Kiwix

The wonderful functionality offered by Kiwix (it is an offline reader for web content that specializes in making Wikipedia available offline) is complemented by a user friendly and customizable interface, by the fact that the application is offered for the great price of free, and by the fact that it is available for multiple platforms (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Archlinux, Sugar, and Debian).

To get started with Kiwix, you will have to download an archive that is about 35MB in size. Inside this archive you will find two folders: Install (contains the executable you need to run to install Kiwix on your Windows-powered machine) and Kiwix (this folder contains the portable version of the application; launch Kiwix.exe and you will immediately get started with the application).

When you run Kiwix for the first time, you will be asked if you want to download the remote catalogs of the available books. Confirm and you will be presented with a list of ZIM files you can download. Once the download completes, you will be asked if you want to open it right then and there.

The main panel of the application’s interface displays the “Welcome to Kiwix” help file which provides useful information about the functionality offered by the application and at the top there’s a traditional File Menu and buttons for several Kiwix functions. The nice thing about this interface, besides the fact that it is very easy to use, is that it can be customized: skins, languages, zoom, tabs, and inverted colors are supported.

Kiwix works much like a web browser, but unlike a web browser it provides access to offline content. There are numerous ZIM files that you can download onto your machine, load, and then have access to their content while you are offline. As mentioned above, Kiwix specializes in making Wikipedia content available offline. When you’re on a trip for example, and you don’t have internet access, you can access Kiwix knowledge thanks to Kiwix.

Kiwix is a free application.

Based on the Mozilla framework, Kiwix provides offline access to Wikipedia knowledge.