Favorite Book Reader
FBReader is fast and highly customisable e-book reader for devices running Android OS (version 1.5 or higher is supported, 2.0 or higher is recommended).
Editions
Since June 2015 FBReader for Android is available in two editions, Free and Premium. Refer the table below for the differences.
Main features
- supports a lot of e-book formats: ePub, kindle (mobipocket) fb2, rtf, html, microsoft doc, rtf, and plain text
- book collection, reading positions, and bookmarks can be synchronised with FBReader® Book Network, a Google Drive™ based cloud service.
- PDF, DJVU, and comics (CBR and CBZ) files are supported via plugins (PDF plugin, DjVu plugin, comic books plugin). PDF and comics support is built in FBReader Premium Edition. It is not possible to include DjVu code into the main program due to licensing issues
- provides a programmatic API, so some additional features are available via third-party plugins. Most popular is Text-to-Speech plugin by Hyperionics.
- supports direct reading from zip archives
- organizes user library by titles, authors, series, etc.
- bookshelf view for library is available as a separate plugin
- provides direct access to a lot of network e-book libraries and stores
- supports adding of custom OPDS catalogs
- is integrated with popular dictionaries like ColorDict, SlovoEd, Fora, etc.
- can use external TrueType/OpenType fonts
- is localised for 29 languages
- includes hyphenation patterns for 16 languages
Our short-term plans
The next big update 3.1 expected later in 2021. Please read the features table for 3.x release series.
History and current version
FBReader for Android was written in Java as a clone of original (C++) FBReader program. It was named FBReaderJ, but now we prefer to write “FBReader for Android”. Initial version was partially written as a student project at Academy of Modern Software Engineering.
Latest stable release of FBReader is 3.0.32. The Premium Edition is only available on the Google Play. Free version is downloadable on the Google Play, from other android markets, and from this page.
- Latest FBReader for Android 4.1 and higher
- FBReader 2.8.13.2 for Android 4.0-4.0.4
- FBReader 2.7.15 for Android 3.* devices
- FBReader 2.6.15 for Android 2.* devices
- Version 1.8.2 for old (Android 1.5/1.6) devices
- Additional modules are available from a separate page
For developers
Until release 2.7, FBReader source code was dual-licensed: GPL and commercial. Unfortunately, GPL violations become a common thing. Currently, the source code is closed.
If you consider using the latest FBReader engine in your own app, please look at FBReader SDK. It is a commercial framework distributed in binary form. You can download the SDK and test it in demo mode before deciding.
The full sources of FBReader 2.6.15 for Android 2.x are available under the GPL from the git repository at GitHub.