There are plenty of reasons why you would like to have Wikipedia or at least parts of it stored on a portable device and available somewhere where an Internet connection is missing. Though that might sound like mission impossible, there’s actually a program that makes it possible. Its name is Kiwix. Kiwix lets you access, enjoy and benefit from the popular Wikipedia when your device is lacking an online connection. It is basically an offline web content reader, mainly suitable for Wikipedia articles.
Since it obviously represents a faster way of displaying the content than the actual Wikipedia, as it doesn’t rely on the connection speed, it is also a viable choice for schools or libraries. It can also save some bandwidth.
Anyway, in order to properly function, Kiwix requires additional files to be downloaded prior to its actual usage. These files (ZIM format) that contain the actual Wikipedia articles are pretty large, despite already being compressed using a highly effective algorithm. Anyway, this is a minor downside that doesn’t reduce from the merits of this great tool.
Kiwix comes with a handy interface that resembles the original Wikipedia a lot. There are bookmarks, notes, full text search engine, tabs navigation, and so on.
Considering that it’s also open source, Kiwix is simply a great tool. It’s lightweight and resource-friendly and can be used without any problem on older computers too. I can only recommend it with all my heart.
Download and archive entire websites such as forums, galleries and online books.
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