With EPUB becoming the standard format for ebooks in plenty of mobile devices, why would you need a separate utility to view EPUBs on your desktop or laptop? Besides testing EPUBs or editing/converting EPUBs, it may seem like there's little need for viewing EPUBs on a desktop. Personally, I think EPUBs are best viewed on my Sony Reader PRS-600 or my iPad 2 where I can leisurely enjoy reading without the distractions of a keyboard, web browser, or any other running application. However, there are also times (like when you are at work) when you need a dedicated EPUB viewer on your desktop, not only to view EPUBs but to discover new reading material on the Internet.
Enter EPUBReader for Mozilla Firefox. Say what you will about Firefox's occasionally buggy releases, Mozilla still has a better and wider selection of extensions and plugins compared to Google Chrome. EPUBReader is a good example of a well-designed, no-frills, and useful extension. Users can open EPUB files directly after downloading an EPUB from a website such as Epubbud.com or Archive.org. Files opened using EPUBReader in Firefox are added to the EPUB catalog, which opens on a separate tab. Users can then save a copy or delete the EPUB if they wish. Users can also quickly create tags and add EPUB files already stored on your system by dragging EPUB files to the EPUB panel.
Seamlessly integrated into Firefox
One feature I found surprisingly useful was having only one application open to browse and read EPUBs while researching topics of interest on the Internet. Since EPUBReader opens the catalog, the EPUB, and ebook websites directly from within Firefox, you only have one application open and can peruse EPUBs with the ease of tabbed browsing. Users can look up words, book titles, ideas, and paragraphs by copying and pasting directly from the EPUB and opening Google or Bing on a different tab. Unlike Adobe Digital Editions, which works as a separate and somewhat ungainly application, you don't have to work away from your browser. EPUBReader in Firefox treats EPUBs the way Google Chrome supports PDFs.
So maybe some users out there really don't want to read EPUBs from Firefox, but they may certainly want to sample EPUBs from Gutenberg from their browser before downloading it. To its credit, EPUBReader's interface includes the most important features for any EPUB viewer: increase/decrease font size, table of contents, change backgrounds, margin, line height, and page orientation. The extension allows only one bookmark per EPUB and doesn't really allow annotations, but since you're working on your desktop and on Firefox, you have all your other annotation utilities available anyway.
Cross-platform without much installation
The beauty of browser extensions and plugins is that it would work on any platform. EPUBReader can be installed on Firefox whether you're running OSX, Windows, and more importantly, Linux. For Linux users, there's no need to install libepub packages to get Okular working or download a standalone EPUB reader for Gnome.
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