[RobertDDL]

I've never had a Kindle, nor do I want to have one, but, over the last few years, I've bought 40 ebooks from Amazon. I kept an older version of Kindle for PC, had no problems to de-DRM them, converted them to epub, and read them on my PocketBook reader. I always assumed that Amazon was aware that some of their customers wanted to read ebooks on non-Kindle devices, and knew, and tolerated it, that their DRM could be removed.

Now, without asking, and without my permission, Kindle for PC updated to 1.33, and, in the process (again without asking or even telling), changed the downloaded ebook files in the "My Kindle Content" folder, so that DRM removal doesn't work anymore on them. (Rather pointless, since, of course, I had already done that whenever I bought a book, and saved the de-DRM'd files somewhere else.)

This, to me, is malware behavior - installing software, and manipulating content on my computer, without my permission. To me, this is unacceptable.

What I do not understand is, why Amazon is doing this - are there really so few people who like to buy ebooks from them, but prefer to read them on non-Kindle devices, and without having Amazon looking over their shoulders while they read? I buy a lot of other stuff from them, too.

So, where else could I get ebooks from? I looked at Kobo, they sent me to Tolino, looked at Pocketbook - both talk a lot about the cloud, about how to register their readers, about Adobe DRM - they want me to register with Adobe, tell Adobe my name, my date of birth, accept the terms of Adobe's privacy policy, etc.

I do not want that shit. I want to download an ebook file, and, using an USB cable, copy it to the reading device of my choice, without anyone interfering or observing me, without anyone installing malware on my computer, and without having to hack the registry. Whoever I buy it from knows what I buy, that's ok (or rather, we have come to accept it as unavoidable), but this is definitely where it has to stop for me. This is how it works with music files, and, so far, this is how it worked with Amazon ebooks.

If anyone could tell me how I could have this, I'd be grateful. If not, I'll simply return to reading printed books.