Adobe Digital Editions
Adobe Digital Editions (abbreviated ADE) is an e-book reader software program from Adobe. It is used for acquiring, managing, and reading e-books, digital newspapers, and other digital publications. The software supports EPUB and PDF (nonproprietary file format for reflowable text, or fixed layout e-books; respectively). It implements a proprietary scheme of digital rights management (DRM) which, since the version 1.5 release in May 2008, allows document sharing among multiple devices and user authentication via an Adobe ID. Digital Editions is a successor to the Acrobat eBook Reader application.[1]
"Digital Editions" redirects here. For the electronic publishing format, see digital edition.Developer(s)
E-book reader software
Windows and Mac OS X versions of Adobe Digital Editions were released on 19 June 2007. The current Apple iOS version of the app has a one star and two star rating. Previous versions of the software required version 9.0 of Adobe Flash Player. Starting with version 2.0, however, which relies on .NET Framework 3.5 on Windows, Flash Player is no longer supported. Adobe initiated development of a Linux version of ADE in 2007; however, this has not had any beta release or any formal updates.[2]
Digital rights management[edit]
Adobe Digital Editions uses the proprietary ADEPT (Adobe Digital Experience Protection Technology) digital rights management scheme,[3] which is also implemented on some e-book readers, including iPads and many Android devices, but not Kindles.[4] The software locks content to up to six machines and allows the user to view the content on each of them. Barnes & Noble (B&N) e-books are protected with a variant of ADEPT.
In March 2009, the author of the reverse engineering blog i♥cabbages announced that they had broken the scheme.[5]
When viewing an e-book, Adobe Digital Editions by default stores the e-book locally as PDF files on Windows machines.
These files can be copied and handled like other files, but they cannot be opened except with Adobe Digital Editions. Adobe's website has virtually no information on ADEPT except on its trademark page and a statement that OverDrive is compatible.[6]