Wikipedia as you know, is the largest encyclopedia created by human beings and covers information on almost any topic on the cosmos. We also know the text and images contained, created by Wikipedians are free to use by anyone (You are not allowed to sell or make money from it).

The question is can you download the whole wikipedia on your computer. YES. Wikipedia maintains periodical database dumps and they measure in Gigabytes (from 20 GB onwards).

If you plan to download Wikipedia at any stage, visit http://download.wikimedia.org

Be aware, but, though Wikimedia foundation gives free access to download the Wikipedia, you will be successful only if you have a ultra-fast broadband and comfortable download limits
(Say at least 30 – 40 GB). You can choose to download only few sections, however.

For example, the September 2007 edition of Wikipedia (static html pages) can be download from this site http://static.wikipedia.org/downloads/September_2007/

SOS Children has made use of the Wikipedia articles and has released a DVD, “Wikipedia Selections” for school children that contains selected articles from Wikipedia.The first edition was released in 2006 and 2007 edition got just released. Wikipedia for Schools provide more information on these developments. Thousands of volunteers were involved in editing and choosing suitable articles for young children.

Once you download, you need a Unzip program, 7 Zip – a free utility (Winzip or Winrar are also doing the job).

The $100 Laptop (One Laptop per Child) will have a more comprehensive “Wikipedia Selections” installed in it. The information has finally become free. That’s Sweet.

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