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Packt is giving away free ebooks every day to read on their website (www.packtpub.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by LittlePrimate@feddit.de to c/technology

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In case you did not know: Packt is giving away free ebooks each day. The main downside is that you can not download them. You have to access them via their home page but on there, you can ~~keep them forever~~ access them on their page as long as it exist.

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[–] vinushkah@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think it's not accurate to say you can keep them "forever" if you can't download a local copy

[–] MarsRT@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

yeah, anything you can't keep in your own physically owned medium is in the good graces of anyone who holds it for you. even if packt doesn't revoke these books someday, they could still shut down or something.

[–] LittlePrimate@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago

Fair point, I changed it. :)

[–] mrmanager@lemmy.today 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Ok but I assume these are books that almost nobody buys... I mean, now it was a book about Gephi, whatever that is.

And the other books were from 2018...it's probably not great to read those now, since tech moves so fast (with some exceptions).

[–] LittlePrimate@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

I don't disagree. The topics are a bit hit or miss and yes, my newest free ebook from them is from 2020, so all contents should be taken with a grain of salt. I did manage to grab some on C++, Machine Learning and different Pentesting tools, so not everything is completely obscure but as you said, usually they do not choose their most recent books. I see it more as a nice free resource on some topics in the books as of course not everything will be entirely out of date. It's also not necessarily worse than buying their 2023 books today and using them for the next 3 years... That's just a general problem with tech books, at least these outdated books are free.

[–] NotAnArdvark@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

I have an O'Reilly Learning subscription, and Packt books stand out to me as being surprisingly low quality. The editing is poor (or can be, I clearly haven't read them all) and with English often not the author's first language, it'll show. I've also seen books that copy RFCs verbatim, but don't give credit.

Anyway, "yay free books," but be prepared for the chance you've wasted your time.

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