Reviews & Comments of ShiftReader - Speed Read the Web chrome extension

Doesn't work. Tried using ALT + S on a PDF and got an error message. I was asked to highlight the text and right click in order to use Shiftreader. The text was several pages but I wanted to test it with just a paragraph. After highlighting and right clicking the page just froze in place(but not frozen since I could still right click and type in the browser) forcing me to restart the page and try again. I wasted probably ten minutes trying to make this work when I could have been reading.

It says that you have to create an account so it can save settings and statistics. That is BS, because those can be saved in chrome sync storage, and maybe I don't care about them. It should say that it wants you register so it can track you, and potentially leak your data a few years from now.

Requires you to register, under the guise of needing a login to save your settings. Blatant lies aside, you shouldn't need to send data to anyone.

This extension behaves like my favorite speed reading solution "eyercise," and because it allows chunking per fixation point actually improves one's reading ability in general over that lousy rsvp method which will eventually lead to depth-perception issues (a _common_ outcome of staring at screens for hours). Morbid fact: The average person will spend 44 years of their life staring at screens. My personal favorite setup is green highlight color, dark red highlight background, and dark blue page text. Once the highlight background begins to fade, the previously marked text appears black until retinal rods and cones re-adapt. To the dev: Reason for 4 stars: I think the suggested donation is way too high. Feature request: 1. glowing text using webkit opacity transition effect. 2. keep highlight line at the top level (autoscroll for persistent top line). Thank you so much.

I am a doctor from India and I'd like to share my feedback. It's not a magic bullet, but since a lot of the reading material are PDFs, ePubs, other online resources, I found that using shiftreader very helpful. It is a digital equivalent to a finger that you use to guide your eyes on a printed book. So reading complex and lengthy material doesn't feel intimidating because you are now going slowly word by word until it comes to an end. You just don't feel the pressure. And yes, for my first time with a difficult material (kaplan qbank for usmle), I go through slowly around 100 to 150 words per minute to go over the explanations. And no, I don't read non stop from first line to last line. I jump around up and down. Pause a lot. to digest the more complex concepts. After my first read, I do it again a second timej at a higher speed 200 to 250. I also print out the material I am using, because nothing, i mean nothing can replace a good old printed copy. Because looking at the screen for long is also not productive. Reading printed material has been associated with better retention as opposed to reading online. So perhaps find a balance between the best of both worlds. I for one. The rules to successful learning still apply. So I recommend going through Make it stick : the rules of successful learning. I'll have to keep this short. I'm sure many others will find more creative ways to use this wonderful tool. Give it a try. I finally caved in and got a premium subscription because it remembers my reading history. So I just like to keep a check on what I have read. So if I want to go back to an article I read on medium a few months ago, I can refresh my memory. And if there are any bugs, the developer is very supportive and irons out whatever bumps there are along the way. it still needs a little feature that allows you to switch to night or day mode. Looking at a bright screen for long gets tiring. and makes you unproductive. So the ability to easily switch between night and day mode as in spreed would be really helpful. As a work around I am using Dark reader chrome extension.

The one speed reading extension that actually works. It helps to form habits that carry over to real-life reading and allows you to read with all the context (page layout, text structure, pictures and video clips) still available, unlike almost all typical rapid visualization readers. Very kind and responsive developer, lots of options.

This is the best speed reading tool for browsers! My only wish is that it could read Kindle Cloud Reader books. Thanks!

Excellent app! Would go premium if RTL support is added.

I would say it is a fantastic way of reading. I am still getting my head around it in terms of speed and word chunks, but it is really good overall

You guys are doing amazing work, this is easily my favorite chrome extension. Bravo.

Perfect

What a fantastic improvement from this developer's previous Speed Reading chrome extension, Spreed. I love that I can read faster in the context of the full article instead of just getting flashed a single word at a time—I feel like consistently using this extension would make me a much faster reader even without ShiftReader. The default colors were a little hard on my eyes, and jarring when the rest of my computer is in Dark Mode, but I was able to swap around the colors super easily in the app's settings.

Thanks, Troy! I've been needing this. A couple of suggestions for the "tour" - to mention that back arrow will take the cursor back a paragraph, and that space button will pause it. Also - would be good to have a help ("?") link with the rest of the controls on top left, which would show all the keyboard shortcuts - Alt S, Back-Arrow, Space, etc.

Fantastic extension. As a college student who has always struggled with slow reading, this is exactly the kind of tool I need to remove distractions and train myself to read more quickly and with focus. Thank you!