Kiwix JS Windows

Offline Wikipedia Viewer (Version )

Packaged ZIM archive:

• Adding archives and languages
• Changelog and Features
• Expert or Experimental Settings
• Privacy Policy
• Feedback and Support
• Credits and Licence
• Official site : https://www.kiwix.org/

If your Internet access is expensive, slow, unreliable, insecure or censored, you can still gain offline access to a huge repository of knowledge and culture.

To use this app, you will need to download one or more archives (called ZIM archives) from the Kiwix website. You will then have offline access to Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikivoyage and many other sources even if you are undertaking a long plane journey, hiking, and travelling or living in areas with weak Internet access.

You can search through article titles and read any of these articles completely offline.

You can have the entire content of Wiktionary or Wikipedia in your language (including the images) in your pocket.

Offline archives use the OpenZIM format, but note that this app has been only tested extensively on Wikipedia-related archives (e.g., Wikipedia, Wikivoyage, Wikimed, Wiktionary).

On some Wikivoyage (English and German) pages you will see a map location marker: . Tap this icon to open the Maps app at the selected location. This will work offline if you have downloaded the map for the relevant country in the Windows Settings for Offline Maps.

Usage

Step 1: download some content

You can browse the Kiwix repository on the Configuration page, and it will provide instructions according to the type of file you download. Alternatively, visit https://download.kiwix.org/zim/ using a regular computer. Currently only Wikimedia contents (ZIM files in wiki* subdirectories) and Stackexchange have been tested fully. There are known bugs when reading some other content, and dynamic content is not supported in jQuery mode. You may need to switch the app to the experimental PWA mode (see Expert Settings in configuration) to access dynamic content.

If you have enough space, you can put several archives on your device storage. If you download the content directly in the app, note the location of the saved file when you get the notification that it has completed. If you downloaded via a PC, you will generally need to use a USB cable to copy the ZIM archive(s) to an accessible location on your device, such as the SD card or the main storage area if there is enough space there.

Step 2: copy the content onto your device

If you have enough space, you can put several archives on your device storage. If you download the content directly in the app, note the location of the saved file when you get the notification that it has completed. If you downloaded via a PC, you will generally need to use a USB cable to copy the ZIM archive(s) to an accessible location on your device, such as the SD card or the main storage area if there is enough space there.

Step 3: go to the "Configure" menu and select your ZIM file (or double-click / drag-and-drop your file into the app)

On the Configuration page, tap the "Select storage" button. If you have downloaded more than one archive, or you have a split ZIM archive consisting of several 2GB files, then you will need to pick the folder that contains these files or else (in older browsers) you will need to select all the split parts. If you have just one unsplit ZIM archive, you can instead pick the file directly, using the respective buttons on the Configuration page (note that these buttons only appear after you tap "Select Storage"). In most modern contexts the archive will be remembered on next launch (Firefox and IE11 are exceptions).

Alternatively, in the UWP app you can simply double-click the ZIM file to launch it in the app, even if the app is closed (your choice will be remembered on next launch). You can also drag-and-drop your ZIM file into the app, but it may not be remembered on next launch in all contexts (try it if this method interests you!).

Step 4: enjoy your content offline!

Changes in 0.9

Privacy policy

When installed, Kiwix JS Windows works offline, and does not collect or record any of your personal data. It only remembers your browsing history for the duration of a session (for the purpose of returning to previously viewed pages). This history is lost on exiting the app with the optional exception of the last-visited page.

If you access this app from a secure web server (e.g. the PWA server), it will only work offline if your browser is capable of installing a Service Worker. If you install or bookmark the PWA version, then it will work offline, but note that by design any PWA will periodically check the PWA server (in this case, https://pwa.kiwix.org/), if it is available, to check for an updated Service Worker.

By default, this application will remember your last-visited page for each ZIM between sessions using local storage or a cookie that is accessible only by this app on this device. If you are accessing sensitive information that you do not wish to be displayed next time you open this app, we recommend that you turn this option off in the Configuration options.

This application only reads the archive files that you explicitly select on your device and files included in its own package: it is not capable of reading any other files. It will only access the Kiwix download server if you specifically request it to access the download library for ZIM archives on the Configuration page. If you run the app as a PWA, it will cache its own code from the secure PWA server and then can be used offline. Some ZIM archives contain active content (scripts) which may, in rare circumstances, attempt to contact external servers for incidental files such as fonts. These scripts will only run if you enable Service Worker mode in Configuration.

If you believe your Internet access is insecure, or is being observed or censored, we recommend that you completely shut down your Internet access (Data or WiFi) before using the application.

Additionally, if you obtained this app from a Vendor Store (including extensions), then the Store operator may track your usage of the app (e.g. download, install, uninstall, date and number of sessions) for the purpose of providing anonymous, aggregate usage statistics to developers. If this concerns you, you should check the relevant Store Privacy Policy for further information.

Builds of this app are available that do not use a Store or an online Service Worker. Please see:

• Releases
• NWJS version - this version is completely standalone and will never self-update.

Expert or experimental settings

Depending on your browser or framework, this app may be capable of running in two different modes, which we call "JQuery Mode" and "ServiceWorker Mode" for short. There is a toggle under Expert Settings in Configuration. Here is an explanation of what these modes do:

• JQuery Mode: This mode (which does not in fact require JQuery) is fine for everyday use with Wikipedia / WikiMedia archives, and is stable and safe. It is a way of inserting articles extracted from the ZIM into the DOM (browser document) by injecting the content into an iframe or tab. We then use native DOM methods, or sometimes JQuery, to parse the article's HTML and insert required assets (images, stylesheets, event listeners for hyperlinks, etc.). On old devices DOM traversal can be slow, but it is compensated for because we do not extract or run JavaScript assets (which would be technically extremely complicated). As a result, for WikiMedia archives this mode is usually quite fast. On the downside, ZIMs that have a proprietary dynamic UI (such as Gutenberg or TED talks) are only partially supported in this mode: the UI does not work, but articles can be searched for and loaded from the search bar.
• ServiceWorker Mode: This mode, as its name implies, requires that the browser or framework be capable of installing a Service Worker. It works by intercepting the browser or framework's Fetch calls (network requests) and supplying the requested content from the ZIM. This mode requires no DOM traversal, and the content is read and supplied as-is from the archive. Dynamic content (e.g. JavaScript) and proprietary UIs are fully supported in this mode. It can feel initially a little slower while commonly used assets are being cached, but it soon equals JQuery mode in speed, at least in modern browsers. However, older browsers such as IE11 do not support this mode, and the app must be running in a secure context (https:, localhost, or certain browser extensions). Note that this mode also cannot run under the file: protocol (but only IE11 and old Edge allow the app to run this way).

Feedback / helping / contributing

This application is still a work in progress. There are bugs that still need fixing and improvements that need to be implemented. Suggestions and patches/pull requests are welcome: the source code is on github. The Kiwix JS Windows issue tracker is on GitHub too, though also check the tracker for Kiwix JS as a lot of the development is done for both apps.

Alternatively, you can send your feedback by email .

In all cases, please give as much detail as you can: which device you are using, which version of Kiwix, which archive, which articles etc.

If you like the Kiwix project and use it, please consider giving donations:

• to the Wikimedia foundation, to help maintaining their servers and article contents. See the donation page
• to Kiwix, to help maintaining the ZIM files and applications. There is a donation button in the home page of kiwix.org

You can also help by:

• Adding articles or improving the existing ones, by editing online Wikipedia articles
• Participating in the Kiwix project

Credits

Thanks are due to:

• Kelson and all the Kiwix community for welcoming peter-x, mossroy, jaifroid and sharun-s onto this project
• Wikipedia teams and contributors for helping to spread knowledge to everybody
• All the developers of libraries and tools we use for releasing them as Free software (see Licence paragraph)

Licence information

Copyright 2013-2019 Mossroy, Peter-x, Jaifroid, sharun-s and other contributors
Jaifroid for adaptation and development of the app on the Universal Windows Platform

This application is licensed under the GPL v3 licence:

Kiwix is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public Licence as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the Licence, or
(at your option) any later version.

Kiwix is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public Licence for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public Licence
along with Kiwix (file LICENSE-GPLv3.txt). If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/

Main libraries and resources used:

• jQuery 3, released under the MIT Licence
• Bootstrap 3, released under the Apache Licence 2.0, which includes icons from Glyphicons
• RequireJS 2, released under the MIT licence or new BSD Licence
• QUnit 2, released under the MIT Licence
• Kiwix logo from kiwix.org, released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike Licence
• OpenZIM specifications from www.openzim.org, released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike Licence
• Emscripten to generate a XZ decompressor in javascript : https://github.com/kripken/emscripten, released under the MIT Licence
• XZ Embedded (the XZ library converted to Javascript with Emscripten), in public domain
• The Zstandard library, released under a BSD Licence and a GPLv2 Copying Licence
• KaTeX for typesetting mathematical and chemical equations, released under the MIT licence
• Hilitor for finding and hilighting text inside an article, released under this licence

Other platforms/versions

Other Kiwix clients exist on various platforms. See the official site : https://www.kiwix.org/.