Readability is a free Web-browser bookmarklet that strips all distractions from Web pages. David Pogue, the personal-technology columnist for The New York Times, called it the “… single best tech idea of 2009 …” and a “… real life-changer …”.
Pogue, D. (2009-12-31). The Pogie Awards for the Year’s Best Tech Ideas. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/technology/personaltech/31pogue.html?_r=1
It is indeed a promising tool. Yet, as I pointed out in my review of Readability, it has a significant problem. For many Web pages I tested, it could not determine which was the main text content, or it displayed only a snippet of it.
Readable (created by Gabriel Coarna)
Readable, also a free Web-browser bookmarklet, includes the same configuration features, has more of them, and has a feature that solves Readability’s problem. If Readable can not determine a page’s main text content, it enables users to identify the text they want to read. A user holds down the Control (Ctrl) key, selects the text with the mouse, and clicks it. Readable then shows that text free of extraneous content. (Instructions are on the “Tutorial” page.)
Readable can be used with Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera and Internet Explorer.
Notes
- A description and a video demonstration of Readable can be found on its Web site.
- On the “More Info” page of Readable’s Web site, its creator, Gabriel Coarna, has written a comparison of Readable and Readability.
- No endorsement of Readable or Readability, or their respective creators, is intended or implied.