FBReader

FBReader is an eBook reader which aims to be the universal reader program. For more information see fbreader.org/ It was formerly distributed under the terms of the GNU GPL, but is now closed-source.

Main Features

• Direct reading from tar, ZIP, GZIP and BZIP2 archives. (Multiple books in one archive are supported.)
• Automatic library building.
• Automatic encoding detection is supported.
• Automatically generated contents table.
• Embedded images support.
• Footnotes/hyperlinks support.
• Position indicator. Position is incremented every 2048 characters. This serves as a substitute for a page number.
• Keeps the last open book and the last read positions for all opened books between runs.
• List of last opened books.
• Automatic hyphenations. Liang's algorithm is used. The same algorithm is used in TeX, and TeX hyphenation patterns are used in FBReader. Patterns for Czech, English, Esperanto, French, German and Russian are included in the current version.
• Text search.
• Full-screen mode.
• Screen rotation by 90, 180 and 270 degrees.
• FBReaderJ — a Java implementation provides e-book reader for Google Android platform

Supported Platforms

Currently FBReader works on

• Linux desktop.
• Windows XP computer.
• Windows 10 via the Microsoft store
• FreeBSD computer.
• MacOS X (This port is available from the third-party site.)
• Various linux-based mobile devices:
  • Sharp Zaurus with Qtopia-based ROMs, pdaXrom or OpenZaurus ROM.
  • Archos PMA430.
  • Siemens Simpad with Opensimpad 0.9.0/Opie ROM.
  • Nokia 770/N800/N810 Internet Tablets (maemo).
  • PepperPad 3 handheld web computer.
  • Motorola E680i/A780 smartphones. (This port is available from the third-party site.)
  • IRex iLiad (This port is available from the third-party site.)
  • DR1000 and DR800 (This port is available from the third-party site, this forum thread .)
  • Hanlin V3 (see MobileRead forum)
  • Openinkpot - A full OS replacement, currently for Hanlin V3 and Hanvon N516
  • PocketBook - The primary reader.
  • Boyue - The primary reader.
  • SmartQ 5/7
  • Barnes and Noble Nook

The Apps below have both a free version and a premium version. The Premium version has many extra features. Compare Android and iOS versions

• Android - Active development supports 4.0 and above, older versions support down to 1.5.
• iOS - active development for iPhone and iPad, iOS 9.3 and above.

Supported Formats

• Supported formats are:
  • ePUB from <idpf> (some css, tables are not supported yet)
  • ePub 3 (most ePUB 3 specific features are not supported)
  • fb2 e-book format (tables are not supported yet).
  • HTML format (tables are not supported).
  • CHM format (tables are not supported).
  • plucker format (tables are not supported).
  • Palm DOC (aportis doc).
  • zTXT (Weasel format).
  • TCR (psion text) format.
  • RTF format (stylesheets and tables are not supported).
  • OEB format (css and tables are not supported).
  • Open Reader format (css and tables are not supported).
  • MOBI Non-DRM'ed mobipocket format (tables are not supported).
  • AZW3 Non-DRM'ed Amazon files.
  • Plain text format.
  • eReader format non-DRM'd
  • PDF on Android only using plugin.

New Features

As of Jan 5, 2009. Primarily for netbooks and laptops (both Linux and Windows]

• Network libraries integration has been added. FBReader can search and download books from Feedbooks.com and LitRes libraries. We plan to add more libraries in future releases.
• Partial CSS support for epub files has been added. CSS support in html and fb2 is coming soon.
• Epub and Mobipocket book formats support has been substantially improved.
• Library view usability has been improved: you can now organize the tree either by author or by tag.
• You can now select a word by double-click and a paragraph by triple-click.
• Right-to-left languages and bidirectional texts support has been added.
• Support for Arabic, Hebrew, Greek and Turkish has been added.
• Czech localization has been added.
• FBReader now has a new set of icons.
• It's now possible to use OS scrollbar for navigating through the text.

Improvements from Jan to May 2009. (bug fixes not included)

• Book description is visible for books found in network libraries.
• New library view has been implemented. You can open it with Menu->Library item.
• Table of Contents has been implemented.
• Epub format support has been improved. NCX table of contents support has been added, OPF namespace has been supported, etc.
• Experimental Mobipocket format support has been added. FBReaderJ support only modern non-DRM'd Mobipocket books. (Tested on the books from feedbooks.com.)
• Bookmarks have been added.

As of December 2009:

FBReader version 12 is now available. Improvements include:

• New presentation of library
• Better integration with network libraries (FeedBooks, LitRes, Shucang and SmashWords)
• Image scaling has been implemented
• Better encoding/language detection. Arabic and Indonesian patterns are back
• Mobipocket, eReader and chm support have been improved
• new page implemented for chapters.

As of March 25, 2010

• Internal links in XHTML, ePUB work.
• You can now purchase eBooks from SmashWords using OPDS.
• Localization now in 16 languages, including Lithuanian and Vietnamese

FBReaderJ

FBReaderJ is a Java implementation that initially provides e-book reader for Google Android platform. It is intended to provide all of the FBReader features eventually. It is under active development. So far:

FBReaderJ supports several e-book formats: OEB, ePUB, FB2, MOBI (new format only). In future releases the list will be extended to support the same formats as the original FBReader. Direct reading from ZIP, tar and GZIP archives are supported. OPDS is supported for direct access.

Special Implementations

• ILiad FBReader
• Hanlin FBreader
• Openinkpot
• EGriver Touch used for some formats.
• Portable version - Take FBReader with you on a card.