CNET Editors' review
WikiTaxi compresses all of Wikipedia into a database that's searchable, fully usable, and small enough to fit on an 8GB USB drive. WikiTaxi grabs the Wikipedia database dump every few weeks, keeping your offline entries up-to-date with the latest changes. There's also an option in the program to update it yourself, if you happen to find yourself near an Internet connection.
As a single-file app, WikiTaxi is easy to manage--hence the portability. To install it, you extract the file to any folder. When you open it, it opens to a randomly-selected page, and you can browse from there. WikiTaxi does leave Wikipedia's images behind to keep the file size down, so if you need graphics this might not be for you. Also, given the nature of WikiTaxi, don't forget that external links are not supported for obvious reasons. Internal links should still work, though. As a growing number of people try to take advantage of the Internet's resources without getting all the online distractions, WikiTaxi is a smart way to bus around one of the best tools on the Web.
Publisher's Description
From Ralf Junker:
WikiTaxi enables you to read, search, and browse Wikipedia offline. No Internet connection is needed, all pages are stored in a WikiTaxi database. Because Wikipedia is constantly growing, WikiTaxi uses compression to make sure that the database stays reasonably small. The huge English Wikipedia easily fits on a 8 GB memory stick.
WikiTaxi is multilingual, which means that you can use it for Wikipedias from different languages. It also works well with the dictionary and quotation Wikis, if you like. You can also save multiple Wikis to disk and use all of them with WikiTaxi. WikiTaxi is up to date. It works with the original Wikipedia database dumps, which are updated regularly every few weeks or so. If you feel that your offline Wikipedia is getting to old, you can go online to download a more recent version or just copy it from a friend.
Version 1.03 includes more parser improvements, one of which also fixes an AV.
What's new in this version: Version 1.03 includes more parser improvements, one of which also fixes an AV.
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All versions:
3.5 starsout of 8 votes
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Current version:
3.5 starsout of 8 votes
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My rating:
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Results 1-7 of 7
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"Could not import database"
Version: WikiTaxi 1.03
Pros
Unable to access
Cons
Unable to access
Summary
Unable to acccess
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"Nice idea but could be improved in some areas"
Version: WikiTaxi 1.03
Pros
*Simple programme
*No installation necessary
*Somewhat simple user interfaceCons
*Extremely buggy in Windows 7
*Takes hours to import files
*Some features are a bit confusing to useSummary
Would be great if compatibility with Windows 7 was improved and if the process of importing dumps was simplified.. Although it could do with a few more features, it is fairly simple to use and takes up little space on the h.d.
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"Can't manage using it. Need Help"
Version: WikiTaxi 1.03
Pros
Can't manage
Cons
can't manage
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"wikki is the best off line brwoser"
Version: WikiTaxi 1.03
Pros
to copy programe in any file or drive
Cons
exactly ihave never use so is can not explain more.
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"Good program, but..."
Version: WikiTaxi 1.03
Pros
Once you get this program and the database file, you don't have to do it again on a different computer. You can copy it to a different drive or disc and run it from there, copy it to a friend's computer for them, or even use it on a flash drive.
Cons
I only wish I had some warning as to how long it was going to take to download this program, over an hour. It also would have been nice to know that even after it takes that long to download, what you download isn't the complete program.
Summary
In order to use WikiTaxi, you also have to download one of the database files, and depending on which one you choose, that, too, could take awhile to get. I chose the full English one because I figure what's the point of having this unless you have all the information available you can get.
So, now after you download the database file, you have to extract it using the WikiTaxi Importer that came with the program, a separate exe file. When I started that at 5 AM this morning, it said time remaining over an hour and a half. When I got up after 11, more than 6 hours later, it still had 3 minutes and 15 seconds left to go, mostly because it was going at the time when all my anti programs were scheduled to do their daily scans, but that's not the point. After shutting down a few running programs, the WikiTaxi Importer was still at 3 minutes and 15 seconds remaining and it wasn't moving.
I had to restart my computer and the first thing I did when it came back up was start WikiTaxi Importer and just let that get done. It's still going because I'm doing other things on the computer at the moment. Oh and my resources are down to 20% of the RAM it's normally at, so I can see WikiTaxi Importer is trying to use up everything my computer has available. I just hope the WikiTaxi program itself doesn't do that, so we'll see.
So, just a warning to anyone else who might be interested in this program what they are getting into. Don't even try to get this program unless you are doing nothing else on the computer at the time and have no scheduled scans. I have a cable connection and use a download accelerator and it still took as long as it did.
It took more than 3 hours for the databse file to be extracted because it also creates indexes. I can't comment on the program itself yet as I just restarted the computer after the program finished, so I'm going to check it out now. I was thinking the whole time it was doing it's thing that it may not be worth having this on my computer, since it takes over 8 GB of hard drive space when finished, which isn't a problem for me really, but I don't know how much I will really actually use the program. When I think about it, I don't go to Wikipedia only once in a while to look up something, which is not a problem to just go search at the site itself.
I will check it out and may keep it for now, but in the long run, I will most likely get rid of it and just visit Wikipedia online when I want to look up something. -
"AWSOME!"
Version: WikiTaxi 1.03
Pros
The best wiki obviously is Wikipedia, but this is ABSOLUTELY THE BEST OFLINE WIKI.....EVER!! There was anolder one i was using that i had actually paid for (the name has escaped me..) but i find this one much better.
Cons
um...the menues might seem a little win98-ish, but its still teh best!
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"Long awaited and Most Wanted for me"
Version: WikiTaxi 1.03
Pros
easy interface
good search options
flexible options
Cons
simple English db can be added by default
too many options will confuse the new user
