How to read Kindle books without buying a Kindle

The Kindle ebook reader is a lovely device that some people love. However that love comes at a price. The cheapest version cost less than $100, and if you buy one, you have to put up with the hassles of learning how to use it, keeping track of, and maintaining it.

You can avoid the expense and hassle of buying a device by downloading a free Kindle application that will let you use your computer, tablet, or smart phone to read Kindle books.

Why is all this good stuff free?
Amazon.com, the company behind the Kindle, isn't in the charity business. While the Kindle devices generate revenue, over the long term they will make most of their money through the paid content, including books, that can be displayed on the Kindle device or on one of the free Kindle apps you can download.

How do I get this free Kindle App?
Simply go to Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/gp/kindle/kcp and download the appropriate Kindle app for your device. You can get an app for the following devices:

- Windows PC
- Mac PC
- iPhone
- iPad
- Android
- Blackberry
- Windows Phone 7

Once the download is finished, you can use your Amazon.com account to log into the online Kindle store to either buy content or to download free content. You don't have to have a Amazon.com account to read books and use other content, there are several advantages. One of the biggest ones is that you can download a sample of a book and evaluate it before you decide if you want to buy it.

Magic Kindle Powers
Since the Kindle app is free, you can download it for every device that you have. There are two ways that Amazon makes this a convenient option. First, if when you purchase a book, you can download it and read it on every device where you have a Kindle app. Second, if you make notes or bookmarks in a book on one device, when you open up the book on another device, all the notes and bookmarks transfer as well.

Try these free books
You don't have to get your books from Amazon. You can read .mobi format ebook file on your Kindle reader. Check out these two free ebooks from AirSafe.com's partner Speedbrake Publishing.

Parenting and the Internet
The AirSafe.com Podcasting Manual

Two Resources for Finding Free Online Documents

One of the things that I do to track who is reprinting my online content is to set up a weekly Google Alert for various article and page titles. That is how I came across these two resources for finding free downloadable article:

Osun.org is an online document search engine that allows you to look for PDF, Word, and PowerPoint files. This service doesn't host any of the documents, it only provides a search service. Although it looks like this site launched only last August, it is already a very high traffic site, ranked as one of the top 5,000 domains by Alexa.

The site doesn't provide any information about its ownership or history. Although its servers are hosted by Google's servers, there is no indication that it is owned or controlled by Google. A Shaw.ca article describes a test of the Osun.org search engine with Google and found that the results for the same search was similar, but beyond that they had no further insights about this site.

EbookNetworking.net is a more narrowly focused document search engine, focusing only on PDF files. It provides more information to the user, including an index of previously searched files.