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E-Books, best places to get them? (lemmy.world)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by Tattorack@lemmy.world to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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I want to get back into reading, so I'm thinking of getting a Paperwhite. But I have no idea if it's possible to transfer files to it from a computer, and I have no experience with pirating books.

Do I go to the same places I torrent movies and games or are there special places dedicated to E-Books?

EDIT: So many awesome answers on here! You guys have been very helpful. Thanks a lot!

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[-] lckdscl@whiskers.bim.boats 76 points 11 months ago

Anna's Archive, Libgen, Mobilism, IRC (I use a self-hosted service called OpenBooks for this). I use Calibre for metadata sorting, plug Kindle in and move books that way and keep it on airplane mode.

Also, new Kindle jailbreak for <= 5.16.2.1.1 if anyone's interested. Managed to get KoReader on my 10th Gen Basic.

[-] skankhunt42@lemmy.ca 18 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Neat, my kindle is in airplane mode 100% of the time too... I never knew you could jailbreak, reading about it now.

Edit: and I'm on 5.14.2 guess I'm going to jailbreak. Amazing, thank you!

[-] ex_06@slrpnk.net 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

is there any advantage to jailbreak when i already got no ads and i'm 100% of the time on airplane mode? genuine question, not judging :o

[-] lckdscl@whiskers.bim.boats 19 points 11 months ago

I didn't have ads either but being able to use KoReader is a good enough motivation for me.

You can customize it a lot to your own liking and they do something clever with page changing that it seems a lot more responsive.
Another thing is I used to have to convert epubs to KFX to get nice hyphenation and good typography but on KoReader you seem to be able to customize all those typography things with whatever epub you throw at it.
Also, I have a local Calibre OPDS endpoint, you can add that in KoReader and download books over wirelessly. WiFi needs to be on when doing that but with a few tweaks you have read only root partiton so Kindle shouldn't update.

Overall there are a lot of steps to it, if you're comfortable with your current setup it's not worth the hassle/time.

[-] ex_06@slrpnk.net 2 points 11 months ago

thank you!

[-] skankhunt42@lemmy.ca 10 points 11 months ago

This is the bit I read that sold me on it.

But if you do jailbreak a Kindle, you’ll be able to install third-party apps like KOReader, which bring support for eBooks in formats that aren’t natively supported by the stock Kindle software, such as EPUB and CBZ files

[-] naught@sh.itjust.works 4 points 11 months ago

Weird, I'm like 99% sure epub is supported considering it's all I download on my stock PW.

[-] praise_idleness@sh.itjust.works 1 points 11 months ago

Partially, at least for me. Custom fonts won't work with EPUB. Overall experience is just (marginally) better with converted .azw files.

[-] janguv@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 11 months ago

Amazon actually deprecated the MOBI standard on there and switched to EPUB.

[-] skankhunt42@lemmy.ca 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I wonder when they did that. I've never updated my kindle, it's never even been on the internet so I'm stuck in 2021/2022.

Either way I have KOreader now and it's amazing. Just reading that I can connect it to the internet for more features and reading how to do that while blocking amazon. I still might not connect it or I'll put it on my IOT wifi that doesn't have internet access.

[-] vaselined@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

I have the same doubt. I had a old first gen pw jailbroken. Recently got 10th gen basic. Not jailbroken yet

[-] Tattorack@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

Ah, so a kindle needs to be jailbroken/rooted for sideloading books.

Also, this is the third mention of turning on airplane mode. Is this to stop Amazon from doing something to the Kindle?

[-] 520@kbin.social 9 points 11 months ago

Kindle jailbreaking isn't strictly required, especially if all you want to do is sideload books. It's more about if you want homebrew, other customisation options or you just wanna get rid of ads without paying.

The airplane mode is because Amazon has a habit of updating the kindle without your permission.

[-] lckdscl@whiskers.bim.boats 5 points 11 months ago

I got ads removed on mine by asking chat support. The only caveat is it needs to be registered to an account. If you get a patient employee and ask kindly that the ads are not appropriate for children, it usually works.

[-] Tattorack@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

Right... Yeah, I would like to get rid of the ads. It sounds absurd that I pay for the device but then have to pay again to get rid of ads.

[-] FutileRecipe@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Amazon's logic is you paid a subsidized/cheaper price that is offset by included ads. You can buy it without ads (more expensive, obviously) from the start.

[-] SomeoneElse@lemmy.ca 6 points 11 months ago

I don’t turn airplane mode on and I haven’t jailbroken it. I download all my books from Anna’s archive on my phone and then send them to my kindle email address. The books appear on my kindle in seconds. No DRM issues. I have the oasis because I’m a big reader and I highly recommend it.

[-] mesamunefire@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

Not necessarily, Calibre makes this easy

[-] janguv@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 11 months ago

As others have said – nope. You can get a cheap enough Kindle without ads (and yes, it is absurd that there's an ad-version in the first place), and sideloading is a piece of piss. Either use Calibre or set up a Kindle email address. I mostly do the latter these days. The only downside (and the main upside to using KoReader, I would think) is that you don't get the full range of typography options sending over EPUBs this way – you would have to do a KFX conversation first (again possible with Calibre, but a bit of faff).