Your opinion on them?

Question: Online manga readers
Choices:
Help popularize manga - votes: 3678 (28.9%)
Make it easy to read manga - votes: 5750 (45.1%)
Not worth lower quality - votes: 693 (5.4%)
Threaten scanlations - votes: 606 (4.8%)
Will cause problems with publishers - votes: 734 (5.8%)
Don't use them - votes: 1287 (10.1%)
There were 12748 total votes.
The poll ended: August 6th 2011

Last edited by lambchopsil at 10:54 am, Aug 6 2011

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A just ruler amongst tyrants

Don't use them and most likely never will.

Besides the often lower quality or annoying content delivery system, I like having content offline so I can watch/read at my own tempo without being dependent on remote machine for the continues delivery (not to mention the annoying loading times).
Call me old fashioned, but I just don't like web-based services.

Well, don't really mind as long as the downloadable archives are still being offered as the alternative.

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Who they, what are, and why?
- Manga Cover Database -

It depends..
It helps to popularize manga to an extent but people end up thinking these online readers are doing the scanlation works. Even more so when some reader sites put their own markings on the pages and basically claims ownership of the original scanlators and author's work.
Not saying everyone is like this but there are a fair share of people on the internet that reacts like this when a reader site isn't updating a certain series because scanlation on the series are scarce.

I don't have an issue with ones that repect the scanlation groups' wishes and rules, but the ones that spam it as soon as it's released are getting worse and worse in offending everyone but the ignorant masses.

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they are useful for previewing a manga before downloading it but i also believe it is the reason for problems with the publishers.

They're convenient. I follow so many series, and it's a pain to download every chapter that comes out.
They're good for the random single chapters that you can't be asked to download.

Every manga title I have bought is a title I read online first. I wouldn't dream about buying a manga without knowing what to buy - I don't have that kind of money.
So I only buy (ie spend all my money on) what I really like.

I read a lot online, but there doesn't pass a month I don't buy at least one volume.

I think as long as you give credit to the scanlators it doesn't threaten them at all, most scanlators don't do it for money, they just do it for the love of manga and they want other fans to be able to enjoy their favorite manga as well, and most of them use free hosting sites to release their manga so most of them dun need to store them.

It makes it a lot easier for me to get up to date with the manga I'm reading cuz I usually let some time pass to read them and it'd be a pain in the arss to download all the chapters I haven't read.

Also, many scanlaters use download trackers, that's why most of them don't like 3rd party hosts. Tracking downloads is a good way of keeping track of trends and popularity. I can imagine online readers don't offer any feedback to the 'original' scanlators.
Knowing if a series is popular or not might be a big factor in deciding if it's worth to continue scanlating.

Still, it's a step up to needing to register for many many many many many different sites simply to download a few chapters. Some abstraction would be much appreciated... OpenID anyone?

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Who they, what are, and why?
- Manga Cover Database -

Without online readers it would be impossible to start reading new series and/or catch up with series when the dl links of the scanlation groups expire, only very few groups host manga on their own server.

That aside, I'm not using online readers in the classical way, I use a manga-downloading software to download the mangas off online reader's sites and then use a specific mangaviewing software to read them.

how could it make reading manga easier?? with physical manga you can read it while on the toilet. and you don't need to be online..

just as for scanlation teams, Online manga readers only help popularize the manga... but for publisher, they are both a gift and a curse ^_^

Just like @tactics, I use it to read oneshots or random chapters (just to peek the inside).
Have no problem with it.

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I still prefer to download the chapters if I can, if I can't find download links I go to online readers. It's like a last resource for me, I'm just like that

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This week's favorites:

- Golden Kamui





ççççççç[Ô .Ô] tsutopodus© will eat your manga and steal your cats!

Same as tactics and comel.....

If it's the latest released chapter, I'd just download it off of the scanlator's site usually.....

I prefer the online readers on actual scanlator groups` sites as opposed to big hosting sites like MangaFox....

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I read most of my manga online. I buy it too, but a bunch of that stuff isn't available in English and not every series I read is good enough that I would re-read it, so there would be no point in spending money on it. I prefer to read online rather than download because it saves space on my computer and it is more convenient--downloading every chapter would be a pain. If MU notifies me (in my list) that a chapter is available, usually the online readers don't have it yet, so I'll go to the scanlator's website, but the scanlators themselves often have a read online option, and if they do I will go with that. The scanlators who make you join their forum or something like that in order to read their manga definitely contribute to me using online readers--it is their choice, since they are doing the work, but it just isn't practical (with the amount of manga I read) to sign up for dozens of sites. Also, online manga readers are a nice central place to go find manga. You can find good stuff by clicking on random series, or, for example, I'll see when I go to read another series that a series on my "on hold" list has been updated after however long, and I wouldn't know otherwise. So, yeah, I use them a lot and like them a lot.

I buy 99% of my manga, but the 1% I don't buy, I read off those kinds of sites. It's easy, and some of them let you subscribe so they update you of new chapters via email. I like that.

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