Best Free E-book Reader Apps
Electronic Storage is cheap now and books finally are more at home on the computer or portable reader than they are in printed form. This is an exciting evolving technology, both in hardware and delivery methods. It is following much the same metamorphosis that digital music streaming and downloading has done to CD sales. Let’s look at the best apps for Windows for the reading of assorted e-book formats.
What we are looking for in a laptop/desktop e-reader:
1. Must be free and be able to import user libraries.
2. It must save the current selected book and it’s bookmark automatically when the app is closed and open back up to the same spot when the app is re-launched.
3. It must have an easy file manager for locating user books and preferably support multiple formats.
4. It must support different font sizes and if pdf is supported, zoom +/- on pdf.
5. It must be stable software. I’ve seen crashes where it I’ve lost my bookmark, page jumps of 10 when it should have been just one page, pages corrupted a ways into a book and even truncated books because a particular reader couldn’t handle the file size. None of the ones below have these issues.
Nice extras: Book icons on library shelves, background textures, autoscroll reading, cross platform same look and feel, syncing over multiple devices.
Dream wish: Book equivalent to Gracenote database for music so that you could get synopsis of the writer, other works and cover art on the independent e-readers. All this information is out there between the Amazon bookstore and Wikipedia. The commercial bookstore apps have this somewhat implimented.
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Mobi Reader (Windows, OS X)
This is the easiest to use reader of the bunch and my #1 choice. It was also the only one that halfway worked using touch controls on a Windows based touchscreen computer. The little side arrows are what makes that work.
Supported formats: pdb, mobi, pdf, txt
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Barnes & Noble Reader (Windows, OS X, iPad)
This is the only one of the commercial e-book readers that let’s you import your own book files. The physical Kindle will let you do this but not their PC app. The main goal of this reader, of course, is to sell e-books from Barnes & Noble and sync with the portable Nook reader.
Supported formats: pdb, epub
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Palm E-Reader (Windows, OS X, Linux)
Palm was the first to attempt to get e-books on portable devices back in Palm Pilot days. They set up an e-reader site (now owned by Barnes & Noble, go figure), this nice PC app and mobile apps for assorted portable devices.
Supported formats: epub
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Calibre (Windows, OS X maybe, Linux)
You have to love open source. Here is an excellent e-book format converter (not technically a reader but you can preview files in it) for practically any format to any other format. In practice, some conversion options aren’t allowed, for unknown reasons. It is free, stable on Windows (on both my MACs it is not, the spinning wheel runs forever) and you will undoubtedly need it if you download many books. Stanza is the only other app (mainly a reader) that can do conversions via it’s export function.
Supported formats: epub, fb2, lit, lrf, mobi, pdb, pdf, pmlz, rb, rtf, tcr, txt
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Other Reader Software:
FB Reader (Windows, OS X, Linux) – This is truly cross platform and open source. In fact it is the #1 e-book reader on Linux. That said, it has an odd GUI from mid 90’s with a really limited clunky file manager. If you move between all platforms, this and Opera will be the only two apps with everything in the same place. Supported formats: fb2, txt, html, rtf
Stanza (Windows, OS X, iPad) – This is worth getting just for it’s conversion abilities, mainly epub to html. It’s a capable reader and being actively worked on and growing in features and platforms. Supported formats: epub, azw, fb2, pdb, html, lit, doc, mobi, oeb, prc, txt, pdf, rtf
Sony Reader Library (Windows) – This app is mainly for support of the Sony portable e-reader but it will let you import your own books and does not require that you purchase one of their portable readers. The reading window is fixed size narrow and the fonts have a raggedy edge. Supported formats: lrf, lrx, epub, pdf, txt, rtf, doc
Opera (Windows, OS X, Linux) – Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Opera was the only browser that supported bookmarks inside an html page. By default, when Opera shuts down, it saves the page you are on and where on the page you were and re-launches to that very spot. When reading a 500 page html book, this is a must. Opera also supports the bookmarking of multiple books with their current page location. Supported formats: html, txt
Kindle for PC (Windows, OS X, iPad) – Amazon has something like 600,000 books available online. They absolutely win in biggest selection and the prices are pretty good. If you are only interested in buying books online this would be my first choice. Disclosure: I also own a Kindle 1 and a Kindle DX and love them (my iPad is nice too and it has the kindle app on it also along with six or so other reader apps). The PC app is restricted to bookstore purchased books only. Note that they do have a number of free books on their site. Supported format: azw (hardware Kindle reader supports txt also)
Borders Desktop (Windows, OS X, iPad) – This is the newest player in portable reader (Kobo) and e-book app software. It seems to work quite well but is restricted to their bookstore for reading. Supported format: epub, pdf, pdf with Adobe DRM
Adobe Reader 9 (Windows, OS X, Linux) – Well, it is a nice pdf viewer and refined. However, it doesn’t relaunch the last file that you viewed and to the point where you were last reading. They also have Adobe Digital Editions but I have found it limited in usefulness and downright dysfunctional on OS X. Supported format: pdf, pdf with Adobe DRM
Microsoft Reader (Windows) – I think the Microsoft Reader was the very first and pre-dates Palm entering this market. I remember downloading this in 1997 and oohing and ahing over the first e-book on it. They have it tied to their Microsoft e-book store which never really took off. Supported format: lit
Firefox add-on, EPUBReader (Windows, OS X, Linux) – great concept. You will have to pre-convert to ePub before reading and manually save your bookmark before exiting but it does look nice. The navigation is to scroll with Page Up/Down within a chapter and use a special chapter select scroll bar in the frame which is a little cumbersome. Supported format: epub
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Online options:
Bookworm (anything with a browser) – store your ePubs and read them from a mobile device or laptop on the go. It’s free.
Wattpad (anything with a browser) – store your book (gray legality since everyone else that visits the site can read them too).
I own and have read books on the Sony original reader, Kindle I, Kindle DX, iPad, Ipod Touch and Palm Pilot. They all work OK. The iPad would be the only one to consider for reading any pdf textbook. Kindle really is easier on the eyes and now the cheapest new one is only $139 (no 3G). You can’t beat that. I like the iPod Touch (or an iPhone would be the same) for reading in doctor’s waiting rooms. There are at least a dozen apps for the iPad to read books, topic for another blog post.
For taking notes and reading textbooks or pdf magazines, I would still stick with a PC based e-reader app and the bigger the screen(s) the better.
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Looking for a few websites where you can download free books legally?
Project Gutenberg – epub, mobi, html, txt formats
World Public Library Association – pdf formats
Baen – html, lit, mobi, rb (rocket reader), rtf formats
HINT: Don’t overlook the “Select All” edit command for moving entire books from a webpage to a local editor before saving locally.
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READER FORMAT DEFINITIONS:
Full definitions here: Wikipedia – e-book formats
epub = open standard format
pdb = Palm Digital Media format
prc, mobi = Mobipocket Reader format
fb2 = Fiction Book (XML) format
lit = Microsoft Reader format (based on CHM with DRM protection)
azw = Amazon Kindle format (with DRM protection)
lrf = Sony Reader format (lrx has DRM protection)
rtf = Rich Text Format, free to use and no DRM
html = Hyper Text Markup Language, webpage format
pdf = Adobe Portable Document Format, free use per Adobe
txt = Plain text ascii, free to use and no DRM
chm = Microsoft Compressed HTML (used on most Microsoft app manuals)
rb = Rocket e-book format
SUMMARY: You will have to be flexible for a while due to the range of formats out there. Arm yourself with Stanza and Calibre to do conversions. Also note that Firefox will save an html page as an rtf file (and OS X TextEdit app will convert rtf to txt) so us MAC users can convert too. Most of the focus is on portable hardware readers right now but as Windows tablets attempt to take off in popularity, apps like Mobi Reader and Stanza will be quite important!
Written July 31, 2010 by Vic Richardson
