This site is closed. You can no longer order any product here.

For several years since 2003 Wikipedia for TomeRaider was the only product on any handheld device that allowed you to browse the unabridged Wikipedia offline. I keep these pages for historical reference only.

I abandoned support for Wikipedia for Tomeraider.

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TomeRaider, once a very able reference guide browser on some platforms

For years this page had some nice things to say about TomeRaider, about its speed, good compression, category and image support. Some of that does still apply, but what used to be commendable in 2003 is best case merely satisfactory in 2008, and worst case ... read on.

The sad truth is that the author of TomeRaider lost his zeal for programming years ago, and while his business expanded, TomeRaider deteriorated from a labour of love into the proverbial cash cow. TomeRaider is no longer ahead of its time, in many respects quite the opposite.

Windows Mobile: This version still can't handle files larger than 4 Gb, and thus can no longer handle an English Wikipedia with images. This problem dates from 2005. Several people proposed relatively straighforward solutions, to no avail.
Palm: This version has been crippled all along, (no font support, tables are not rendered, no css support). The TomeRaider site never mentioned css, so no broken promises here. But for many years the adagium on the site was "HTML Support: TR3 now supports pretty much HTML verbatim, ...." as a general statement for all platforms. This is clearly not true for the Palm platform, and has never been. Even if only table support would have been missing, this would already have been a preposterous claim.
Other platforms: I won't go into details for the remaining platforms. I have not seen those myself, but based on all the frustrated or even angry feedback I got from the community I can only recommend prospective buyers to test drive the preview version very thoroughly, and once they paid the full license fee, never show their new goodie to friends with a Pocket PC.

Instead of spending time on fixing serious deficiencies in the core product, the author of TomeRaider chose to produce a home grown rendition of the English Wikipedia which is so lame in its implementation that in my opinion it is detrimental to the reputation of Wikipedia as a quality encyclopedia. This cheap product (literally and figuratively) saddens me so much that I do not feel comfortable to be associated with TomeRaider any longer.

By the way, the TomeRaider site claims: The May [sic!] 2008 Wikipedia TR3 ebook is now released." This is typical. I would not dare to present a file which clearly has been ripped in January 2008 as a May 2008 release. Who cares when the file was published? If the content is 4 months old at publication time be frank about it.

A bright future: Wikipedia shines on Iphone & Ipod Touch

Fortunately competitors have not stood still. Take a look at this page with gorgeous screenshots: Wiki2Touch succeeded in porting Wikipedia to the Iphone/Ipod Touch. Wikipedia shines here in all its glory, with a faithful rendition of html, and image support. Also there is no upper limit on the file size, so that my Ipod touch (with 32 Gb) can hold the English and German version with images and has room to spare.

I can recommend Wiki2Touch. I run it on my Ipod Touch with ease and great pleasure. Be warned: until iTunes app store support has been introduced for Wiki2Touch you will need to jailbreak your Iphone or Ipod Touch. Please do not ask me how to do this. There is a lot of information on this on the web.

If this rant kicks the author of TomeRaider into action to prove me wrong about his commitment to an aging product: good for him, but don't hold your breath. And frankly, I don't care.