Tommaths (he/him)3d ago

So what's the best, most open, e-reader to get?

I'm being pushed out of one increasingly locked-down corporate ebook racket and I don't want to sign up to another one.

So:

- Who's making the best e-readers that'll allow me to buy ebooks from different providers?
- Who's selling eBooks that aren't locked down to a single brand of device?

(I'm in the UK)

#bookstodon

Show threadCanageek

@TeaKayB The software on it is closed source, but the Kobo works perfectly with pretty much any ebook store. you just can't buy books from non-kobo stores directly from the device. But you can add ebooks to it just by dropping them onto it like a USB drive, and just about any ebook library program will work perfectly with them.

Plus they don't really lock it down so there's been all sorts of efforts to reverse engineer and replace the software, I've never gotten into that but it exists.

Apr 9 at 12:41amWeb
Show threadCanageek3d ago
@TeaKayB Oh, and they make installing fonts really easily, you just need them in the right font format and then you just throw them into the drive, it might need to be in a specific directory, but there's lots of people who have converted a ton of fonts to the Kobo format and drag and drop installation, super easy
Show threadTommaths (he/him)3d ago
@Canageek
Good to know, thanks. Seems to be a lot of love for the Kobo. Though it feels like it'd be a number of separate libraries, rather than everything combined into one library?
Show threadCanageek3d ago
@TeaKayB once you put it onto the device it will all show up in the same library, and there's various programs such as calibre that will combine different sources on your PC
Show threadTommaths (he/him)3d ago
@Canageek
That's very good to know thank you