am I the only one strongly dissatisfied with the adobe drm format?

[king of nowhere]

I have just bough bands of mourning on kobo - which is the best way to get it in europe, and on which I already had an account. I got also the secret history, and could get it as an epub easily enough. Then came the problem. Bands of mourning was not available to download as an epub, and the only option was with adobe drm. So I downloaded adobe drm.

Once I was done, I clicked on the "epub with drm adobe", which was the only option. Immediately it asked me for an id authorization. It gave me a list of ebook sellers (not in alphabetic order, which made searching much more time-consuming) and kobo wasn't in it. So I had to click on "continue without authorization" or something, and my pc told me that in that case I wouldn't be able to open the book with any other pc, and even making a system reboot will forever forbid me from opening the book. Well, not too bad, I plan on getting the paper version in one or two months anyway. Although I was planning to read it on my tablet and now I will have to use my laptop instead. I opened the book, and noticed that there was no way of saving it. Yes, I cannot save the book and I cannot read it without an internet connection. I will take a trip shortly, and I was planning to read the book during the trip, and now they tell me that I cannot because I will have no internet connection during that time? This sucks!

Then I started to flip the first few pages, and came across the maps. They are very small. I can't read them. I tried to zoom and, surprise, apparently there is no zoom function! So I have my laptop with a huge screen and I will have to wait the paper version to be able to see the map. Also, I cannot enable scrolling, I have to flip pages - and when reading ebook, I really prefer to scroll.

So I paid almost as much as I would for a paper version, and all I get is a book I cannot download, cannot access from another computer, cannot access when I don't have an internet connection, like during a trip or in my mountain home, cannot see the map, cannot read it the way i prefer, and I will lose access to it when I change my laptop.

Well, as I have already bought the book, I feel fully entitled to go look if I find a pirated pdf version, that doesn't have all those problems. If I find that kind of thing for one more book, I will stop buying ebooks entirely; or, if it is only a kobo thing, I will unsubscribe from kobo - although it is difficult to buy those ebooks from europe otherwise, other vendors give me the error message.

I am paying good money and I don't see why I am to be limited to a crappy reader with limited functionalities. Unless I am missing something and there are hidden options I haven't been able to activate?

Anyway, if brandon has any control over it, then please, please, make your ebooks available in a format that will be comfortable to use also for those that don't have a smartphone. Thanks.

EDIT: Ok, after fiddling around a bit, I found a way to save the book so I can read it without a working internet connection. Still, the other limitations stand.

Edited January 29, 2016 by king of nowhere