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 threadDr Neil Smith3d ago
@TeaKayB Hive has many books, bit with Adobe DRM. That's easy to remove with Calibre plugins, then I can read the book with FB reader on my phone.
Show threadTommaths (he/him)3d ago

@neilnjae
I briefly looked at trying to remove Adobe DRM from some Google Play books last night & hit a wall because it seems the Adobe e-reader software for windows doesn't currently exist!

I'm currently experimenting with Calibre (spent last night downloading my entire Amazon library and transferring to it) with the intention of seeing how feasible it is to continue using my soon-to-be disconnected Kindle Keyboard independently of Amazon's services.

I still have a Kindle Scribe, but they've already started excluding it from feature updates for the rest of the Scribe range so I'm thinking it'll be my last Kindle and I want to get into more portable ebook habits. I'm not sure how I'm going to manage that on the note-taking front. I know paper + pen exists, but I love the convenience of having all my handwritten notes together, digitally.

Show threadDr Neil Smith3d ago

@TeaKayB My process to to buy a book from Hive, add it to the Adobe Digital Editions library, then use the standard Calibre plugin to import it into Calibre.

For note taking, I used a pen+laptop into Evernote. I don't have a separate device, so can't offer any advice.

Show threadTommaths (he/him)

@neilnjae
I assume you're using Linux? The Windows version of Adobe Digital Editions doesn't seem to exist any more (at least officially) so that's where I tripped up, though I didn't make much of an attempt to overcome that problem as I was concentrating on getting my kindle library downloaded.

I have a touchscreen laptop with pen (+ two Wacom tablets) and it just doesn't work for me for note taking. I like the feel & ease of writing on the Scribe, and I like the fact that it's more portable than my laptop, and less loaded with potential distractions. My ideal is to find something like that in a format that will fit in a jacket pocket.

Apr 9 at 7:34amWeb
Show threadDr Neil Smith2d ago
@TeaKayB No, I run the Adobe thing on a Windows VM. Perhaps I'm misremembering the name, but it's the tool needed to read the ebooks from Hive.
Show threadTommaths (he/him)2d ago
@neilnjae
I think the name is correct: it's the same tool that Google Play says is required to read their books offline. But when I tried to download it from the Adobe website there were links to the Apple and Android apps, but any links mentioning windows led to dead pages.
Show threadDr Neil Smith2d ago
@TeaKayB in that case, I can't help you! Sorry.
Show threadSheepnik2d ago

@neilnjae @TeaKayB Hope you don't mind me butting in here, but you can download Adobe Digital Editions for Windows from this page: https://www.adobe.com/uk/solutions/ebook/digital-editions/download.html

No idea why it's not visible elsewhere.

Solutions - Ebook - Digital Editions - FAQs

Adobe Digital Editions 4.5.12 allows seamless fulfilment of books across devices: With this new feature.

Show threadTommaths (he/him)2d ago
@sheepnik @neilnjae
Thanks! I'll try later! I didn't do a lot of trying to solve that particular problem because I was focusing on the Kindle one: it seems that Google aren't working as hard to stop me getting at the books that I've purchased as Amazon are, for the moment at least!