Kiwix

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Kiwix

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Screenshot
Kiwix in German with the article Mozilla Firefox in the text version
Basic data

developer Emmanuel Engelhart
Publishing year 2006
Current  version Desktop : 0.9.0 (November 1, 2014)

Android : 3.3.3 (July 6, 2020)

operating system Windows , macOS , Linux , Android , iOS
programming language C ++ , JavaScript , Python
License GPL
German speaking Yes
www.kiwix.org

Kiwix is free software that was developed by Emmanuel Engelhart in order to be able to view Wikipedia and other websites operated with MediaWiki offline (i.e. without an Internet connection). The program is available for the Windows , macOS , Linux , Android and iOS operating systems.

motivation

Emmanuel Engelhart's motivation for working on Kiwix dates back to 2003, when the attempt to publish Wikipedia on a CD-ROM failed. In an email interview, he wrote that Wikipedia, like water, is a commons to which everyone should have access, regardless of whether or not they have internet access . With Kiwix it has become possible to really reach everyone who wants to read the content in the Wikimedia projects, regardless of their stay and thus also in places where knowledge and especially the Internet is subject to censorship .

function

First, the database of a Wikimedia project or another MediaWiki installation is read in and saved in a file in ZIM format . Accordingly, the ZIM file of the Wikipedia project or the corresponding other website must be downloaded and then opened with Kiwix. The software is designed for computers without internet access and is especially intended for schools in developing countries where internet access is difficult or expensive. For this reason, a version was specially created for the SOS Children's Villages organization .

Kiwix uses the XULRunner developed by the Mozilla Foundation . The software is localized via Translatewiki.net. Kiwix offers a full text search, tab navigation and the option to export articles in PDF or HTML format.

Content

Since the end of 2014, the Kiwix project's archive has provided the largest of the 280 or so Wikipedia language versions and most of the Wikipedia sister projects for download. The server prints are updated every six months or annually. There are full versions and those without images that only contain the text of the article in order to save disk space and bandwidth when downloading.

In November 2014 a ZIM version of all public domain texts of the English Gutenberg project was made available. There are also Kiwix versions of the wiki for users of the Linux distribution Ubuntu , public domain texts from the French e-book project Bouquineux and editions of the TED Talks .

The project is also used outside of the Wikimedia projects and the free software scene.

WikiMed

There is a Kiwix-based app for Android and iOS under the name “WikiMed”, which makes all medical articles from Wikipedia available for offline use.

application areas

Kiwix can be used wherever Internet access is not possible or is only possible to a limited extent for technical, financial, political, legal or educational reasons, for example:

  • in countries or regions with poorly developed communication infrastructure
  • in places without network coverage (e.g. on planes, on ships, on hikes or expeditions)
  • in schools and universities (if the financial means do not allow internet access or if only access to certain content is to be allowed, e.g. in open-book exams )
  • in prisons (where internet access is restricted or prohibited for prisoners)
  • in states with internet censorship
  • in the event of natural disasters or warlike events (if the communication infrastructure has been damaged or switched off)
  • when staying abroad (to keep roaming charges low)
  • Internet access is possible, but in order to preserve anonymity, someone would like to conceal which articles they are reading or which topics are of interest to them.

Examples

  • Kiwix was installed by Wikimedia CH in various prisons in Switzerland.
  • The Fondation Orange has implemented Kiwix in their own technology in the framework of the program écoles numériques is applied in Africa.
  • Kiwix was used to install Wikipedia on the computers of the One Laptop per Child project .

Awards

The OSS Award 2015 for Kiwix
  • 2015: Open Source Award of the Swiss Open Systems User Group / ch / open
  • 2017: Finalist at the SEIF Awards

Web links

Commons : Kiwix  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kiwix on Google Play
  2. ↑ The kiwix Open Source Project on Open Hub: Languages ​​Page . In: Open Hub . (accessed on July 18, 2018).
  3. ↑ a b Joe Sutherland: Emmanuel Engelhart, Inventor of Kiwix: the Offline Wikipedia Browser . In: Wikimedia Blog. September 12, 2014. Retrieved November 26, 2014.
  4. ↑ (fr) ASRI Education may 2013 ( fr ) Asri-education.org. Archived from the original on July 20, 2014. Retrieved July 10, 2013.
  5. ↑ kiwix aims to spread wikipedias reach february 2013 . Slashdot.org. February 4, 2013. Archived from the original on March 2, 2013. Retrieved July 10, 2013.
  6. ^ Kiwix localization page on Translatewiki
  7. ↑ Kiwix . SourceForge . Retrieved March 22, 2012.
  8. ↑ Overview of the Kiwix content catalog
  9. ↑ Emmanuel Engelhart: 50,000 public domain books available to everybody, everywhere, offline . In: Wikisource -l mailing list. November 19, 2014. Retrieved November 26, 2014.
  10. ↑ https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Kiwix%20Team&hl=de
  11. ↑ https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wikimed/id1281693200?mt=8
  12. ↑ Offline online , Annabelle , September 2014
  13. ^ Fondation Orange: le program "écoles numériques" ( memorial from February 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  14. ↑ Marcel Urech: OSS Awards select Swiss open source projects , Netzwoche, October 29, 2015
  15. ↑ http://seif.org/en/awards/finalists/