Almost a decade since Apple introduced Reader Mode in Safari 5, Google has deployed a similar feature in its developmental Canary builds. Reader Mode has since been picked up by other web browsers such as Firefox in the meantime too. The feature works by stripping webpages, leaving titles, images, and article text, in order to give a clutter-free reading experience.
Google’s implementation builds on the simplified view feature that is present in Chrome on Android. The work started in February after Google engineers ported the feature from Android to the desktop.
In order to use Reader Mode, visit chrome://flags/#enable-reader-mode in Canary and enable the feature. You’ll then need to restart the browser; once that’s done head to a web page that you want to read then press the three-dot menu and find “Distill page”.
Unlike Firefox which lets you control spacing, font type, font size, and background colour, the Chrome implementation is extremely light on features at the moment. With that said it seems to be using the same method to distill pages as the DOM Distiller Reading Mode Chrome extension which does allow for customisation, so those options could be added in time for the official launch.
Source: ZDNet
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