Quote:
Originally Posted by mmc_mac
I need to know if I can read books that I get from places other than Amazon
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A good starting point for questions of this kind is
Kindle Myths and Partial Truths.
The Kindle essentially only reads MOBI ebooks. For MOBI with DRM (encryption), only OverDrive hosted ebooks work (after running through KindleFIX) but this is enough to support Lending Library MOBIs. See
Visual Kindle Guide. Any DRM-free ebook can easily be converted to MOBI, typically using Calibre (which has its own forum here). There are several good sources of DRM-free ebooks, some mentioned on the "Myths" wiki page. It isn't generally thought to be legal in the US, but it is possible to strip the DRM from several common ebook formats and then format shift them to DRM-free MOBIs that work on the Kindle. Doing this on ebooks you bought for personal use harms no one.
For me, the main reason for buying a Kindle was the Kindle store. Note that, since Kindle AZW files are MOBI ebooks, the mobidedrm.py script can strip their encryption to produce a DRM-free MOBI. So you are not tied to using the Kindle (and iPhone) only when you buy Kindle ebooks (but TOPAZ ebooks are tied to the Kindle/iPhone).