It seems the Google ebook store (which I otherwise liked because unlike any other ebook store I'm aware of, it has a good presence of graphically rich books), uses Adobe Digital Editions. I think it's unfortunate. I hear the format has not been updated in over four years. And the app is just generally a pain to use. For example, if you refuse to update the app when there is a new version available, the app quits!*
Worse, it is so draconian about Digital Rights Management that it does not even allow local storage of a book! This means it just stores a tiny 4k reference file, and you have to download the book every time you want to read it! If you're offline, you're f***ed.
It seems though that ADE is the standard option for DRM for PDF files. Meaning there's no good way. I hope that ebooks will go the way of music, into non-protected files. So far though the trend in that direction is virtually non-existent, so I'm not optimistic about it happening any time soon. It seems the book publishing industry is way more conservative than the music industry, for some reason. (If I'd been asked to guess in the past, I'd actually have guessed it opposite.) But then ebooks are the better part of a decade behind music in digitalization, so...
*And it does not even actually update when I click Update. Right now I'm trying to install the app again, but of course Adobe insists on downloading an "installer" first, and of course that download stalls, and I get a message that the "signature" is wrong, whatever that is. I hate Adobe installation and upgrade procedures, one way or another it's usually made into a nightmare.
2 comments:
Hello,
DRM or Digital Rights Management is a system by which the seller of an e-book can control and restrict what happens to their e-books. In other words, they restrict what type of device the book can be read on, and how you can use that e-book. There are many places that you can get e-books for free without DRM as part of the file. Thanks...
Prevent Save
I experienced the same: update doesn't work, the whole software is cumbersome to use and now the "find" doesn't work either. I will never again buy an e-book which comes in the "Adobe Digital Editions and DRM "format.
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