Google is working on a new Reader Mode for its mobile and desktop Chrome browsers and you can try an experimental version out right now. The tool makes reading web pages easier by removing unnecessary pictures, boxes, buttons and ads.
Apple's Safari has a reading mode and apps like Readability offers similar functionality for Chrome, but this is the first time Google has announced a built-in tool for the world's most popular web browser. In week where adware has gotten some very bad press with the Lenovo Superfish scandal, this is welcome news for users who are sick of being constantly sold to.
After admittedly having some trouble enabling the tool, we can say that it works a little bit too well. The ads are certainly gone, but on most pages so are all the images, leaving just text. It's certainly cleaner, but do we hate ads that much that we want to return to the '80s? Then again, it is just an experimental version and Google will no doubt get it working properly before launch.
To start, you need to run Chrome in the Distill or Reader mode on the desktop with the "--enable-dom-distiller" switch. For full instructions on how to do so on different operating system, see this guide.
We found the easiest way on Windows was to close out of Chrome, hit the Start button and then type "Chrome.exe --enable-dom-distiller" into the command box. On the mobile version, navigate to chrome://flags#enable-reader-mode-toolbar-icon, hit "Enable" and then relaunch Chrome. To switch the mode on, just click the "Distill Page" button on the dropdown menu.
The announcement was made on the Google+ page of Francois Beaufort, who works on the Google Chromium project. It's an open-source project, so Beaufort has made the code available for the more technically minded.
Microsoft also showcased a new, cleaner browser with similar properties called Spartan in January. Could we be seeing the start of an ad-free Internet? We seriously doubt it, but we can always live in hope.
Photo Credit: Francois Beaufort | Google+
