Reading this made me grateful that there are still ways to avoid all this surveillance. For example,—and this is just the tip of the iceberg—reading Standard Ebooks on a privacy-respecting ebook reader.
I buy non-DRM ebooks (so far, they cost about twice Kindle prices), and `rsync` them to the ereader over USB. More info: https://www.neilvandyke.org/ebooks/
The final straw was that time where I bought an ebook on a popular library website. I tried to open it on my computer, I knew it had DRM so I wasn’t surprised to have to install this Adobe DRM nonsense.
However during the installation, I just clicked on « Skip » when they asked for my Adobe account. Yeah it worked ! I could read my ebook on my computer, now it’s time to transfer it to my Adobe DRM compatible e-reader.
Well, fat chance, Mr book "owner", your book has been linked to your computer and not to your ereader Adobe account, you are stuck.
I said a lot of words kids shouldn’t hear that day.
In fact, I love e-reader, it’s practical, it’s lightweight, you can throw your entire library on a tiny sd card but I can’t stand this arrogance.
Contrary to digital music or movies, books are still superior objects in all aspects. They are sometimes beautiful, you can do what you want with them. You can own them or give them or borrow them or … And still, the industry thinks they can sell you those unpractical DRM files at mostly the same price (when it’s not more) ? That’s arrogant and they can go f themselves.
Now I only buy real books and anything on my ereader comes from Z-Library or a torrent tracker. At least they are files I can own.
Meanwhile in my jurisdiction, as long as I don't share with the public, I am free to download unencumbered ebooks and other media when I find them. No need to buy something for hope of non-prosecution.
However: We all know that creators don't get the whole money you pay for some works. If I would want to support a creator I would try to find a way to support directly.
In other words I find it a bad idea to buy a book as a way to donate.
Curious about this one. The price is set by the publisher, so it's not like you can just opt to pay for a DRM or a DRM-free copy of the book at checkout.
I assume you mean that the publishers who offer DRM-free books tend to be more expensive? That might track if they're indie publishers, since they can't afford to be loss-leaders on a product.
But FWIW, Tor Books offers all of their stuff DRM free across the major platforms (Amazon, Kobo, Google Play, B&N, Apple Books, etc.) and they go on sale just as often as the major publishers, in my experience.
Suggestions?
If you understand that and take proper precautions, I would imagine that any ereader that doesn't require registration would be fine. If you never put it online, it cannot accidentally go online. Plus it isn't tied to your name. Personally, I use Kobo. You have to jump through a hoop to bypass registration by modifying an SQLite database. Other than that there are no protections, so you aren't using sketchy software to realize that degree of privacy.
Libgen works with anonymizers.
You can download your books as you want and copy them to the device in many ways, including connecting the thing via USB to your pc and using it as an external storage unit. Sounds trivial but try to do that with a smartphone.
You can buy books from their shop if you make an account, but it is completely optional.
They have two privacy policies. The one which seems to cover their web site [1] and one which I assume is for their devices [2].
The latter says the following:
> We collect such non identified information concerning the Application:
> […]
> Usage Data includes information about how you use our Application. By Usage Data we mean: how you use your book library, information concerning which buttons on the Application you click, which you do not, how often do you use buttons, turning on/ off the device, setting font options, changing the interface language, sending archive, changing the library settings, setting the read mode. We collect these information to make our Services better for the end-customers. Understanding of your usage preference give us the opportunity to develop better Application, which will have higher reliability, usability, compressed functionality and extremely easy startup.
The first privacy policy [1] though says they do not collect any "Special Categories of Personal Data about you".
[1] https://pocketbook.ch/en-ch/privacy-policy
[2] https://pocketbook.ch/en-ch/reader-mobile-privacy-notice
With a pocketbook, you connect it and it is like you attached a USB stick.
Also, android encrypts the filesystem by default these days I believe. So unpowered fs access is a no go without a lot of work for a very niche use case.
Security doesn't really matter on a somewhat dumb e-reader though, so seems like sensible defaults for the respective devices tbh.
But it was _almost_ worth it. It's a really great reader, especially for reading PDFs.
After some software update about 6 months ago it got halfway uninstalled somehow and I did a factory reset and haven't reinstalled it yet. I recall reading that it's not on KOreader's side, and they can'tfix. :(
Apple Books thinks I want to put tiny 1mb epub files in my iCloud, which is full (no idea why) and then it won't save them. So when I reopen, now the book's gone even though I have like 40 gigs free on my phone. Simple interface, simple list of books to choose from, etc. And now the damned thing's gone and I have no idea why.
Besides, "airplane" mode is just an icon on the screen. If it has WiFi with a known password (or without one) within reach there's really no way of knowing if it's phoning home.
Amazon never denied the fact that they use their devices to collect data. That's why they are (relatively) cheap. Kindle, Echo, Fire TV - they are al presumed to provide data to Amazon on customer's preferences allowing for better ad targeting etc. If this data can be sold to third parties, even better, more revenue. This is not illegal and I'm not even sure it's unethical, as long as the buyers are aware of the deal.
What’s the symptom?
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2425330
Alternatively like me you can just remove the 3g modem in it's entirety:
https://peekread.info/tech/20210120-removing-3g-modem-from-a...
I recently bought a Kobo Nia, and then returned it because it required me to create an account before I could use it.
Afterwards I got a PocketBook Basic Lux 4. This I have been using without having had to create an account. I've also never connected it to any wifi. However, I have no way of knowing, without taking significant effort to investigate, whether it's not connecting to free wifi's and relaying back to home my books list etc..
I think this is bordering on the unreasonable to be honest. There is no reason to assume it's doing this, and it would be wildly illegal (in EU at least).
After some googling I found you can start it in "sideloader" mode. To do that I plugged it in as USB device and updated a config file by adding "sideloaderMode=true". After restart it skipped account creation and allowed me to start reading the books.
I use Calibri to manage my books and collections. Haven't found how to add dictionaries as of yet but I think it can be done too.
https://jacobalbano.com/2021/06/24/setting-up-a-kobo-without...