Some web pages are so cluttered it is hard to read the content. There are menu bars, banner and skyscraper adverts, sharing buttons, links to other pages, comments and more. Clean it up!
To make reading web pages even worse, many page elements trigger effects as the mouse moves over them, such as pop-ups, pull-downs and slide-outs. Subscribe to this, click that, and so on. GDPR and cookie consent has only made matters worse with their irritating pop-ups.
Mercury Reader is a free extension for Chrome that cuts out the distractions on web articles leaving the content easy to read. (For more information on browser extensions, read Web browser security – Extensions, add-ons, plugins.)
This extension is not exactly an ad blocker and the home page and other special pages on websites look exactly the same as they always did. Mercury Reader is specifically aimed at making articles look good by stripping out the text and presenting it in a simple and easy to read manner?
To see the effect that Mercury Reader has, here is an article from a website chosen at random. It is a typical tech website and there are many like it. The content is excellent, but can you even see it for all the clutter? In fact you can see the heading and part of the first sentence.
Clicking the Mercury Reader icon at the right side of the address box strips out the text and displays it on a plain background without all the clutter.
Notice how much cleaner and simpler this web page is. All the clutter, menus and other features have been hidden and there is a headline and body text. This is far easier to read and much less distracting than the original.
Mercury Reader options
Click the gear icon at the top right corner of the page in reading mode and a toolbar is displayed.
There are options to change the text size and three are available, small, medium and large. There are two fonts, serif and sans, and light and dark themes. Dark might be easier on your eyes in the evening.
Send articles to Kindle
Right click the Mercury Reader icon and select Options on the menu. It provides instructions to enable web pages to be sent to a Kindle - either the Kindle device or the Kindle app on a phone or tablet. This works by sending the page to your Kindle email address.
A lot of people don’t realise that you have a Kindle email address. You do and any text files, PDFs or ebooks emailed to it appear on your Kindle device or app. If you have a Kindle device or the Kindle app on a phone or tablet, go into Settings, Account Settings and your Send-to-Kindle email address to see it. You can also go into your account settings on the Amazon website.
Send any document to this email address and it can be read on the Kindle device or Kindle app on phones and tablets. You might need to add the mercury email account to the approved list because it won’t accept emails from anyone, only senders you trust.
It isn’t worth it with short web articles, but if you come across one that is a couple of thousand words you can read it on your Kindle.
Get Mercury Reader for Chrome
Adding Mercury Reader to Chrome is straightforward and you just need to go to the Chrome Web Store and search for it or click the link above.
Click the ADD TO CHROME button to install it and as soon as the button appears in the toolbar it is ready to use. Go to a web page with a reasonably long article, not the home page. Wait for it to finish loading and then click the button in Chrome’s toolbar.
Alternatives to Mercury Reader
Mercury Reader is by far the most popular extension of it type and it has 418,000 users. There are a couple of alternatives you might want to check out and Read Mode has 59,000 users and the similarly named Reader Mode has just 1,600 and a lower score.
Thanks for this. will try it. i save some webpages in Evernote and it has ‘simplified page’ option that is wonderful. saved pages are just the ‘neat’ matter …no crap