Reader

Web page speed reader browser extension. Uses rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP), optimal recognition point (ORP), and other techniques to increase reading speed and retention.

The recommended use is for content that takes under 5 minutes to speed read or articles you would otherwise skim over. Extended focus can lead to fatigue and diminished results. To read longer text, use the pause button to take a break when you feel fatigue creeping in.

Features

• Extracts the most meaningful text on any page or from your selection.
• Shows one word at a time in quick succession with a highlighted focus point.
• Simple, distraction-free, no-nonsense user interface.
• Still works when JavaScript is disabled or you're offline.
• Far smaller, faster, and less intrusive than similar tools.
• No user tracking, tight security, and no unexpected nastiness.

Technology

• @maxmilton/html-parser HTML parser (fork of html5parser)
• ekscss style preprocessor
• stage1 JavaScript framework
• esbuild JavaScript bundler
• bun JavaScript bundler and runtime

Browser support

Recent versions of Google Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers (e.g., Brave, Edge).

Bugs

Report any bugs you encounter on the GitHub issue tracker.

Known issues

1. Extracted text on some pages may include unwanted things like ad text. This extension does its best to find only the most meaningful content in a website-agnostic way using generic heuristics. HTML markup varies wildly from website to website, so the extension can't handle every scenario. It's also not a goal to do website-specific content filtering.

   There are two solutions:

   1. Manually select content on the page and then start the extension. It will automatically get your selection and extract the text from that.

   2. Try the Brave browser. Brave has excellent ad-blocking capabilities, and its Speedreader feature cleans up page content for you! Load a page in Speedreader mode before running this extension. This is the recommended method for best results.

Prior art

• Spritz
• https://github.com/cameron/squirt
• https://github.com/topics/speed-reading
• https://github.com/search?q=spritz+read
• https://chrome.google.com/webstore/search/speed%20read

License

MIT license. See LICENSE.

The Literata web font is from googlefonts/literata which is licensed OFL-1.1.

The open book icon is from twitter/twemoji which is licensed CC-BY 4.0.

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© 2024 Max Milton