Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Kindle is removing download and transfer option on Feb 26th

old.reddit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 226 posts

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

#91

Post by tfsh »

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…

Massive +1 to this, I'd recommend using Calibre to manage your library and any Kobo reader as the companion, I manage a massive 2000+ book library like like this, and never encountered issues with syncing, corrupt file systems, etc, which I did regularly with Kindle.

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

#92

Post by wkat4242 »

sitkack wrote: post #30
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…

That is what DRM is for . Same as the region locking in DVDs. It is about segmenting markets, preventing competition and ensuring that the publishers can sell the same content over and over again.

Yes I know, my point was that not pirating is not helping to remove DRM from the world as the OP was suggesting.

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

#93

Post by goosedragons »

input_sh wrote: post #84
buu709 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Kobo also does it. They tell you in the eBook details. It's the publisher's request. Publishers like Tor, O'reily and Baen go DRM free. If the re-packaged public domain books don't request it then on goes the DRM.

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

#94

Post by wkat4242 »

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.

Yes but not over USB of course. Another thing that bothers me about that, is that Amazon could block my account for whatever reason and I'd lose access to all my content. Of course this goes for many such services. Like Apple's app store, google play, steam, microsoft store (not like anyone ever uses that lol), content bought on itunes etc.

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

#95

Post by wkat4242 »

Uvix wrote: post #55
42772827 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Assuming that you have Wi-fi and that your Kindle is compatible with it. Someone with a hardwired-only connection, an older Kindle that doesn't support Wi-fi at all, or one that doesn't support WPA3 will be stymied. (The models that don't support Wi-fi at all originally had cellular service for wirelessly downloading books, but that was sunset a few years ago. So there will be literally no way to copy new books to th…

Yeah and Amazon stopped supporting those kindles too. My Kindle 4th gen no longer connects to the hive even with WiFi. It's not a cellular model (and I think they had dropped that option by then anyway). It's still the old non-touch UI though.

Apparently it needs to be "up to date" but because Amazon no longer publishes firmware updates, it is not.

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

#96

Post by freeAgent »

t-writescode wrote: post #82
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.

Yup, and thankfully piracy outcompeted them so Apple gave it up.

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

#97

Post by palata »

daveoc64 wrote: post #81
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 inte…

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

Because Amazon abuses its position to get there, right? I see how it makes it more convenient, but I also see how that is a reason for not buying a Kindle.

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

#98

Post by Arainach »

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…

People don't buy Kindles for the hardware. They buy Kindles because they work with a store that has the books they want to buy (and the hardware is good enough and cheap enough).

Without data I believe that more than 99% of ereader users have no idea what a MOBI or ePub file is and have never attempted to manually move a file onto their device. Instead, they go to a digital book store, click "buy", and content appears on their device.

Amazon does that as well as (better than?) any competitor, and crucially their store has the books people want.

I don't want a subscription store filled exclusively with LLM-generated trash. I don't really want to have to find which of a thousand websites will sell a DRM-free copy of something so I can buy it, download it, transcode it in Calibre into a format my device reads, and transfer it to my device. I'd much rather pay a few dollars, click a button that sends some money to the author and sends a book to my device.

This whole comments section reeks of "I don't understand why anyone uses Windows when Linux is so easy to get to", managing to simultaneously assume every user has a degree in computer science and overlooking all the rough edges.

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

#99

Post by Hackbraten »

I bought a Tolino vision color (a rebranded Kobo Libra Color with shittier software) a few months ago. If Amazon no longer allows me to download purchased books, I can no longer de-DRM them and read them offline on my phone, on my Tolino or on my computer. It seems that most stores outside Amazon have even shittier DRM than Amazon has. How am I going to be able to buy books in the future so I can actually read them?

I’m absolutely willing to pay for ebooks. I always did. For me, removal of the download feature will absolutely be a bookalypse.

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

#100

Post by palata »

wiether wrote: post #34

I hear the complaints about Kindle but... How are we supposed to do? In three "taps" I buy a book and 10s later I start reading it. Legally. The device just works. The alternatives? Libraries here (France) have a very limited offer of ebooks. Even for ebooks in English. I owned a Kobo circa 2013 and it was awful. I tried friend's devices more recently, and it's not the UX I expect from a "book". A simple comparison;…

> I owned a Kobo circa 2013 and it was awful.

I got my Kindle around that time, even though I had actively looked for alternatives. Nothing seemed to compare then.

But I'm ready to believe that now in 2025, Kobo caught up? I read many comments here praising Kobo.

Post reply on HN