Extension Watch: Turn Firefox into an Ebook Reader with EPUBReader

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You can use a dedicated application like FBReader or Calibre to read and manage ebooks on your machine, or you can do it without leaving the convenience of the Firefox browser courtesy of the EPUBReader extension.

With this extension, you can open any ebook in the ePub format directly in the browser using the File -> Open File command. EPUBReader conveniently splits the main window into two panes. The left pane contains the hyperlinked table of contents, while the right pane displays the book. The buttons at the bottom of the right pane let you change the font size, go to the next or previous pages, add a bookmark, and save a copy of the book. The ePub Catalog button provides access to the catalog section which lists all books in your library. But that's not all: EPUBReader also supports OPDS-based catalogs. This means that it can access book catalogs of Web-based book repositories such as FeedBooks.com and Archive.org. You can use this feature to access, browse, and search catalogs of these repositories directly from within EPUBReader. And when you find the book you like, you can open it in EPUBReader with a single mouse click.

To configure EPUBReader's settings, press the Preferences button. This opens the EPUBReader Preferences dialog window where you can tweak background color, font, font color and size, margins, and other settings. If you are using Calibre to catalog and manage your ebooks, you connect EPUBReader to Calibre's catalog. To do this, switch to the Miscellaneous section, and enter the link to Calibre's OPDS file in the Calibre OPDS Url.