It looks to me that B&N is trying to force people to use their browser based readers, which includes Safari, Firefox and Chrome (as well as IE), which which, in theory would give Mac and PC (and Linux) users access to their books.īut in practice this will limit non Nook users to using computers that have access to the internet, and a stable browser.Īs an owner of two Nook devices, I find this to be intolerable. About one third of my Nook books won’t work with Nook for Web at all.įiled Under: Nook Tagged With: apps, nook for pc

Not only does Nook for Web require an internet connection to use, you can’t download ebooks to read offline, there are very few features, it’s slow, and worst of all not all Nook books are compatible. The folks at B&N will tell you that PC and Mac users can still use Nook for Web as an alternative, but from my experience that’s a sorry alternative. B&N chooses to ignore over 90% of the population. Since Microsoft gave B&N a bunch of money, the only computer-based reading program they care about is the one for Windows 8, which still only represents a tiny percentage of overall usage. And if you bought ebooks in the past when those programs were available you would have been able to read Nook books on a computer. You pretty much have to own a Nook device or use a Nook app to read ebooks purchased from B&N. The biggest problem with Barnes and Noble’s ebooks is that they contain different DRM that makes them incompatible with most dedicated ebook readers and reading apps. For people who made purchases with the idea that they could download and read their Nook books on a computer, they are being seriously shafted. Whether or not this has a direct impact on how you read ebooks isn’t important. This is a bigger deal than it may sound like for the simple fact that Barnes and Noble is removing functionality from their ebookstore. Like last time, the programs are not listed anywhere on B&N’s website, but you can still download them if you happen to know the exact url:

Barnes and noble nook reader mac