How to open fb2 file on Android? The best programs for reading FB2 books

Paper books gradually switched to electronic form, and now all book lovers, instead of extensive bookshelves, acquire a variety of files. And sooner or later the question will arise about how to open a Fb2 file, because these types of books are the most common and convenient for use.

Fb2 is the most popular format for e-books. Its main advantage is that it will look the same on all types of devices with any operating system and screen resolution.

From this it becomes clear that there are programs for opening Fb2 files for all platforms and devices. Moreover, there are a huge number of such programs, and I will talk about some of them in this article.

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• A program that opens djvu files.

How to open FB2 file

If the user has a question about how to open FB2 on a computer, the problem can be solved using software that supports files of this format.

Many programs support work not only in the Windows operating system, but also in other operating systems, including mobile ones. I have collected some applications in the table so that the user can decide which program to open the FB2 file, based on the installed operating system on a specific device: computer, smartphone or tablet.

Popular programs for reading books in FB2 format (table):

The user can choose one universal solution or several specific applications for different types of devices, depending on their needs or tastes. Some developers are developing applications for mobile devices, but the PC versions have not been updated for a long time. Others specialize in versions that run on the Windows operating system.

First, we’ll figure out how to open an FB2 file on a computer using programs, and then we’ll look at reading books in browsers, on an online service, or on a device running Android.

OmniReader

It is possible to open fb2 on your computer without installation, because there is an excellent online portal for this!

As you can understand from the screenshot above, it is quite omnivorous and understands many text formats, including our fb2.

The support for reading without downloading the book is also nice, you just need to insert a link to the file. We’ll load our usual example in the form of the well-known “Robinson Crusoe” and look at the functionality.

To my surprise, OmniReader offers a very good set of settings for customization, being just an online reader. Here you can select full-screen mode, customize the background, text formatting, font, flipping animation, and keyboard commands. Everything you need for comfortable reading!

Also, it should be mentioned that the work is quite responsive, which also speaks in favor of this portal.

You can even say that in terms of functionality, OmniReader bypasses some of the above options.

Quite convenient and comfortable, I recommend it!

FBReader

The free program FBReader is a universal tool for reading e-books on different devices. The program supports all major operating systems: Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS.

In addition to FB2, the program supports some other file formats. The user needs to add the e-book file to the library to open it in the program.

How to read a book in FB2 on Android

Since this is still a book format, the use of e-reader applications seems logical. The logic in this case is not wrong, so let’s consider the applications that best perform this task, and which free FB2 reader to download for Android.

Method 1: FBReader

When people talk about FB2, the first association among knowledgeable people is with this application, available for all popular mobile and desktop platforms. Android was no exception.

1. Open the application. After reading the detailed introductory instructions, presented in the form of a book, click on the “Back” button or its equivalent in your device. A window like this will appear.

   Select “Open Library” in it.

2. In the Library window, scroll down and select File System.

   Select the memory storage where the book in FB2 format is located. Please note that the application may take quite a long time to read information from the SD card.

3. Once selected, you will find yourself in the built-in explorer. In it, go to the directory with the FB2 file.

   Tap on the book 1 time.

4. A window will open with an annotation and file information. To start reading, click on the “Read” button.

• Done - you can enjoy literature.

FBReader could be called the best solution, but not the most user-friendly interface, the presence of advertising and sometimes very leisurely work will prevent this.

Method 2: AlReader

Another “dinosaur” of reading applications: its first versions appeared on old PDAs running WinMobile and Palm OS. The version for Android appeared at the dawn of its formation, and has not changed much since then.

Open AlRider. Read the disclaimer from the developer and close it by clicking “OK”.

AlReader is rightfully considered by many users to be the best application in its class. And it’s true - no advertising, paid content and fast work contribute to this. However, newcomers may be put off by the outdated interface and general unintuitiveness of this “reader”.

Method 3: PocketBook Reader

In the article about reading PDF on Android, we already mentioned this application. It can be used with exactly the same success to view books in FB2.

Open the application. In the main window, call up the menu by clicking on the corresponding button.

In it you should click on “Folders”.

Using the internal explorer of PocketBook Reader, find the folder with the book you want to open.

PocketBook Reader is especially well combined with devices that have a high-resolution display, so we recommend using this application on such devices.

Method 4: Moon+ Reader

We are also already familiar with this reader. Let’s add to what has already been said – FB2 for Moon+ Reader is one of the main working formats.

Once in the application, open the menu. You can do this by clicking on the button with three stripes at the top left.

Once you reach it, tap on “My Files”.

In the pop-up window, select the storage media that the application will scan for suitable files and click OK.

Moon+ Reader copes better with predominantly text formats (which FB2 belongs to) than with graphic ones.

Method 5: Cool Reader

A very popular application for viewing e-books. It is Cool Reader that is most often recommended to novice Android users, because it also copes with the task of viewing FB2 books.

1. Open the application. When you first start, you will be asked to select a book to open. We need the “Open from file system” item.

   Open the desired media with a single click.

2. Follow the path to the location of the book intended to be opened.

   Tap on the cover or title to start reading.

Cool Reader is convenient (not least thanks to its fine customization capabilities), but the abundance of settings can confuse beginners, plus it does not always work stably and may refuse to open some books.

ICE Book Reader

ICE Book Reader is a program (free for residents of the countries of the former USSR) for reading books in the Windows operating system. The application has functions for creating a library, there are 5 reading modes, support for reading aloud using a voice engine, and from the program you can export the text of a book to a video or audio file.

In this image, the FB2 file is open in Ice Book Reader Pro.

Programs for reading e-books in fb2 format on Windows and Mac OS

There are a lot of programs for reading books with the fb2 extension (a format for electronic representation of books in XML format). As a rule, readers for computers and smartphones, in addition to fb2, also support formats such as txt, rtf, doc, epub, mobi. Some of them even read books in fictionbook format. In this list we have collected the most popular applications for computers on Windows and MacOS.

• FB Reader
• Caliber
• STDU Viewer
• AlReader
• ICE Book Reader
• Cool Reader
• ICECream Ebook Reader

Next, we’ll look at some of the most interesting e-readers for Windows and let’s immediately make a reservation that Caliber and FBreader are cross-platform programs. They work equally well on both PC and Mac OS, which, by the way, supports reading FB2, Epub, Mobi out of the box using the integrated iBooks application (Books application in macOS Catalina and higher).

AllReader. It looks like an open book, it looks very original. The program can also select and copy text. It is possible to export the entire contents of the fb2 file to a text file, edit the text while reading, put your own marks on the part of the text you like, or make footnotes in the form of quotations.

The program has a very pleasant background, which does not interfere with reading, the eyes do not get tired or irritated. It also provides information about how many percent of the book you have read and, of course, shows you the time separately, so that you do not spend too much time reading the book and can distribute your time. AllReader has an intuitive setup interface that the most experienced user can understand.

The second program for reading fb2 book format is Ice book reader. There is a built-in clock and even an alarm to notify you if the laptop's battery is running low. The application has a built-in module for automatic page scrolling - this may be needed in order to learn speed reading or to make it easier for you to scroll pages and not use a mouse or touchpad on a laptop.

The reader supports a built-in library - if you have all your books stored in one folder, the program will help you set up a list of your books by category and author, which will subsequently make it easier to find what you need. As you work, you can customize everything here: from the background color of the book to the font size and color.

Universal Viewer

Universal Viewer is a program that opens FB2, along with other files in a huge number of formats. This is a universal file viewer that opens electronic documents, books, videos, and images in its window.

This is the case when one program is suitable for opening files of different formats, without installing many applications on the PC.

Read more about Universal Viewer here.

Cool Reader

This utility is also multi-platform, since it allows you to read large amounts of text with the FB2 extension, as well as in EPUB, TXT, RTF, PDB, HTML, CHM, TCR, MOBI on any OS other than Android. Cool Reader provides users with the ability to customize the display of text - download new fonts, change their size, smoothing, boldness, etc. It is possible to choose page turning animation, color and even background texture - it can be old yellow or white paper, metal of different shades etc.

If you need an assistant when reading texts in a foreign language, you just need to connect a dictionary to the application. This is done as follows:

1. Download a dictionary from Google Play that can be integrated into e-readers. We recommend choosing ABBYY Lingvo for Android for this. Open the utility and download the necessary dictionaries. Basic ones for ordinary non-professional translation are installed free of charge.
2. Open Cool Reader and go to the utility settings by opening any text and pressing the menu button on your smartphone.
3. Go to the last tab for changing application settings and open the “Dictionary” directory.
4. Select ABBYY Lingvo in this section by checking the box next to it.

Next, you need to configure text selection in the program. To do this, go to the control settings tab and check the box next to the line that allows this action by double-clicking on the touch screen. To translate a word, select it, and in the menu that appears, press the “a>z” button.

Opening FB2 using a browser extension

The FB2 format can be opened in a browser, without the help of other programs. To do this, you need to install an extension (add-on) to your browser that adds this feature to your Internet browser.

A StormFiles extension has been created for the Google Chrome browser, with which you can open text and some graphic format files directly in the browser window, without installing additional programs on your computer.

To open an FB2 file, do the following:

1. Click on the extension icon located on the top bar of the browser.
2. In the browser window that opens, click on the “Open file” button to view the file from your computer, paste the link to the file from the Internet into the appropriate field, or simply drag the file into this window.

In the Mozilla Firefox browser, you can use the FB2 Reader extension, which opens FB2 format files in the browser. The extension allows you to read files in the “*.fb2” and “*.fb2.zip” formats directly in the browser window.

After activating the extension, drag the e-book into the browser window, or open the FB2 file using Mozilla Firefox.

Advantages of FB2 files

At the beginning of the article it was already mentioned that FB2 is one of the most popular formats for storing books. But where did such popularity come from if the same DOC files can be opened on a PC without any problems. It's all about attractive appearance.

The fact is that text in FB2 format can look very attractive. These files are created using special code, similar to that used when creating pages on the Internet. Because of this, the file has many visual settings that help make it more beautiful and enjoyable.

For the same reason, in FB2 various types of inserts, footnotes and tables of contents work much better. It is also very convenient to add pictures and tables. They look organically in the text and do not interfere with reading.

How to open FB2 in Yandex Browser

In Yandex Browser, the developers have added support for many text formats by default, which is very convenient.

To open an e-book in FB2 format, among the proposed programs, select Yandex Browser as the program for opening files of this type. In an open browser window, you can create a bookmark or save the book to your computer if the file is viewed from the Internet.

On my computer, Yandex Browser is used as the default program for opening FB2 files.

Advice. If you urgently need to open an e-book in FB2 format on your computer, but you don’t have a suitable program at hand, you can easily cope with this situation. Rename the file extension from ".fb2" to ".html" and then open the file in any browser. This way, you can read the book you want without any problems.

Reading FB2 on a computer

Many readers may ask the question: why does anyone need to view e-books on a computer?

There are several answers here. Some people read from a PC monitor, others want to look at a book before downloading it to their smartphone or portable e-reader.

There are several options for viewing fb2 books on your computer, so you can definitely find a way that suits you.

Available reading apps:

1. FB2Reader
2. CoolReader
3. STDUViewer
4. Sumatra Reader
5. Alreader2

There is also a portal for online viewing, but I will talk about it last. Let's look at the applications and their functionality one by one.

How to open FB2 on Android

There are a large number of applications for opening FB2 files in the Android operating system. You can use some of the programs described above that have versions for Android, or other applications, for example, FullReader or AlReader.

On my website there is an article describing reading programs that work on Android.

You may also be interested in:

• The best apps for reading books on Android
• Convert Word to FB2 - 5 ways

AlReader

The reader supports up to 13 book formats, as well as ZIP and GZ archives. The distribution model is free and without advertising.

Features of AlReader:

• Cost – free, no advertising.
• The required Android version is 2.3.
• Internal storage space usage – 10 MB.
• RAM consumption – 146-198 MB.

The program's start window greets the reader with the last page of the book read. At the top there is a toolbar with quick switching between light and dark themes, chapter selection, search, bookmarks and a hidden control panel. The latter allows you to open or search for books, configure a program, enable text scrolling, or activate reading of a book.

In the settings, you can set individual parameters for text display and color design. Speed ​​and effects of automatic page turning, setting up an additional toolbar, etc.

Main advantages:

• Free download and no ads.
• Up to 13 formats are supported.
• Low system requirements for installation.
• Automatic page turning and text reading.
• Individual settings for text display and color scheme.

Main disadvantages:

• Mediocre interface.
• RAM usage sometimes reaches 198 MB.
• Last updated May 2020.

Opening the FB2 format on an online service

The Omni Reader service is a browser-based online reader. Among others, the service supports opening the FB2 format, as well as a compressed file of this format. The online service allows you to open a book in FB2 format on the Internet, without using any applications on your computer. You only need a browser to log into the site.

To open an e-book, the user needs to paste the URL of the file from the Internet into the insert field, or upload the file to the service from the computer disk, or paste it from the clipboard.

STDU Viewer - fb2 reader

If you need to read an e-book in FictionBook format, you should download fb2 reader called STDU Viewer - a multifunctional and convenient reader, distributed free of charge.

The program is designed to open other formats - from DjVu and PDF to ePUB and TIFF. And it has good functionality, allowing you to perform the following operations:

• scale the font size to see the text better;
• choose the page orientation and their number on the screen (one or as a book spread);
• adjust contrast and brightness.

STDU Viewer download
STDU Viewer application

The application also has the ability to print the text being viewed by selecting various print settings. Using the program, you can create bookmarks in open documents. In this case, the files themselves are not edited or changed.

And to transfer information from one computer to another, they use the procedure of importing and exporting a tree of bookmarks.

Moon+ Reader

This utility also supports almost all types of e-books; moreover, it can open rar and zip archives. Moon+ Reader does not have any particular advantages compared to the utilities discussed above, having almost the same functionality.

A certain disadvantage can be considered the presence of a relatively large number of advertisements, although they are displayed only in Explorer, as well as on the entire screen before closing the application, without interfering with reading texts.