software allowed me to purchase books without having first "logged in". The concept of logging in is strange because the software greeted me with a welcome using my first name and didn't object when I purchased 5 books. The act of loading them onto the device caused the account to be locked out and my mom was left stranded in the hospital with no reading material!"

"I sent Sony Support another email, saying the program still wouldn’t work, and thanks, but I wouldn’t be using it anymore. They wrote back saying I should call in. I didn’t; it seemed like an awful lot of trouble just to be allowed to pay them more money for their books."

"because I am using Android, I can only access MP3 audio books on my device, which GREATLY reduces my selection. WAV audio books (the bulk of our collection), music, and video are completely off the table unfortunately and I cannot access them. Worse yet, I cannot access any of the text eBooks. No PDF access whatsoever. By the by, I had to hunt for this information on the Overdrive website–nothing came up on my Android download warning me about the limited access."

No shortage of stories online about "I went to the ebook store, jumped through the install hoops, and *poof* ... no readable ebooks on my computer/device, WTF?" I don't think it's reasonable to say "first-time customers should research the industry, check several stores to see which of them has ebooks in a format their computer works *well* with, hunt for "help" tabs on the store site to find out if there are known problems with their particular version of firmware, and first test their software on a free DRM'd book to make sure all their settings are correct."

And last time I checked all stores had a "Your Library" online so that after downloading the software, they can easily redownload the book.

Large stores do; small stores often have "you have 24 hours to download your book." (Of course, small stores don't tend to have DRM.)

Do you actually know someone who was foolish enough to do this or is this another what if scenario that you like to dream up?

There aren't a lot of stories about "I downloaded this & it didn't work and I'm never reading ebooks again." (People who've decided that, don't post about it; such things come up in comments, not as articles or blog posts.) There *are* a lot of "I'm never buying from that store/for that device again," and a number of "meh, I'll maybe read ebook freebies if they're easy, but I'm waiting a few more years before I try buying again."

Originally Posted by cfrizz

Good for you do that, in the meantime I will make sure to also point out that they can purchase the books they want & back them up without all the bother that some of you going through.

What bother is it to avoid stuff that doesn't work?

I don't buy clothes that can't be thrown in a washing machine; I don't buy ebooks that can't be thrown into Calibre. I'm not wealthy enough to risk having my purchases vanish when the producer decides not to support my platform anymore.

I'm aware there are people who think of ebooks as single-use purchases: read & delete, so it doesn't matter how long they last. I like the option of re-reading, including years later when I want to rethink those concepts. I'm not buying books I can't keep.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

Good for you do that, in the meantime I will make sure to also point out that they can purchase the books they want & back them up without all the bother that some of you going through.

Your backups will stop working at the same time that your originals stop working.

All your books are belong to Amazon.

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Your backups will stop working at the same time that your originals stop working.

All your books are belong to Amazon.

Which is PRECISELY why I don't have a Kindle. I believe that eventually the vast majority of stores are either going drm free, or settle on epub as their choice of format. Amazon will be left behind because of their Kindle exclusivity, rather then openning access to their books to every ereading device on the market.

As long as I buy another device that can handle epubs, pdfs & rtfs I should have no problem continuing to enjoy my library for the rest of my life.