Google Chrome To Get a Reader Mode

Google's Chrome browser will get a Reader Mode, similar to the one found in competing browsers like Firefox and the old Microsoft Edge. From a report: The feature is currently under development, but Chrome Canary users can test it starting today. Chrome's Reader Mode will work by stripping pages of most of their useless content, such as ads, comments sections, or animations, and leave a bare-bones version behind, showing only titles, article text, and article images. Work on the feature started in February this year when Google engineers began porting the "simplified view" offered by Chrome on Android to desktop editions. Today is the first day that a fully-functional Reader Mode is active in Chrome's desktop versions -- via Google Chrome Canary distributions. To test Chrome's upcoming Reader Mode, users must first visit the chrome://flags/#enable-reader-mode section in their Chrome Canary version, and enable the Reader Mode option.

Good!

[nospam007]

I wouldn't use a browser without it.

What's the fine print?

[presidenteloco]

Isn't it a little surprising that Google, which lives on ad revenue, would release this apparently comprehensive ad blocker feature? What am I missing?

Re:

[Mandrel]

Google makes much more of its money from search ads than AdSense ads on websites. So they don't mind burning site owners in order to maintain an attractive browser for the fraction of users who are adept enough to activate Reader Mode (who probably block those AdSense ads anyway, while still seeing Google's "acceptable" search ads).

Re:

[Mandrel]

I should also add that Reader Mode won't affect YouTube. Watching videos is increasingly taking over reading.

CSS

[q4Fry]

Can I write a style sheet for it (and/or for the Firefox version)?

Re:

[Known Nutter]

Please don't. The beauty of Reader Mode is the CSS is stripped and the article presented in a single font (typically serif) and single color, white on dark grey. It is a wonderful way to read an article.

Re:

[q4Fry]

I think you misunderstand me. I don't want to write CSS for anyone else. I want to style mine. I already use it in FF, but the "white" is too bright, and the pale blue links look weird on the "sepia" and "black" modes. I just want to dim the white a little or tweak the link color.

Re:

[omfglearntoplay]

Yes. And on my tablet, it increases the font a smidge which makes it easier to read.

Google embracing other browser features

[xack]

And extending them. You know what happens next.

What took them so long?

[XxtraLarGe]

Safari's had it at least since 2014, which is why it is still my main browser on the Mac.

Re: What took them so long?

[Anonymous Coward]

They had to come up with a way to display ads in reader mode so they can still make money.

Re:

[XxtraLarGe]

They had to come up with a way to display ads in reader mode so they can still make money.

The ads load at the time the page loads, so they're still getting money, even if they're not getting eyeballs on them.

Re:

[DontBeAMoran]

Indeed. The fact that the summary doesn't even mention Safari is shocking.

nicely formatted ads, nice.

[anetk]

nicely formatted ads, nice.

Gopher Protocol... is that you?

[HighOrbit]

Back to the future.....
Gopher Protocol [wikipedia.org]
Also.....
Lynx Text-Only HTML Browswer [wikipedia.org]

Great, now put some text news out there!

[pecosdave]

Modern news sites piss me off.

I live life at a speed faster than video.

Lots of modern "news" sites don't even have text beyond a "Subscribe to our content!" "Give us your email address!" "Like us on Facebook" link. I can read a news article in about 1/4 the time it takes for a damned video to play, maybe faster. So, the takeaway is I've stopped messing with most random news links and only have a few go-to sites, but my four year old that can't read yet can navigate news on the same level as the 20 somethings the modern news sites are targeting. Aggregation sites, with the exception of this one and a couple of others are still on my menu, but the Internet is becoming less useful as the technology that makes it happen improves.

Re:

[Jesus H Rolle]

Modern news sites piss me off.

I live life at a speed faster than video.

Lots of modern "news" sites don't even have text beyond a "Subscribe to our content!" "Give us your email address!" "Like us on Facebook" link. I can read a news article in about 1/4 the time it takes for a damned video to play, maybe faster. So, the takeaway is I've stopped messing with most random news links and only have a few go-to sites, but my four year old that can't read yet can navigate news on the same level as the 20 somethings the modern news sites are targeting. Aggregation sites, with the exception of this one and a couple of others are still on my menu, but the Internet is becoming less useful as the technology that makes it happen improves.

CNN has the best news website layout [cnn.com] on the web. The only downside is that it's still CNN.

Re:

[pecosdave]

I do typically avoid CNN.

I clicked your link and I do have to admit it looks quite nice interface wise. Then I saw a stream of obvious bias and propaganda.

As Need Flanders said, they always told me the devil would be beautiful.

Reader mode is the main reason I use Firefox

[screeguy]

Invoking it is the first step in converting web pages to eReader format.

From the Reader Mode view, do a Save Page complete. At the top level, you'll get an html page and a folder. You'll, wind up with a folder and an html page.

Now go into a terminal, cd lnto the folder that was just created. and move the html page page from 1 level up into it. Now the directory has the html file and maybe some pictures. Anything else is junk

Examine the html file in your favorite editor. Towards the beginning, you'll se