I came across this fantastic application reading David Pogue's column at nytimes.com. Pretty much every page you go to nowadays has those new expandable ads that almost fills your screen when you hover over them with your mouse. With all the flashing and blinking going on, I find it hard to actually read certain articles online - and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Enter Readability. This simple app changed the way I interact with the internet:
The picture above should give you an idea, but basically what Readability does is take the text from the page you are reading and format it into a much easier and simpler way. It removes all ads and unnecessary formatting to give you what you actually want to read - the article. Don't worry, if there are images within the article, those will show up as well.
To get Readability working (it will literally take you 12 seconds), follow these simple steps:
1. Go here
2. Setup your preferences (I like the eReader styling the best)
3. Drag the "Readability" link into your bookmarks menu
4. On any page you're reading, just click your new "Readability" bookmark and it will format it for you
Like any one-size-fits-all product, it doesn't work for everything. That being said, if there is a large block of text I'd like to read online, the first thing I'll be doing is clicking my Readability bookmark.
Enjoy
6 comments:
Tried it. Liking it. Nice find.
Gift from God. You rock.
Glad you guys like it... those new almost-full-page ads are almost as bad as popups back in the 90s.
it did wonders to the amdal homesite when I just used it. all those annoying ads gone!
For some reason it picks the Mad Men post - I have no idea why. It really works when you're reading the specific article, not the homepage with a bunch of articles.
I'm extremely impressed that works across browsers. I was worried it was an FF extension.
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