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Kindle is removing download and transfer option on Feb 26th

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Re: Kindle is removing download and transfer option on Feb 26th

#81

Post by daveoc64 »

addicted wrote: post #62

I’m not sure why anyone buys Kindles when there are so many better options available. I bought a Kobo Clara years ago, and it supports regular MOBI and ePub files. My book purchases are no longer liked with the reader and I’ve never had a problem in all these years. And this wasn’t even the best or best value for money device I could have bought. Today there are so many other better alternatives in all price points a…

>I’m not sure why anyone buys Kindles when there are so many better options available.

For me, the Kobo lacks something like the Send to Kindle feature.

I can send books I've obtained from outside the Kindle Store (DRM free sellers, Humble Bundle, public domain etc.) and then store them in my Kindle library.

These are then synchronised across all of my Kindle devices and apps - completely for free

Kobo does have integration with cloud storage, but it's not the same feature.

Plus it has the Kindle Store, which has the biggest selection of books for sale.

Re: Kindle is removing download and transfer option on Feb 26th

#82

Post by t-writescode »

pmarreck wrote: post #37

I own Kindles and I have bought a lot of ebook content from the Amazon store over the years but they don't seem to realize that the more restrictions they put in place, the more they are incentivizing just someone going to the effort to decrypt/de-DRM everything to epub and shoving it into a Kobo (or apple's Books.app, or comic book reader, or anything else that reads the ebook or comic book formats) ...Which is exac…

The first iPod and iTunes stores were very full of DRM.

Re: Kindle is removing download and transfer option on Feb 26th

#83

Post by loloquwowndueo »

42772827 wrote: post #43
wkat4242 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (2) The ability to transfer books from your computer to your Kindle using a USB cable is not affected. Well, it kinda is. If you can no longer download the books you paid for, you can't upload them over USB. That's what that feature on their website was meant for, in fact. Of course you can still upload non-Amazon content yes. Which is probably what I'll end up doing. I won't buy books on Amazon anymore if I can't…

You can still download books you paid a license to Amazon for, you just have to use a Wi-Fi or 4G LTE-enabled Kindle to do it.

“Just” - my gen 2 kindle only has 2G connectivity so this removal effectively renders it unable to get Amazon-purchased books in any way. “Just” implies buying an entirely new kindle “just because”.

Re: Kindle is removing download and transfer option on Feb 26th

#84

Post by input_sh »

buu709 wrote: post #19
wkat4242 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (Unless you DRM-crack, and get into the gray areas of the piracy culture that's creating much of the DRM problems.) Meh. Even if there was no piracy there'd be DRM. It's not only used to limit privacy but also how you can legitimately use stuff you bought. Like how many devices you can access it on. Or how many times you can view video content. In fact I think the presence of piracy helps keep prices low. I'm sure…

ebooks.com does tell you if a title has DRM or not, which seems to be the best option currently. Outside of that I haven't found much.

Not that I've ever encountered it in the wild, but I feel like pointing out that publishers can opt-out of DRM on Amazon as well. You'd recognise them by this in the description:

> At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

I only know about it because of Cory Doctorow, never seen anyone else that does this. Heck, even re-packaged public domain books contain DRM for some inexplicable reason.

Re: Kindle is removing download and transfer option on Feb 26th

#85

Post by thayne »

neilv wrote: post #11

For people already locked into Kindle, I don't know what to tell you. (Unless you DRM-crack, and get into the gray areas of the piracy culture that's creating much of the DRM problems.) But it would be healthy for everyone if people supported a DRM-free and non-surveillance ebook ecosystem. One solution I found is to buy ebooks as DRM-free EPUBs and PDFs, and read them in open source desktop tools and on my relativel…

> One solution I found is to buy ebooks as DRM-free EPUBs and PDFs

Unfortunately, for many, many books, this isn't possible, at least legally.

Re: Kindle is removing download and transfer option on Feb 26th

#86

Post by beshrkayali »

rafram wrote: post #33
Retr0id wrote: post #17

By the way, all kindle models are currently jailbreakable: https://kindlemodding.org/jailbreaking/WinterBreak/

As far as I can tell, the main benefit of jailbreaking is to be able to install a reader that supports more ebook formats, since a stock Kindle can already browse the web and read ebooks from any source, but it only supports MOBI/AZW3, and the Send to Kindle EPUB converter is not very good. But it’s easy enough to use Calibre to do a lossless EPUB -> AZW3 conversion without the hassle of jailbreaking. Is there some o…

It’s a bit more than just supporting additional formats. KOReader for example is a highly customizable (and mature) reader that’s hard to beat. Plenty of plugins exist also. In particular, one nice thing about the Calibre plugin is wireless sending of books and progress sync across device(s) and desktop.

Re: Kindle is removing download and transfer option on Feb 26th

#87

Post by vohk »

josteink wrote: post #78
syntaxing wrote: post #70

I don’t really get the Kindle hype. Kobo is a vastly better experience and the unlimited plans are more affordable. Kobo is $8 a month, $10 for books and audiobooks. Kindle is $12 flat. Kobo has g drive and Dropbox integration. Also the e-readers use the same screens (minus the “colorsoft” which is still a e-ink product).

Uh. My Kindle cost me $100 like 8-10 years ago and has literally zero running costs. What are these figures you are mentioning? If a Kobo means a monthly fee, I swear I’ll never even consider getting one.

They're referring to the subscription plans that give you unlimited access to their catalogue (or at least most of it), like Spotify versus buying an album. Both Kobo and Kindle offer individual purchases as well.

Re: Kindle is removing download and transfer option on Feb 26th

#88

Post by p1necone »

syntaxing wrote: post #70

I don’t really get the Kindle hype. Kobo is a vastly better experience and the unlimited plans are more affordable. Kobo is $8 a month, $10 for books and audiobooks. Kindle is $12 flat. Kobo has g drive and Dropbox integration. Also the e-readers use the same screens (minus the “colorsoft” which is still a e-ink product).

Idk about Kobo plus, the content available on it all seems to basically be the written equivalent of shovelware (unknown authors, questionable quality). I've almost never searched for a modern book I want to read and found it available on the subscription service.

Agree everything else is better though, and Amazon's equivalent subscription library could be just as bad for all I know.

Re: Kindle is removing download and transfer option on Feb 26th

#89

Post by tfsh »

josteink wrote: post #78
syntaxing wrote: post #70

I don’t really get the Kindle hype. Kobo is a vastly better experience and the unlimited plans are more affordable. Kobo is $8 a month, $10 for books and audiobooks. Kindle is $12 flat. Kobo has g drive and Dropbox integration. Also the e-readers use the same screens (minus the “colorsoft” which is still a e-ink product).

Uh. My Kindle cost me $100 like 8-10 years ago and has literally zero running costs. What are these figures you are mentioning? If a Kobo means a monthly fee, I swear I’ll never even consider getting one.

Kobos doesn't require a subscription. I switched from a Kindle to a Kobo Clara Colour recently and it's honestly one of the best tech choices I've ever made. Kobos are hackable by default, so you can literally plug them into Chrome and flash new software onto them via WebUSB (or just via the file system). The real kicker for me though is the support with Calibre, I have a massive collection of maybe 2000 books, and this perfectly syncs with my Kobo supporting filtering, collections, etc. attempting this with even 10 books with my Kindle would routinely break down, books not appearing even after waiting hours for it to index, corrupt file systems, etc, the entire device is designed to push you towards Amazon store, including the scammy "pay £20 more to remove adverts" and them disguising the actual price as "reduced".

The fee GP pointed to is a monthly subscription similar to Amazon's Kindle book club offering.

Re: Kindle is removing download and transfer option on Feb 26th

#90

Post by freeAgent »

bo1024 wrote: post #56
42772827 wrote: post #6

There have been several threads about this on HN over the past few days and months. Just to avoid the confusion that seems to follow these, a few notes: (1) This is the "Download and Transfer" option where Amazon allowed users to select books they had purchased a license to and download them from the Amazon website. (2) The ability to transfer books from your computer to your Kindle using a USB cable is not affected.…

This is far worse for me than the other possible interpretation - that you could download books but not transfer them. I buy Amazon e-books to read them on other e-readers, but now it looks like I can't.

That’s the bottom line. Kindle books will now be fully locked into the Kindle ecosystem and if Amazon decides to take back something you’ve “purchased,” you’ll have no recourse. I’m done purchasing ebooks from Amazon because of this.
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