Information is strength. Knowledge is power.
And knowledge can also be obtained for free.
I was at my parents place the other day. Voracious readers, they have tens of thousands of books, accumulated over half a century. The staggering thing is not just the cost of this accumulation but the physical space which this library occupies. This needn’t be a problem for us.
Where do I acquire books for free?
I use three methods: websites, IRC and searching. The established websites are very good and have about 95% of what you’ll ever need. I’ll then revert to IRC if I can’t find what I’m looking for on any of the sites I’ve listed. If I still can’t find it I’ll use Google or Yandex to help find what I’m looking for. Trawling search engines works best for pirating courses and other things which might not make their way to Anna’s Archive or Libgen.
Websites
IRC
IRC Highway (ebooks channel)
Undernet (ebooks and books channel)
Guide of how to use IRC to get ebooks here
Search Engines
I’ll use Google to try to hunt down anything I can’t find on the above methods. Searching Google properly is a skill, much the same as prompt engineering is, so often you’ll need to take full advantage of Google’s search features to find things quickly. I’ll also use Yandex to find things too. Yandex is a Russian search engine and is great for finding anything that is usually paid, for free.
If you have other great methods, feel free to share in the comments.
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