Fifty-Three Shots Fired

Those of you who keep a close eye on this news blog, the old site, and the social media channels will know that piracy — fake or otherwise — is a constant annoyance.

Two days ago an opening salvo was fired at 53 web sites and servers, all purporting to offer free copies of the Armada Wars eBooks. As of this morning, 42 of those offers are now either returning Error 404, or  the pages have been permanently delisted by Google (which will go hand-in-hand with a big dip in search score for that site).

Of those sites, some were simply offering dynamically generated pages which lead the reader to a legitimate, paid subscription service. The reader will discover after signing up — and earning a commission for the 'salesman' — that the service does not in fact have any of the Armada Wars books.

Others, which I tested personally, were pages which attempted to download malicious code and/or installers at every opportunity, also opening additional browser windows in the background.

If you want to read Armada Wars cheaply/free...

The books are discounted or given away regularly. Follow the brand and the books on social media, and follow this news page (there's an RSS feed for your convenience.)

​If you already have Kindle Unlimited then you can already read them for free.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's better to wait for the offer to come up direct from the source than to place your trust in unscrupulous people who start with a lie. You don't want malicious programmes on your device, or to sign up to a service which doesn't actually have what you want.

And, once more, the Armada Wars eBooks are exclusive to Kindle by contractual obligation. If you see it anywhere else it's not legit, and you should report it.