We’ve previously covered some techniques that can help you curb your browsing distractions and this article is a continuation of that post. Today, we’ll be highlighting some of the best clutter-free browsing extensions for Google Chrome. Not only will these add-ons help you read articles in a clean, distraction-free manner, they’ll also make reading on the web much more enjoyable than it used to be. So, if you find yourself distracted by ads and stuff on your favorite websites, here are the best Chrome extensions for clutter-free browsing.
TidyRead: This is a highly customizable extension that provides a clean and clutter-free reading experience. Unlike other extensions where you have to hit a hotkey or a button to activate reading mode, TidyRead automatically gives you a clean and readable version of page the moment you open an article. One of the highlights of this extension is that it can be customized to a great extent. You can change the font size, the background, text width, and even the text direction. Furthermore, the articles can be opened either in overlay mode or can replace the original page.
TidyRead offers 12 fonts to choose from, which includes popular ones like Arial, Tahoma, Lucida, Verdana; and, for some weird reason, there’s Comic Sans too. Also, if you find the automatic option a bit annoying, you can disable it completely and map TidyRead to a hotkey instead. Or else, you can blacklist some websites where you don’t want TidyRead to show up automatically. Overall, a great, feature-laden extension for those who usually hate reading on the web.
Clea.nr: This is a great browser extension that cleans up YouTube’s interface by putting focus on the video. Perfect for those who love lots of whitespace, Clea.nr also cleans up Amazon’s interface and makes it look more like the Google homepage.
What I like about Clea.nr is that although it hides the distracting elements like comments, subscriptions, and suggested videos, you can unhide those features instantly without even reloading the page. Definitely worth a try if you spend a lot of time on YouTube and Amazon.
Readability: Readability is the first add-on to come up with a clutter-free reading extension for the web. What it does is pretty simple, it extracts text from the web page and displays it in a clean and readable format. Once installed, a red-colored button shows up on your Chrome toolbar. Clicking on it gives you three options : Read Now, Read Later and Send to Kindle. The Read Now button converts the current article into a clean, readable format.
You can configure the background color, font size, width and also choose to hide images in the article. Another unique feature about Readability is that it allows you to convert all links on the page into footnotes, so that you don’t get distracted by links whilst reading the article. Despite the fact that many similar extensions have popped up, it’s still one of the best tools in its genre.
iReader: This extension works quite similar to Readability; however, it has some advantages of its own. iReader, unlike Readability which reloads the page, overlays the extracted text over the current page so that you can return to the original article by simply hitting the Escape button. This is especially useful when you’re done reading an article and want to post a comment on it.
Once installed, the iReader button shows up in the address bar every time you’re on an article. Clicking on the button will darken the background and show you a clean version of the page. Hovering over the article also reveals a toolbar from where you can zoom, print or share the article. Furthermore, the options menu allows you to choose the fonts, change the font width, and enable or disable smooth scrolling. I’ve been using the iReader for about six months now and I haven’t switched to any other extension ever since.
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Evernote Clearly: Released just a couple of days ago is Clearly by Evernote. This extension does everything that the aforementioned apps do, but with Evernote integration. The fonts and themes look beautiful and make reading big articles a fun experience. Moreover, the built-in ability to save articles to Evernote is an added bonus. Definitely worth a try if you’re an avid Evernote user.
Image Credits: Sean MacEntee
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