Sunday, November 25, 2012

FBReader, an excellent epub/ebook reader


 I personally have gotten into epub books, or "ebooks" because of using my Android tablet.

The documents from JW.org are many times available in epub format.

I really like the Watchtower and Awake epubs, because the scriptures are right at your fingertips. You tap (or click) the scripture, and you can read it, you tap it again, your back to your place in the Watchtower.

Here are some screenshots of FBReader in action on an Android tablet http://www.fbreader.org/FBReaderJ:




FBReader ends up being not only my favorite epub viewer in Ubuntu, my personal favorite OS, but also is my favorite epub viewer on Android.

FBReader in my opinion, works better, faster, and is less clunky than the Nook and Kindle software available for Android.

Simple is usually better, and in this case there seems to be no exception to this rule.

From "man fbreader" on Ubuntu:

"FBReader is an e-book reader. It supports most open e-book formats, and can read compressed e-book archives."

From FBReader.org's About Us page:

"First public version of FBReader (for Sharp Zaurus platform) was written in early 2005 by Nikolay Pultsin. In July 2007 Nikolay founded Geometer Plus LLC. The company is registered in Russia, St.Petersburg."

If you are in the market for a epub reader on your computer or your tablet, give FBReader a try.

Here are some screenshots from my Ubuntu laptop of FBReader:




You can get FBReader on Ubuntu by either searching for it in the software center, or by typing sudo apt-get install fbreader in a terminal application, which is usually available via ctrl alt t, or the menu.

On Android, you usually can get FBReader via your Android Market of choice.

The website http://www.fbreader.org/FBReaderJ also contains downloadable versions for Android.

P.S., On the tablet, their are options to change the background image. I personally went with a solid color instead of the distracting background images, and made the background color less than perfect white which is all 255's in the color settings. I made red 245, green 245, and blue 245.

 But lower = darker, so if this is too bright for you, then you might want to go to 235, for instance.

The reading glare was too much for me at perfect white. (Again, all 255's for perfect white.)

7 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nice information sharing here about FB reader. There are so many of e-book readers available online which working good and provide flexibility, speed and reading comfort in any device like android phone, computer, laptop etc.

    ebooks

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi, here is another great tool for ubuntu, Great Little Book Shelf

    Webpage: https://sites.google.com/site/greatlittlebookshelf/
    Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shUfCEv9o-0

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for the great post, I am thinking about writing a little article about it!

    ReplyDelete
  5. You can consult me as author or as your brother :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. I love the software brother. I personally prefer the epub option over the pdf option, but I can see this being a big hit with the pdf book readers. Excellent work!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Next thing is epub (when I find out how to do that), for now is just pdf. If people love it I'll make it.

    ReplyDelete