eBook Reader thats allows rating books

[Greisby]

Hello,

I'm searching for an ebook reader that allows me to rate the books I read and then sync the rating with my Calibre library.
When I bought my first device (Kobo Touch), for 7 years or so, it was able to do that. But that feature got removed after a firmware update...

It's now time for me to buy a new device and to say goodbye to Kobo, and I wonder if there is such a device.
Googling around didn't help me. Does anyone know?

Thank you!

[shalym]

Originally Posted by Greisby

Hello,

I'm searching for an ebook reader that allows me to rate the books I read and then sync the rating with my Calibre library.
When I bought my first device (Kobo Touch), for 7 years or so, it was able to do that. But that feature got removed after a firmware update...

It's now time for me to buy a new device and to say goodbye to Kobo, and I wonder if there is such a device.
Googling around didn't help me. Does anyone know?

Thank you!

With Kindles, for books purchased from Amazon, you can set it so that every book you read is added to your currently reading shelf on goodreads, and when you finish it, the book is automatically moved to the read shelf and you are able to rate the books with the rating synced with goodreads, and you can sync your goodreads back to Calibre.

It sounds convoluted, but it's really not...when you get to the end of the book, you get a pop-up asking you to rate the book. You click the number of stars, and it automatically sends the rating to goodreads. In Calibre, install the goodreads plugin and choose to sync the "read" shelf, and in the "sync actions", select to sync the rating from goodreads.

Of course, this all assumes that you have a goodreads account, and that you buy your books from Amazon.

Shari

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by shalym

Of course, this all assumes that you have a goodreads account, and that you buy your books from Amazon.

Shari

And that you keep WiFi on (which drains the battery more).

[Quoth]

All because Goodreads is owned by Amazon and is crowdsourcing Amazon market research.

[Greisby]

Yuck…
I never buy proprietary formats or ebooks with DRMs.
I already have some books that I cannot read anymore, and for me that's theft.
So, I never purchase book at Amazon.
And besides, Goodreads is english only, and I only read french & german books.
But thank you for your suggestion.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Greisby

It's now time for me to buy a new device and to say goodbye to Kobo, and I wonder if there is such a device.
Googling around didn't help me. Does anyone know?

Kobo's ereaders still do ratings with books from Kobo synced to your ereader. This is no longer done for sideloaded books since having the rating without the book title is a bit useless and the book title is more or less considered private-this person gave Justine a 5 star rating!

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by Greisby

Yuck…
I never buy proprietary formats or ebooks with DRMs.
I already have some books that I cannot read anymore, and for me that's theft.
So, I never purchase book at Amazon.
And besides, Goodreads is english only, and I only read french & german books.
But thank you for your suggestion.

I buy them all the time, download and remove DRM. It's unfortunate that the option isn't available for Amazon ebooks in Germany/France. Alas, for the OP, I use Calibre to mark 1-5 stars for all my books. It's an extra step, but not that hard. I already do that to mark book read in my Calibre library. Alternatively, set up a spreadsheet on Google and you can access that via your phone from anywhere.

[Greisby]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Kobo's ereaders still do ratings with books from Kobo synced to your ereader. This is no longer done for sideloaded books since having the rating without the book title is a bit useless and the book title is more or less considered private-this person gave Justine a 5 star rating!

Well, rating sideloaded books and syncing the ratings with Calibre worked when I bought it. The capability of rating sideloaded books was removed some years ago. The only reason why they did that is to force people to buy bokks on their store. That's why I'm now searching for an alternative to Kobo.

Writing down rating and then putting them in Calibre is a pain...

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Greisby

Well, rating sideloaded books and syncing the ratings with Calibre worked when I bought it. The capability of rating sideloaded books was removed some years ago. The only reason why they did that is to force people to buy bokks on their store. That's why I'm now searching for an alternative to Kobo.

The reason I was given for removing ratings for sideloaded books was due to concerns over privacy issues and nothing to do with forcing you to buy books from their store. Much like the screams over Adobe sending information on all the books on your computer to their servers—using an insecure protocol just to rub salt into the wounds, people do not want personal information being collected without reason.

Under PIPEDA (three provinces have provincial legislation that is pretty similar to PIPEDA), you run into the issue caused by this clause in the fair information principles:

Principle 9 - Individual Access
Upon request, an individual must be informed of the existence, use, and disclosure of their personal information and be given access to that information. An individual shall be able to challenge the accuracy and completeness of the information and have it amended as appropriate.

Note that the Digital Privacy Act in 2015 did not change this clause and court ruling have made it clear that if an individual asks for access to their information, it must be granted in an reasonable time frame. The DPA also changed the rules on what constitutes valid consent to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information. The DPA added a business transaction exemption which does permit Kobo to use information on ereader and ebook purchases from them without needing consent but information on sideloaded books would require your informed consent.

You want to guess what the cost of having those requests serviced in a secure fashion would be?

Perhaps, even thinking about why I used the book title Justine in my post?