Best Free Electronic Book Reader [1]
Introduction
There is a very thin line between an eBook-reader and a PDF-reader. While the PDF-reader just needs to read PDFs, an eBook-reader is expected to optimize the process of reading an eBook on your computer.
Desired characteristics are the ability to:
- Read various formats including PDF, HTML, TXT and other formats;
- Organize books into categories for easy reference and to create favorite lists;
- Annotate, highlight and bookmark pages.
Choosing one best reader among the multitude available is both a tough task and also an insensible one. Once upon a time, the humble .txt format used to be the only form of data. Today, there are nearly unlimited formats. While in an ideal world one would prefer all of this data to be in an open format, the same cannot be expected in the real world. Our books are tied down in either .pdf or .lit or .pdb. So, one has to exercise discretion in selecting the best reader.
Among the various software discussed here, most aim to only present your book in an almost paperback-like format. Only a few try to organize them and add value to the same. Since the main purpose is to read books and not just text, preference is given to those that add value rather than just display your book in a fancy format.
Rated Products
[3]
Mobipocket Reader [3] [4]
A fully-featured reading solution with an intuitive interface, annotations and even a dictionary search
Platforms/Download: Blackberry [5] | Windows (Desktop) [6] | [7]
Version reviewed: n/a
Gizmos Freeware [8]
| Our Rating: 4.5/5 |
|
Read more... [4]
[9]
Calibre [9] [10]
An open-source eBook library management application supports extensive file conversions
Platforms/Download: Linux [11] | Mac OS [11] | Windows (Desktop) [11] | [7]
Version reviewed: n/a
Gizmos Freeware [8]
| Our Rating: 4/5 |
Read more... [10]
Other eBook Readers
- Tom's eTextReader [12] reads rtf, html and txt files. Useful features are opening files directly from zip archives and a downloading tool for Project Gutenberg files. But the entire software is a little bit outdated. It lacks support for some commonly used formats.
- yBook [13] is a beautiful piece of software whose main aim is to provide a 'paper book' experience on the computer screen. It even allows you to choose what color your pages are and provides a default two-page layout (which can be changed). It opens .txt, .pdb, .rtf and .htm files. This also has a Project Gutenberg downloader. If you want a simple reader that gives you a book-like relaxed read then this is it.
- Adobe Digital Editions [14], to be reviewed.
Related Products and Links
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Editor
This software review is copy-edited by Jojo Yee [17]. Please help edit and improve this article by clicking here [18].
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