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Z Library

z-lib.org

142 pointsgh0std3v36 comments

For those who may not know, this is a front-end to LibGen. I like the search feature more and use it now and then, but for me the 5-downloads-per-24h limitation is usually quite limiting.

The recommendations are also generally good.

Z-Library for discovery, LibGen for fulfillment!

Why is that limiting? Can you honestly read more than 5 books in 24h?

I have hundreds of books I want to dump if I substitute the digital version on my disk. When in discard mode, I easily hit the 10/day limit of a free account. But that is what the favorites list is for, to spread things out over days.

Yes, I can both skim and collect more than 5 books in 24 hours.

Collect (I presume you mean download?) is an easy part and I agree one can download thousands of books in 24h. Skimming is very different from reading is very different from learning. If you want to skim titles/headlines then yes it's a limitation. I'd just argue it's not what books are for.

> I'd just argue it's not what books are for.

Who are you to decide what books are for, especially on a pirate site? I use libgen for research. Trying to figure out if a book is good for what I'm looking for is hard! In a traditional physical library, I'd sit in the stacks and scan through sometimes dozens of books before finding what I'm looking for. Then I'd check out those few books and read them more in depth.

Other people deciding what books are for is one of the main reasons libgen exists!

Friends have been telling me it's generally easier to find stuff on z-lib than it is on libgen.

Does it have a better search engine? Does it have more books than libgen? Are they just wrong?

From my experiences with it, in LibGen you have to search exactly what you want. A simple typo ruins it. Z-library is a better in that regards, so typos don't really ruin the search, allowing you to find stuff more easily.

I don't know whether they have a different dataset of books, but the search engine is definitely vastly superior. Not only in looks, but most importantly in terms of results.

I think Z-lib indexes libgen's recent uploads much faster, so it makes a difference for newer books.

Non related with Libgen and much better when searching IT related books.

I just use tor when I download off it and spam changing my IP when it doesnt work till it does

Promotion of piracy web-sites on the front of HN, nice. While we're at it, gen.lib.rus.ec is a good one, too (less fancy but without the 5 books/day limitation).

Isn't this just a commercialized version of Library Genesis?

Correct. Library genesis itself (see https://libgen.rs/ or https://libgen.fun/) is run by volunteers on a strictly non-commercial basis and does not charge for access or accounts.

There’s fiction books on Z Library that you can’t find on Library Genesis, especially in French for what I know.

You know that libgen has a separate category for fiction, right?

Even outside of this genre, I found some titles I couldn't on libgen at times, which made me very confused about the system is structured.

I was so excited at the prospect of Z being on the front page, but sadly the wrong one for me

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_notation

Haha same here but sadly the wrong one for me https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_(video_game)

They have most of the Z books listed in Wikipedia:

https://book4you.org/book/1057065/129aaa

https://book4you.org/book/715472/efd9e3

https://book4you.org/book/1170163/0d5082

That's fun, thank you!

This looks pretty sketchy. The FAQ, blog and DMCA links from the posted page all 404. Seems odd for a site that supposedly has been providing ebooks since 2009

I'm not even going to try clicking the book, article or sign in links

Been using it for over 5 years, it's legit.

Site is perfectly fine. It’s nearly the same content as libgen but with a nicer search engine and a recommendation system.

I've been a long-time user of z-lib and never had any issues. YMMV.

The site is fine. I've never encountered any problems.

I was under the impression that (at least the books section) is a giant free-for-all download archive, i.e. pirated works (== download epubs of commercial novels you didn't pay for).

What am I missing?

I’ve used this for a lot of math and CS textbooks. I’m not sure if this has been posted before, so feel free to flag it if it has.

You can run it through https://hn.algolia.com/?q=https%3A%2F%2Fz-lib.org%2F

( with the search box in HN footer )

Reminds me of the Gentoomen library

Lib. genesis clon-backup, nice to see it up and running.

To be clear, the real zlib lives on http://zlib.net/ The .org variant is basically typosquatting the name.

This is z-lib.org, which is entirely different.

FWIW, zlib.org gives a

  <META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" content="0; url=http://www.zlib.net">

and its body contains:

  zlib.org is temporarily redirected to <a href="http://www.zlib.net">zlib.net</a>

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