If so, how do you do it? Do you use Google Play books or use apps like PDF file readers? I’m only 19 and I’m interested to start my reading hobby. Though I can also grab some books on a close bookstore nearby, I am also interested to do it digitally.
I do almost all of my reading on my phone and have for more than a decade. There are many excellent book reading apps, but your source for material will probably limit those options. I prefer books in the ePub format when possible. PDF files also work fairly well, although they are not as convenient to read because they have built-in page breaks that don’t correspond match up with phone screens. Standard ePub and PDF files do not include any DRM (copy protection), although there are variants which do.
If you buy books from Amazon you have to use their Kindle app (unless you use tools to strip the DRM). Borrowing books from your library is a great option, but that will also limit your reader options. Many use OverDrive, which has its own reader. Fortunately Kindle and OverDrive both work pretty well.
Personally, I use various tools to remove the DRM from the eBooks that I buy, then I convert them to ePub. I do believe in authors getting paid for their work, so I don’t share them.
Have you done any DRM stripping recently? I bought books back in my Kindle days that are now trapped there. They made changes last year so you can’t easily transfer files on to your Kindle reader and I think they tightened the DRM too. I tried via Calibre, which used to work but doesn’t any more.
DRM is always a moving target. For a long time I used the free DeDRM tools in combination with Calibre to remove it from Kindle books, but that software is no longer supported. There are several commercial options. The only one I’ve found that has really kept up with the changes is EPubor Ultimate.
When the big change hit, almost nothing worked for a while. EPubor got their DRM-removal working again in a month or so. Since then, I don’t think they’ve ever been more than a week behind in updating their software to deal with the changes.
I hate DRM. I pay for everything I use and feel that I should be treated as a valued customer and not as a probable thief.
Thanks! For me, finding books I’d bought and paid for locked away underlined the stupidity of DRM. If they were print books, I could lend them to people, sell them, give them away. Because they’d belong to me, I bought them. No fuss about intellectual property rights or whatever.