[windycitygal]

Last year I decided to break with the Amazon/Kindle ecosphere as much as possible. I purchased a Boox Go Color 7 to use instead of the Kindle Paperwhite I had been using. When I heard that Amazon was shutting down the ability to save Kindle ebooks to personal devices, I downloaded my Kindle library and loaded everything from it into Calibre before syncing it to my Boox ereader. Since then, I've been accessing the books I downloaded through the Boox built in library and Neoreader.

Now I'm wanting to purchase some more ebooks in a couple series that I've been avidly enjoying. I've found them on other ebook platforms like Kobo and ebooks.com, but since my experience with using ebooks was primarily through Amazon purchases or borrowed library books , I'm trying to understand if each ebook vendor requires that I use their proprietary app to read books purchased through them.

I added the Kobo app to my Boox, so I'm thinking that if I buy the ebooks I want through Kobo I will need to use their app to access and read them. And looking at ebooks.com, it appears that they also have an app that must be used to access any books I purchase through them. Is this correct?

I purchased the Boox so I could make use of ALL of the library apps I have access to: Libby, Hoopla, and Palace. I understand that libraries need to use apps because of how they license ebooks. I also understand that Amazon TOS states that ebooks aren't actually owned by the purchaser, just licensed for individual use. That's one reason I moved away from Amazon for ebooks. Are all the other ebook vendors just using the same approach (licensed not "owned" copies).

Ideally I could manage all the ebooks I purchase in one library on my device rather than having to remember which app a particular book from a series is stored in. If I can actually own a copy of an ebook then I can add it to my Calibre library for management and sync it to my Boox. It's hard enough trying to remember which library app I need to open to read a book I borrowed!