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!

  • lckdscl [they/them]@whiskers.bim.boatsEnglish
    12·
    1 year 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.caEnglish
      3·
      1 year 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.netEnglish
      3·
      1 year 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 [they/them]@whiskers.bim.boatsEnglish
        4·
        1 year 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.

      • skankhunt42@lemmy.caEnglish
        1·
        1 year 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

          • skankhunt42@lemmy.caEnglish
            2·
            1 year 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.

  • Beaupedia@lemm.eeEnglish
    10·
    1 year ago

    Give Kobo a look, Amazon isn’t the only name in the game. Kobo lets you connect directly to your library and check out books on the device, I absolutely love mine after having a couple Kindles.

  • RepulsiveDog4415@feddit.deEnglish
    5·
    1 year ago

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

    I use library genisis. Great for scientific papers and adequate for fiction.

  • Cowbee@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Not exactly piracy, but if the book in question is public domain, my favorite site is Standard eBooks! Very high quality books, with proper formatting and translations.

  • Praise Idleness@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    21·
    1 year ago

    Anna’s Archive. As a fellow Kindle PW user, don’t buy(that is if you can call paying for DRMed ebooks buying) anything on Amazon. Use airplane mode and never turn it off.

    • unknowing8343@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      Newish Kindle (basic) user here. Any issue aside from battery life to justify airplane mode always on?

      Being able to translate or look stuff up on Wikipedia is amazing for me.

      • Praise Idleness@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Because fuck Amazon. /s

        I’m joking but additional battery life and shutting off telemetry outweighs Wikipedia lookup, that is of course to me. I also bought with-ads version of it so permanent airplane mode keeps it away. (I know I can kinda get them removed by asking Amazon)

  • 520@kbin.social
    0·
    1 year ago

    Personally I would recommend a Remarkable. It’s more expensive but soooo much more useful with a pen.

    You can load books onto a Kindle, but format conversion is required and the results are not always pretty.

      • 520@kbin.social
        0·
        1 year ago

        It really is. Shit, I don’t fawn over tech purchases, but the remarkable is so damn useful.

        Pretty easy to homebrew on too, no jailbreak required. I’m tempted to make a libgen app for it.

        • ReallyKinda@kbin.social
          0·
          1 year ago

          Yeah and they’re constantly adding phenomenal user requested features in their updates (even for the original kickstarter device that I have). A libgen app would be convenient!