Reader mode: an article without ads or popup banners

You open an article and before you get to the first sentence, you're dodging a cookie banner, a video ad, a newsletter signup prompt, and a floating menu. Browsers have a built-in answer to this: reader mode. One click “strips” the page down to plain text and images — no ads, no sidebars, no blinking elements. It's not an extension or a paid tool, just a button almost nobody knows about.

How to do it

1. Firefox: open the article and click the page-with-lines icon on the right side of the address bar, or press Ctrl + Alt + R (on a Mac, Cmd + Option + R). Reader View switches on.
2. Edge: press F9 or click the reader icon in the address bar. The mode used to be called Immersive Reader; newer versions call it Reading View — it's the same thing. The same key turns it off again.
3. Chrome: open the three-dot menu and choose More tools → Reading mode — the text appears in a side panel. It's less convenient than in Firefox and Edge, but it works.
4. In reader mode, you can adjust font size and typeface, column width, and background color (light, dark, sepia) — handy for long evening reading.
5. Reader mode only works on pages with an article or continuous text; the icon won't appear on homepages or in online stores.
6. Turning it off is always the same as turning it on — the same icon or the same shortcut. The original page, in full, stays just one press away, so you lose nothing if you want to click a link from the text.

A typical scenario

A teacher wants to project a news article during class. But on the classroom wall, ads and “recommended articles” unrelated to the topic show up next to the text — and sometimes they're flat-out inappropriate. She presses F9 and projects only clean text in a large font that even students in the back row can read.

A student partway through a twenty-minute read appreciates how everything competing for their attention disappears from the page. Reading an article in reader mode is noticeably less tiring than dodging banners with your eyes — and you stick with the text longer.

What you get out of it

Reading longer pieces on the web stops being a fight for your attention — you focus on the content, not on dodging ads. It pays off when printing too: an article printed from reader mode doesn't waste half the page on banners and menus.

Pro tip

Combining reader mode with printing is quietly powerful: turn reader mode on, press Ctrl+P, and save the article as a clean PDF — no ads, sensible type. Ideal for archiving source material or preparing materials for class. On a Mac, Safari's reader does the same thing.