If you’ve ever been visiting a site that’s offering free .epub files and wished you could just click the link and immediately start reading – with none of that “open with… ” or “download to you computer first” nonsense – then I’ve found exactly what you want. An eReading app that allows quick and easy EPUB reading, right there in your web browser.

EPUBReader is one of the more recent software only EPUB readers and has grown into a very stable and good looking ebook reader since it’s release. The eReader itself is actually an add-on for the very popular Firefox web browser – for those still using Internet Exploer (IE) this is yet another good reason to change over to Firefox.

Once installed all you have to do is visit any website with DRM free EPUB files (why not try some Charles Dickens or Edgar Allen Poe from my own catalogue) and click on the download button. The book will open right there in the browser/reader for immediate enjoyment.

Reading from a computer monitor is not a comfortable practice for everyone, but for those who don’t mind this it’s certainly a great solution.

Please note: you won’t be able to read any DRM encumbered EPUBs with this eReader – I don’t expect that to ever change while it remains a web browser plugin – so let’s hope more publishers release DRM free ebooks in the future.

The software is in constant development and there’s always new features being added so it’s worth keeping it up-to-date. For more information visit the official website (epubread.com) or to install now jump right over to the EPUBReader Add-on page at Mozilla.

Not so long ago Liza Daly released Bookworm to the public, an ePub web application for reading .epub formatted eBooks.

Another alternative is now being developed by Opera Software for their popular web browser in the form of a widget. Jon Noring has been advising Haakon Lie over at Opera to develop the browser plug-in, which is currently at a beta stage of development.

Please note: to use the widget you will need to download a version of Opera with File I/O support from Opera Labs.

There are some basic instructions posted over on the Opera Widgets blog. In short these are;

• Add books by going to the library and clicking “Add book…”
• Read books by clicking “Read”
• Navigate a book using the keyboard
  • Scroll up: Shift-Space, Page up, Arrow up, Z
  • Scroll down: Space, Page down, Arrow down, X
  • Previous chapter: Arrow left
  • Next chapter: Arrow right
  • Chapter top: Home
  • Chapter bottom: End
  • Toggle TOC panel: F4, T
  • Toggle bookmark panel: B

For some reason you will need to rename your .epub file to the .zip extension. Hopefully this will be fixed soon.

There was no mention of any DRM capabilities so don’t expect any DRM protected books to work yet. There are however, a number of places where you can download free EPUB books. Please visit the epubBooks page on this site for a list of suitable websites.