So before you can message anyone you have to download whatsapp?

I love how this seems like a near insurmountable hurdle. Install an app?? On a phone?!

I have a relative who is ~85 years old; he uses WhatsApp. It’s really not that hard.

The elephant in the room, of course, is that this is literally only a problem in the United States. Everywhere else in the world, folks are totally fine using messaging apps. WhatsApp is pretty popular worldwide, and there are regional favorites too. But, the point is, it’s only in the States that people seem to be against this idea. The answer for why is very much up for debate, but the conversation is, at this point, just getting exhausting.

Can confirm, as a Brit. We probably would have a sardonic explanation for why only people in the States are against using other messengers too…

But loans are temporal. That’s all that is happening – you’re renting out software (akin to digital library borrowing), in some sense, not buying a product.

The problem is how to do it otherwise and maintain enough income to ensure continued active development for future updates.

I don’t have a solution to it, and subscriptions aren’t ideal, but that’s the problem at least.

Yeah I think this presents a genuine problem for the active development of apps for smaller developers, for sure.

Right but OP isn’t talking about Stremio/Torrentio without Real Debrid, and neither is the guy in the comment chain you were replying to. I’m not sure you’ve a good grip on what Debrid services are by saying “just another Netflix”; it reads like you’re imposing your grievance about Stremio onto a thread that mentions it but does not recommend the use case you specifically object to.

The app “Island” sort of does this already.

That’s a fair criticism, but worth noting that if you’re plugging in an RD API then the vast majority of the time you’re not torrenting at all (and never on your network). You’re downloading from the cache. One person, one time has to request a torrent file to that cache. Which has likely always happened before you’re making any requests, unless it’s something very niche indeed.

Many people think you do not, for the reason I just mentioned in a reply to the comment you’re replying to. There are other reasons you might think it wise, but it is not true that with this setup you are torrenting on your home network.

If you are using torrentio, you are downloading via torrent on your home network.

Because you can configure Torrentio to work with an RD API, this is not true. That’s the point of the setup – the end user is neither seeding nor leeching any torrent files. They are using the add-on to access a cache elsewhere, providing them with a simple and encrypted DDL.

For as long as Magisk has been going, that’s been my root strategy. I’m new to hearing about KernelSU though. Any advantages?

It’s a question of whether they would ever get subpoenaed really, and then whether they’d comply. I’m not sure it’s worth it from the copyright holders’ perspective. The individual users are getting DDL links, so they’re not uploading – i.e. “sharing” – anything. These days, if holders go after anyone, it’s for the sharing not the downloading. As for compliance, I don’t think we have any evidence one way or the other, as (afaik) they are yet to be subpoenaed (despite running for a long time).

It’s also worth noting if you do want to do this totally privately: when you buy an RD subscription, you cannot use a VPN during that process (they block known IPs). So, you would want to use a public WiFi connection somewhere, and choose an anonymous payment method like paysafecard.

With your capitalisation of “rip” there, I nearly had a heart attack thinking something (implausibly) had signalled the end of rips from streaming platforms lol.

It would stop you from using the email sideload option, which is my favourite way to get books on. But you could turn WiFi on just for that and off again. More of an issue would be sync with the Kindle app, say on your phone. So if you don’t take it everywhere but find yourself stuck and wanting to carry on reading, you can get your phone out and pick up where you left off. Honestly, that’s pretty handy. But everyone’s use case is different.

As others have said – nope. You can get a cheap enough Kindle without ads (and yes, it is absurd that there’s an ad-version in the first place), and sideloading is a piece of piss. Either use Calibre or set up a Kindle email address. I mostly do the latter these days. The only downside (and the main upside to using KoReader, I would think) is that you don’t get the full range of typography options sending over EPUBs this way – you would have to do a KFX conversation first (again possible with Calibre, but a bit of faff).

Amazon actually deprecated the MOBI standard on there and switched to EPUB.

You would just find the directory location of the DRM locked ebook, put it in Calibre with the DeDRM addon installed and enabled, and hey presto, you have an unlocked clone. (This works on MacOS)

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You might do, but you might also want to just use Stremio with a Real Debrid account and save yourself ballache in the process.