Google has been working on a new way to read websites by developing a dedicated Reader Mode for Chrome. This basically strips away most of the website design and advertising in order to provide a more visceral experience. This feature has been available for mobile since late last year but now is available for computers.
If you’re on a smartphone or tablet you can open Google Chrome you can turn on the Reader Mode flag at chrome://flags#enable-reader-mode-toolbar-icon, relaunch and tap on the “Reader mode” icon in the toolbar to try it out.
Reading mode is not available as a built in feature for Chrome for computers right now but you can manually install the extension via the Chromium’s open-source DOM Distiller. Once its installed you should notice a new “Distill page” menu item.
Google is basically trying to bring reading mode into the prime time by making it somewhat difficult for the average user to turn it on. In the meantime, Apple Safari is pretty well the industry leader when it comes to a solid reading mode on their line of iPhones and iPads.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
