How often have you tried to load a web page on your smartphone only to be presented with irritating ads and awkward layouts that get in the way? How about the times when the page you’re trying to load keeps on stuttering as you browse through its content?
Experts who review and sell electronics recommend using the “Reader Mode” to avoid these inconveniences. This is a one-tap fix to reading and browsing through web pages minus the frustration.
“Reader Mode” is a built-in Safari feature on iOS. It is also an experimental feature on Android gadgets through Google Chrome. It’s compatible with nearly all desktop browsers, too.
1. Safari on iOS
Because “Reader Mode” is an integrated Safari feature, it’s effortlessly compatible with an iPad or an iPhone.
Once you load a page in Safari, an icon at the left side of the URL bar will appear. To make the page more mobile-friendly, click the icon once it appears. This will instruct the page to load the text to make it more reader-friendly. The reading view will go around the majority of interstitial screens and close off those annoying routing features, social media sharing buttons, and perpetual on-screen ads. Without all of these, you can just get the news or write-up you visited the page to read.
2. Google Chrome on Android
Google Chrome for Android has its own reading mode. However it’s a concealed experimental icon you must enable all the time. This experiment has the potential to move on as a stable feature.
To use it, simply:
Key-in chrome://flags into the browser’s URL address bar. Hit enter.
Browse through the page and enable the “Enable Reader Mode Toolbar Icon” option.
Click the “Relaunch Now” button to relaunch the browser.
Once this is enabled, you can now load a page on your mobile using the more convenient reading feature.
3. Pocket App
There’s a considerable number of read-it-later applications in the market today, but Pocket remains to be the favorite of the experts. The Pocket app differs greatly from “Read Mode.” The application is more of a bookmark-it-and-read-it-later type of program where you take note the pages you’d like to read for later.
One of the best features of the Pocket app is its ability to just download the text and important images from a web page. So when you read the article later, even when you’re offline, you can easily launch it from your mobile phone. Pocket extensions are also available for desktop browsers.
4. Desktop Browsers
Almost all desktop browsers provide either “Reader Mode” or “Reader View” options today. Any of these options can be used to read articles in a clutter-free manner on your desktop or laptop. These options are available on Safari (Apple), Firefox (Mozilla), and Edge (Microsoft).
These choices are all associated with reading on a mobile phone. The great thing about websites these days, especially those that cater to the international market, is their user-friendly mobile version.
