[latepaul]

Originally Posted by BrickyBrian

Will I be able to open whatever EBook I buy on my computer or do I require a “specific reader” for each type of EBook?

It all comes down to DRM. Most commercially sold ebooks are protected by Digital Rights Management. These are technical measures that are supposed to stop you making unauthorised copies.

If you buy DRM-ed ebooks then you will need to read them using reader or app they were designed for. The majority of ebooks are either Amazon formats (Mobi/AZW/AZW3) or epub. Amazon use their own DRM and have a app you can download for the PC. epub vendors vary a bit but most will supply you an ebook protected by Adobe Digital Editions. ADE is a library/reader app for the PC. The vendor would supply a small file, a .ascm, which when you load into ADE it downloads the book for you. ADE can also be used with libraries which means you can borrow books and after they expire ADE will not allow you to open them any more.

There are also some 3rd party reader apps which can open the ascm file and download your book.

epub vendors include Kobo and Google. Kobo also have their own format "kobo epub" which uses a different form of DRM.

There's also Apple iBooks which is a form of epub but has its own DRM. I don't know much about them.

So depending on where you get your ebooks you might need a different app but you can in theory read them all on a PC.

There's a very nice open source program called Calibre which acts as a library, reading app, editor and converter for ebooks. It only deals with DRM-free books however.

That said most DRM has been broken and there are tools that will strip DRM. Many people feel it's OK to use such tools to remove DRM if they have paid for a copy so that they can convert it to other formats and thereby use it on whatever device they like.

So many people would say, buy books from Amazon, Google, Kobo and other sites, or acquire them from free sites (see below), strip the DRM, load them into Calibre, convert to their format(s) of choice, and use Calibre as their central library of ebooks.

At which point you'd be dealing with a single program to read your ebooks.

We are prevented from discussing the details of removing DRM on this site by the forum rules. If you google "Apprentice Alf" you will find a blog that tells you everything you need to know, and can ask questions, if you want to go down that route.

There appears to be a large number of “Free” E Books and I placed, “Free” in inverts because as soon as I opened one up I found that it was far from free. I should make it clear that I have no objection to paying for E Books but would anyone care to say what “Free” E Book sites are worth looking at.

Project Gutenberg is one of the oldest and biggest sites for out-of-copyright works. So you'll find a lot of old classics here.

Mobileread itself has a library of free ebooks. The Patricia Clark Memorial Library. I often find the formatting of books from here are better than those from PG.

There are many other sites but I tend to avoid the more obscure ones because there are pirate sites (many are not, some are).

Also you'll find free books in the catalogs of Amazon and Kobo. They tend to be less prominent than they were.

In fact what commercial E Book sites are worth looking at?

I usually find Amazon are the cheapest. Kobo do discount vouchers that can make them cheaper on occasion. There's a thread here that lists Kobo voucher codes.