Reader mode feature

#1

A reader mode like Safari [1] and Firefox [2] will improve the user experience in many cases.

Eg:

media-20170809
media-20170809.png338×600 47.8 KB

Here the web designer make two major mistakes that hurts readability:

  1. Thin typography
  2. Low-contrast font color [3]

Maybe at first glance you detect the readability problem but say that is no major issue, well, reading a whole article can create vision fatigue, and for example elderly users with bad vision can’t even read it.
The web have many sites with this problems, reader mode is a way to give the users more power.

Seems like a reader mode is a common request for Chrome users [4].

[Album] Imgur

Chrome browser has 50% market share right now [5], introduce the feature will be another advantage for Brave besides the in built ad/spy blocker.

Opinion: Chrome plans to introduce an in-built adblocker in 2018 [6] and for many users will be no reason to use Brave, besides the Chrome adblocker will accept “good” ads, the adblocker feature will be not the exclusive killer feature of Brave anymore (like Firefox tabs in the IE era).

Sources here because seems like I’m not allowed to put more than one link

#2

Hi @pablomassa,

Is this on Android? I believe you can follow these step to enable Reader mode for Brave on Android:

Hope this can help,
Thank you,
:slight_smile:

#3

The most compelling feature Firefox has is it’s Reader View. It’s so nice to get rid of all of that clutter. This is one of the main reasons I stick with Firefox.

The most compelling feature of Vivaldi is its history. It blows away the history in Firefox and Brave.

If Brave Browser simply added these two features, I would completely move off of the other two browsers. Actually, I use Firefox mainly for it’s compatibility and Reader View. I don’t use Vivaldi regularly. But the only reason I think it stands out is its history. It is very detailed.

I prefer the Brave browser because of its built-in security and the fact that it doesn’t cater to telemetry collection. So I use Brave the most. If I could get Reader View and the History was made as well as in Vivaldi, I’d go totally on Brave and be free of installing the other browsers.

I don’t like Vivaldi because it tries to be everything for everyone. I don’t want 9000 features, just a few basics.

#4

Reader mode for Brave desktop is coming in the future. Open issue:
https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/issues/517

#5

Another approach would be to include a setting for auto hiding the URL, Menu, and Bookmarks bar. Also throw in the scroll bar. Then users would get the benefit of a reader view automatically, without having to manually switch modes.

#6

I am glad to see this is in development. I use this all the time.

#7

Thanks! yes, is Brave Android. Glad to see that Chromium already has the feature. I try this and it works, but I think the experience is not the best.

  1. The option is buried in settings for the regular user, which will not improve their experiences with the feature so hard to find.
  2. With this solution, if the user enable the feature, a “Make page mobile-friendly” option appears on every page in a bottom bar. This can be annoying and intrusive for many users.

I think the best solution to that, is put the option on the three dots menu, by default, and rename it to “Reader mode”, “Reader view” or something in those lines. The page can be “Mobile-friendly” but still has readability problems.

I’m suggesting this not exactly for me as a user, I’m thinking on the new average user on Brave (I usually solve this reading in Pocket, but a more handy, instant and in-built reader mode will be great!).

Also I think this can be a feature to highlight and make Brave stand out as a product, specially with the vision that the product has. Good stuff for the marketing team to make users switch from Chrome.

Is great to see that the feature is coming to Brave desktop!

Hope can help with my UX suggestions.

#8

So glad this is coming! It’s just about the only reason I ever use Safari anymore…

#9

Really looking forward to Reading mode! Thanks in advance.