Reader Mode and Speed Reader Mode Pointless?

So, I’ve been making the swap over to Brave to give it a shot as my primary for a while, a feature I use a TON is reading mode, which all the other browsers have (Chrome you have to enable in the flags but it is there). I read an enormous amount of research on my browser so not having this might be a dealbreaker for me.

I enabled Reader Mode in the flags, and then toggled it on in the settings, and while it does work and appear on pages (stupidly it’s under the drop down menu instead of a single button press which is also annoying), BUT it only works when Shields is OFF?? What is the point of reader mode if you have to disable all of Brave’s good features to use it? If Shields conflicts then why doesn’t Brave disable Shields and reload the page in reader mode with a single button press?

Additionally, enabling Speed Reader in the flags seems to do nothing other than add a little “Speed Reader” icon to the the left of my omnibox, clicking on which does absolutely nothing on pages that the reader mode itself worked on, and it enables for all pages all at once.

Am I missing something major here or is this really something Brave is somewhat ignoring? As far as I can tell it’s the ONLY major feature it’s missing from the other guys, I’d hate to leave it just for something so simple.

Same here. If I want to read an article on mac, I am left two option either I zoom the text like I am blind or I have to switch to safari what has a one-click reader mode.Please fix this brave!! Just a single button similar to safari will be great.

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AFAIK the Speed Reader functionality works on a limited list of sites that are somehow approved by Brave. It is a different thing from Reader Mode.

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This is my question, too! Coming from FF I’m a heavy user of their Reader View and none of the current options really solve the use case.

I have recently moved from FF to Brave too. Here’s my setup:

Take a look at https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/360045031392-What-is-SpeedReader- for the sites that are compatible with SpeedReader.

The research behind it is published and actually really interesting if you don’t mind reading the gory details in an academic paper. It covers the differences between the FF reader mode and SpeedReader (though as I mentioned above you can have both). It’s published here: https://brave.com/speedreader-www19/

FWIW, if a site is SpeedReader compatible, it is lightning fast and ad-free. It’s yet another killer feature that puts Brave above other browsers.

Thanks for the info here, appreciate it! I see the extension as an option but I prefer to do it without extensions if possible.

I’m actually personally back on Firefox, the new redesign along with performance improvements and Fission bringing each domain it’s own browser process have made it competitive again IMO.

I think personally Brave is still my 2nd choice though, I just can’t live without really good reader mode natively which keeps me bouncing between Edge and Firefox.

My experience with Brave’s “Speed Reader” is limited because the number of sites on which it’s available is limited. That said, for me, Brave’s lack of a reader mode per se is barely noticable because I find Brave — across the board — eliminates most of the clutter that, for me, made a reader mode desirable.

This is true, it does remove a lot of the clutter. My reason for using reader mode is partially that it’s easier on the eyes, with a sepia backdrop and larger text I just prefer it that way (don’t have bad eyesight or anything, just like to read stuff in bed in the dark a lot). I find Firefox’s Reader Mode to actually be the best of anyones so I’m sticking with that for now.

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It is 7 months since you posted this and it is exactly my workflow on Brave (Mac).
On iOS, I use the reader button a lot and would love to see a button available on browser.

Yeah I gave up on this ever being figured out, I don’t use Brave anymore either. Sticking with Edge as my primary browser for most things.