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The most underused browser feature: reader mode

frankgroeneveld.nl

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Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#141

Post by larodi »

one little known feature of reader mode, no matter if firefox's or safari/mobile is that more often than you would expect, it kind of magically goes through pay-walls. so you get to see articles that require subscription or payment or else, with a single click.

this happens so often that makes one wonder whether is due to some devs being lazy (hiding the actual content) or is by intent kept for savvy readers.

also does great job getting through nasty full-screen cookie consent banners.

basically is a glitter of hope for the web as a whole.

btw, was thinking about article like this one for some weeks now. great minds think alike, right :)

Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#142

Post by eurasiantiger »

bryant wrote: post #17
eurasiantiger wrote: post #12

Many sites already work around this, and reader mode only shows a blank page or the contents of the disavow human rights box.

> Many sites already work around this, and reader mode only shows a blank page or the contents of the disavow human rights box. Refresh while in reader mode. The DOM with most paywalls is destroyed post-render, not before it reaches the web browser. Refreshing in reader mode prevents client side scripts from executing and rewriting the DOM. I'm presuming this is to be search engine friendly, but I'll leave it to the…

With iOS, for example, refreshing npr.org just turns off reader mode.

Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#143

Post by schlupfknoten »

dijit wrote: post #11

I think I have to share my incredulation; I always use Reader Mode on Safari iOS: lots of sites are quite literally unreadable otherwise.

Unfortunately, I have recently started encountering more sites where Safari just doesn't offer the Reader Mode option.

Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#144

Post by Otek »

ameminator wrote: post #131
BeetleB wrote: post #125

Reader mode really helps me in printing as well. Old comment of mine: Printing is something I started to do some months ago. Instead of keeping the tab open for weeks, I decided I'd print anything I want to read and place it a physical "inbox". Some tips: I print 2 pages to a side, so 4 pages per printer paper. Even long articles don't use too much paper, and for my eyes it's still readable (there are a few articles…

I'll be honest, this is my favourite feature of my Kobo - using Pocket to save webpages and articles and read them offline. It seems to accomplish a similar goal to what you do here - without the need for all that paper.

I doubt he will print as much, so your e-reader will have less environmental impact. All that plastic and components are certainly the equivalent of several, if not hundreds of reams of paper.

Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#145

Post by mariusor »

_t9ow wrote: post #139
ratioprosperous wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing exactly this with a large format e-ink tablet has been revolutionary for me

Which e-ink tablet would you recommend?

Kobo devices have out of the box integration with Pocket, which Mozilla supports natively.

Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#146

Post by rawling »

egypturnash wrote: post #115
mywittyname wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only a matter of time before sites start rolling out anti-reader mode "features."

It's already been done. Wired, for instance, only shows you the first paragraph of a story until you've made an account and logged in, even in reader mode.

Surely that's just any halfway-competent pay/sign-up wall, rather than specifically anti-reader mode?

Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#147

Post by saurik »

BeetleB wrote: post #125

Reader mode really helps me in printing as well. Old comment of mine: Printing is something I started to do some months ago. Instead of keeping the tab open for weeks, I decided I'd print anything I want to read and place it a physical "inbox". Some tips: I print 2 pages to a side, so 4 pages per printer paper. Even long articles don't use too much paper, and for my eyes it's still readable (there are a few articles…

> I can now read wherever I want. Going to the mechanic? I just take some of these printed articles with me.

To be fair, I can (and do) do the same thing with my phone.

Re: The most underused browser feature: reader mode

#149

Post by up6w6 »

k1m wrote: post #70

Any developers who'd like to contribute to improving how article content is extracted from web pages should check out Mozilla's Readability repository: https://github.com/mozilla/readability I'm currently trying to bring the PHP port up to speed here: https://github.com/fivefilters/readability.php We use an older version as part of our article extraction for Push to Kindle: https://www.fivefilters.org/push-to-kindle/

I believe the Instant View[1] crowdsourcing model where people write templates for each website could boost a lot these parsers (hope they open source it soon). Its just impossible to make these extensions work for every single website with some simple heuristics.

Check the codebase of some popular parsers:

Firefox (already mentioned): https://github.com/mozilla/readability/blob/master/Readabili...

Google Chrome: https://github.com/chromium/dom-distiller

Mercury parser: https://github.com/postlight/mercury-parser

[1] https://instantview.telegram.org/

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