Looking for a browser based cloud ebook reader

[jabberwock_11]

I am looking for an ebook reader which stores ebooks in a cloud and allows you to read them in a browser without having to sync or download those books. I know about ibisreader.com and www.magicscroll.net and booki.sh and while those sites are basically what I am after, they offer little to no organization for the books that you store on their sites. The kindle cloud reader is another example of what I am after, but it does not allow you to upload and access your non kindle books.

Before I get a lot of suggestions involving drop box, calibre opds, and fabrik let me stress that I want to be able to read the books WITHOUT having to store the ebook files on my device. I am looking for browser based readers that do not require you to download/sync the books in order to read them. Basically l want to free up storage space on my tablet and be able to access my whole library from anywhere and on any device without having to download any of it.

Any suggestions would be great.

[BeccaPrice]

Just out of curiosity, why? your ability to read the books will depend on having a good wifi connection - if for some reason your wifi goes away, so will your access to the books.

I'm in the opposite situation: I actively avoid anything that requires a connection to The Cloud - i feel much more secure having my books on my computer.

[jabberwock_11]

Everything I do is online, and as it happens that is the case with the majority of people today. Think about what you use your computer/laptop/tablet for, and I am willing to bet that most of it involves an online experience. More and more often people are using cloud services for everything. WiFi is everywhere and easy to access, even without a secure connection at home (which I have). The vast majority of browser based readers also include the option to read off-line as well, so if I happen to be somewhere without a connection then whatever book I am reading will still be available.

As I said originally, I want to free up space and be able to access my library from anywhere and on any device. I still plan on keeping my library stored on an external hard drive as a back up, but I don't want to have to carry around and connect to that hard drive every time I want to read something. Portability and universal access are key.

[elcreative]

Couldn't disagree more... I don't spend my life attached to my computer and much of my life has nothing to do with being online... I'd hate the idea of relinquishing my data to someone else's control... that idea was supposed to die out with the High Priests of the Mainframe and the invention of the personal computer which was called personal for a reason... I'd certainly never use the Cloud for everything and I know nobody else intending that - yes, use for sharing across devices when away from desktop, collaborating and across various devices but for everything??? And how would I be able to read from the cloud without Wi-Fi access or mobile data? Wi-Fi is most definitely not everywhere - there's a lot more to life and the world than the urban sprawl... and much of that has no free/ easy access to the net...

One of the joys of reading is to shut out the external world and enjoy that of what's being read... with no interruptions and the ability to be away from computers etc. As for portability and access, well I've got around 50K titles on my PRS 505 with PRS+ and my library thus fits in my pocket - no hard drive needed...

Good luck with your browser search but the majority of people certainly don't do everything online...

[JoeD]

I don't know of anywhere that offers such a service. Unless you're into reading technical books, in which case O'Reilly have an online option :P

Considering it takes a second or two tops to download a complete book though, I have everything in the "archive" on amazon (although I keep most on my eink kindle too), both books I've bought with them and those I've emailed to them. Then i can download what i want to read whenever I fancy a change if I'm out somewhere and don't have the book on my current device.

The kindle app is on most devices and platforms now so it's perhaps the closest you'll get. Unless you have more than 5GB (I think that's the limit) of non-amazon bought ebooks, in which case it's not going to offer enough.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by JoeD

The kindle app is on most devices and platforms now so it's perhaps the closest you'll get. Unless you have more than 5GB (I think that's the limit) of non-amazon bought ebooks, in which case it's not going to offer enough.

I know Amazon lets you buy online storage space for personal media files but I'm not sure if the online Kindle reader can access that part of your account.
Me, I'm definitely in the offline camp, so I've never tried it.

[jabberwock_11]

As for the not being able to name ANY providers of this service, well I listed three in my initial post, so they are out there. As I also said in my initial post, Kindle's cloud reader and the Kindle service in general do not meet my needs.

As to the idea that most people do not do most computing online, well that is a quaint one. Outdated and myopic, but quaint. You yourself are online reading and responding to this post. Just the fact that you are on this site shows at least some connectivity. The vast majority of mobile operating systems do very little WITHOUT being online. PC sales are way down while laptop/tablet/smart phone sales are way up, so developing mobile solutions is a huge deal for most system developers. WiFi is EVERYWHERE in the developed world and nearly as accessible in the developing world. McDonalds, coffee shops, unsecured private nodes, hell even most department stores offer free WiFi. I lived in a wilderness survival training camp for two years that was nearly fifty miles from any other inhabited area...and guess what? We had WiFi too. My grandmother lives in rural Michigan up in the U.P. and she has a WiFi connection. Most state and federal parks have WiFi. I could go on, but why bother? If you are anywhere near a town in North America you already know that what I am saying is true. I have lived in forty or so different cities all over the world and from the time WiFi started popping up until now I have never had a hard time finding a hot spot. There is a reason for that. Setting up mobile networks is easier and cheaper than setting up traditional ones. There are even cities rolling out neighborhood wide and city wide WiFi networks for their residents.

Cloud services are used for a lot more than just syncing across platforms. Streaming services such as Netflix, Rhapsody, Pandora, and Amazon Instant Video are good examples of the way this sort of technology can be used. I know at least a dozen folks and several organizations who store nearly all of their data on cloud drives, because it is easier, cheaper, and infinitely more portable. The point is that being online is no longer something that happens here and there, it is happening all of the time and for those who were born in the mid to late 90s the idea of not being online is so foreign that they don't even think about cloud drives as revolutionary. For people growing up right now universal connectivity is just another fact of life (of course they are the same ones who seem surprised when stuff they post on Facebook comes back to bite them on the ass...so who knows).

Sigh, I seem to have become distracted, but none of the posts so far seem to answer my initial question. Maybe this is not the right forum for this question after all. Anybody who can give me a little bit of direction would be great.

[elcreative]

You didn't say "some connectivity," you said, "Everything I do is online, and as it happens that is the case with the majority of people today. Think about what you use your computer/laptop/tablet for, and I am willing to bet that most of it involves an online experience." You didn't say "developed world" either, you said as quoted above and the developed world is not the majority... even in the developed world, I'm at home and there is no free Wi-Fi within over a mile of my location, my only access is my own link and I don't use it most of the time just some of the time as I have too many other things to do... like reading, socialising, working and more so the majority of my computing certainly doesn't involve being on line... why would I need to be online creating artwork, writing, designing, and fixing hardware??? I also know people who use the cloud but as an adjunct to their primary storage usage not the primary.

Using the net, Wi-Fi etc doesn't mean everything or the majority of people, it's just another tool not the "be all and end all" of everything... and I do rely on the net for lots of things just not the centre of all life... and it may also be possible that there isn't (yet) a great reader for online reading hence no real suggestions...

[jgaiser]

Wait until the next superstorm sandy/tornado/earthquake/monster snowfall comes through and then get yourself online and tells how quaint it is. My personal set of geek friends do not spend their line online.

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

Wait until the next superstorm sandy/tornado/earthquake/monster snowfall comes through and then get yourself online and tells how quaint it is. My personal set of geek friends do not spend their line online.

Also this...

[jabberwock_11]

I never said that WiFi didn't have its drawbacks, it has a ton of drawbacks, but that doesn't change just how much most people rely on their networks for every day things. I also never said that peoples' lives should revolve around being online, but more and more things DO revolve around being online. You don't need to be online to create art, or to write, or to repair hardware. Increasingly more often you do need it to distribute that art, to look up technical specs not already in your possession, or to communicate with publishers, distributors, and retailers.

Right now, as I post this to an online forum, my daughter is watching My Little Ponies on Netflix, My wife is Skyping with her sister, and I am also sending in photography proofs to one of my clients with Pandora playing in the background. That's not unusual anymore, that's the norm. If you were to walk into any one of my friends' homes I guarantee that every last one of them would have something going on over a network connection. If I turn on my WiFi finder on any given day there are thirty different open and free hotspots within two miles of my home. THIRTY! Crazy, I know. That's not even counting the protected personal networks. Just a few years ago there might have been three or four, but today it is thirty. I was just reading a story about how people in Nigeria and Camaroon will willingly forego a meal to make sure that they have enough money to pay for their mobile data connectivity. India is setting up new networks in rural areas to help the upcoming distribution of tablets for school children work out better than it might have before. I have a friend who lives in East Timur who works as a linesman helping to build better infrastructure and network connectivity. The world is wired whether you want to believe it or not. A typhoon or a horrible snow storm may knock out connectivity for a few days, but it does that same to power and I hear no one saying "Oh, your fancy electricity will never be as reliable as good old plentiful coal. What are you gonna do when them doodads producing that there e-lec-tricity go down?" Networks are repaired with almost as much priority as power, because they are nearly as important to logistics, distribution, and over all repair efforts. Network connectivity is spreading just like electricity has in the past, but with more determination and a hell of a lot quicker. Networks mean knowledge and knowledge is power.

Later tonight I will go out with my family to do some geocaching (an entirely different sort of connectivity). We will hike for an hour or so and get out and chat and get some exercise...and not once be far enough away from a network to lose signal on our phones, in spite of the fact that we will not be anywhere near a city center.

[Valkrider]

This is something you could probably do with a bit of coding yourself. Get yourself a domain name and some hosting. You could then put your books on your domain space and then use the epub reader addon in Firefox to read your books that are stored on your own webserver. You could use htaccess to password protect the folder that your books are in.

[kennyc]

Book files are relatively small (unless picture books). So it really doesn't make sense to insist on reading them on-line. Just download to your phone or tablet or ereader. Much more sensible.

[LcLk]

I find it hilarious that this thread has descended from the OP asking a question to having to defend his views against very unhelpful posts.
I agree with Valkrider, I don't know of any sites that offer this service, you seem to know a lot about it yourself and DIY is a good and cheap option If you have any coding experience.

On the other hand don't dismiss Dropbox on the basis that you have to download books to read them. Even when using a browser it caches the book, ie. stores it temporarily on your device but so that only the browser can access it. This would mean it will automatically delete the book when you are done with it, but also that you could loose it if it clears the cache and you find yourself without access(which seems to be the crux of this discussion )

If you use Dropbox you get the benefit of uploading any books, organising them in folders and you get to use a dedicated reader software of your choice(I'm sure using a web-reader in a browser would mean losing a lot of screen real estate to unnecessary tabs and option bars). Also its free . Then you can free up space manually whenever you need it, as having a permanently empty device isn't much use either, so when you have no films, music etc on it you can have more books.

[kennyc]

He also said he didn't want suggestions using dropbox.