A web-powered screen reader
Please note that this extension is now in maintenance mode; no new additions will be made moving forward.
The Chrome Screen reader extension is a showcase of a fully featured screen reader for the web built using only web technologies such as html and javascript.
This extension specifically works within the Chrome browser to read content aloud. For more comprehensive solutions, we recommend the use of full system screen readers like ChromeVox on Chrome OS, VoiceOver on Mac, JAWS, NVDA or Narrator on Windows, etc.
The ChromeVox screen reader is an extension to Chrome that brings the speed, versatility, and security of Chrome to visually impaired users.
Unlike most accessibility software, it is built using only web technologies like HTML5, CSS and Javascript. ChromeVox was designed from the start to enable unprecedented access to modern web apps, including those that utilize W3C ARIA (Access to Rich Internet Applications) to provide a rich, desktop-like experience. This enables visually impaired users to experience the power of web applications while also giving developers a way to verify the accessibility of their web applications.
Its simple yet powerful navigation is easy to learn and quickly gets new users up to speed browsing web sites and web-based applications eyes-free. Check out the documentation at chromevox.com for the user guide, tutorial, keyboard shortcut and developer reference guides.
Note: ChromeVox is still in development and currently doesn’t work in conjunction with desktop screen readers. In order to best use ChromeVox on your computer, you will need to disable your desktop screen reader when using ChromeVox.
ChromeVox is just one of the Google Accessibility extensions. Be sure to check out ChromeVis, ChromeShades, and ChromeLite as well!
Latest reviews
- (2024-06-03) Luca Facchino: -Unire con google traduttore Problema :Scrivere con Screen Reader + Aumento pallino Di caricamento = - scrittura fluida
- (2023-10-19) Sergio Prats: Just terrible, the control + alt + z not working to disable it.
- (2023-10-09) Наталья Овсянникова: Для разработчиков ПО было бы классной функцией ставить приложение на паузу. Приложение неплохое, но неудобно, что нельзя остановить и потом включить вновь. Приходится ставить и удалять раз за разом.
- (2023-10-08) Isha: Okay so I really like some features of this screenreader like the female english accent is actually comprehensible and annunciates words properly. BUT, you cannot turn it off, on certain pages like PDFs, chrome settings, etc. it messes up the format of the site and options are removed. For instance, the downloading option is missing on PDFs. The screenreader also makes certain sites function weirdly and certain aspects don't load. The voice is good, I can't say the same about the rest because I personally don't like having tab names and whatnot read out.
- (2023-10-04) Muh. Dadang Hawari: Guys I found it, to turn it off you can go to manage extensions, after in manage extensions you'll find some extensions that you can enable or turn it off using toggle
- (2023-09-21) Kevin Reynen: Like everyone else has said, there is no toggle to run the reading off while the extensions is enabled. My work around was to install the extension on the Chrome Beta. Because this is installed as a 2nd Chrome instance, I use the supported Chrome for my day to day and then fire up Chrome Beta to use the screen reader. Not ideal, but it works for me.
- (2023-09-18) Paul Littlewood: That there isn't a toggle to turn the extension on/off is bonkers.
- (2023-09-06) Janice White: This used to work months ago when I found it. Now the silly thing can't read anything I try to select EXCEPT the silly right click menu options. After fighting with the extension for over 10 minutes reparing/unloading and then reinstalling, trying to find alternatives, etc I have given up the search until I find the energy again.
- (2023-08-25) Zeno Bilucaglia: Horrible extension. No way to turn it off without interfeer with other Windows Apps, horrible UX and UI. Really, Really user Unfriendly. I have to remove it to turned off. Bad extension 0 stars if I could :(
- (2023-08-17) Jago Mystiek: MS paint is a better screen reader.
- (2023-08-16) M “Mago” Saldana: same as others, can't turn off. Just making this comment, it read off Every. Single. Letter and space. Doesn't work with Libby if anyone is wondering.
- (2023-08-08) Cannot turn off the screen reader without removing it.
- (2023-08-01) Wenyuan Liao: 我觉得很不错啊,不仅免费,而且对于盲人来说应该非常方便吧,连文本框都会提示。普通人拿来读外语也很有用
- (2023-07-20) CRAZY GAMEZ: It doesn't say how to use it. I can't use it.
- (2023-07-15) L K: Wow this extension is horrible.
- (2023-07-13) Josh Stevenson: It does work for the most part but the main issue is it cannot be turned off... In my experience using Crl+Alt+AA gets it to say "chrome reader is now inactive" but then it continues as normal staying active. And, for me, there is no longer toggle switches in the extension management area so the only thing to do is uninstall it. You'd think a thousand bad reviews would highlight the issue. This is the top result for screen readers in chrome extensions.
- (2023-07-03) Glen Raymond: Is there people at google that check if their extension are working for their costumer. I can't believe that this is a google product!?...
- (2023-06-28) John Barbosa: Es de funcionalidad aceptable para un usuario que no suele usar screen reader, pero no lo recomiendo usar para valorar la accesibilidad de un website.
- (2023-06-13) Hasan Aliyev: There is nooooo way to turn off this extension. Only way is to install and reinstall when I am developing the page. Terrible user experience and there are no alternatives.
- (2023-06-12) Keerthana Vidyasagar: Not user friendly and lags. Do not recommend in the current state.
- (2023-05-20) Lee Underwood: This app should be criminal. Super annoying. remove from web store. trash. scum. every thing negitive this app is
- (2023-05-17) Simon Stirling: If your looking for a good accessibility tool, this is not it! bugs galore... for basic stuff like, the Shift+Alt+A>A command saying "now inactive" and still being active, to the fact that if you try and enter the plugin configuration to just disable it chrome crashes.
- (2023-05-16) Linda Stīrija: neiespējami saprast latviešu valodas nolasījumus.
- (2023-05-14) Alexandr Nikipelov: Здорово что есть такие программы, но очень и очень печально в плане практического использования. Большой выбор языков. Не понимаю как эта программа может помочь слепому человеку работать в браузере и как-то ориентироваться, это издевательство над нервами.
- (2023-05-09) Ivan Mitov: Are you really not gonna give a simple way to turn it off? Omg
- (2023-05-04) Alexander Soriano: It crashed my Python Programiz Course
- (2023-05-03) Neil Strain: Good grief, there should be a way to turn the extension off and on. Interferes with text inputs, I'm experiencing a severe lag while typing this review.
- (2023-04-18) Joey Cannon: very poor experience with this
- (2023-04-13) Nagaraju Nag: Turning it off is a bit tricky as there's no option on click of the extension. I didn't find any useful extension for my Macbook so, I definitely give 5 star. BTW, you have to go to "manage exensions" and turn it off there.. Glad that at least we have one good extension to test the accessibility. It'd be great if there's someone to update the code to turn it off at ease..
- (2023-04-06) Ray C: The service needs to have settings to adjust how agressive the read aloud feature works. Example: 1) read alound only what I select 2) read aloud key movements 3) read everthing
- (2023-04-03) GM: Works for my use case. I think it needs to have a "disable" in the plugin options but does not. It's not ideal to have to jump to extensions to manually disable the entire plugin. Overall, works ok for reading like JAWS for testing purposes.
- (2023-03-25) Richard B: It's 2023 and Google has done absolutely the minimum effort for accessibility. I cannot believe it is this bad. I am reading an HTML page with and H1 tag, and and H2 tag. I click on the tab, it reads the page title, and then nothing. Then if you use tab to navigate to the page elements it doesn't work or read anything. This is such a fail from the world's leading company.
- (2023-03-24) Justin Dorland: This is the least usable extension i've ever encountered. This does not pass even a basic UX benchmark. - Can't turn it off without a shortcut key that's hidden behind menus. How would I find the way to turn this off if I were visually impaired? I would have to find where my exensions are stored, open the options (also not highlighted or anything, it's just the second tab on the right click menu for the exension), scroll down to where the "Turn off" hotkey is listed among a lot of other hotkeys, then hopefully read this grayed-out option that super doesn't pass any sort of AA contrast guidelines, and finally I would then know what hotkey to use to turn off the app. -- All the while as im moving through pages, Chrome is screaming gibberish at me because, again, i cant turn off this app and it's trying to read everything i click on. - No way to pause/unpause from the top right icon. Even if there's an easy shortcut, this is like a computer not having a power button. - Obscure click selection. You have to understand how web wrappers and blocks work to select the right area. It doesn't read what you highlight - it reads the top level element that you click. So, if you want to read a whole section, you don't click the section head or select the section. You click *away* from the section and hope you hit the right dead zone that is part of the top level wrapper. --Sorry if that one doesn't make sense to possible users, this one is for the developers. - If you click a word high up and then scroll down, the yellow box STAYS in that location on the screen, it doesn't follow the word after you've scrolled past it. You get these weird floating ghost boxes and it's super annoying. Genuinely it feels like I used an alpha version of a good app. It's bad. It's frustratingly close to great but it feels like we missed some steps. Did code get released at the wrong time? I would be happy to provide further feedback because this feels too broken to be intentionally released.
- (2023-03-17) Raymond Ngule: how the actual hec do you turn this thing off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ONE STAR 😐 and why does evryone complain about how its reading, isn't it meant to read the way a screen reader reads??
- (2023-03-15) Ian Banks: So vile. Can't figure out how to turn it off from reading everything and it is so annoying I don't want to deal with it.
- (2023-03-14) Steven: This is the most annoying Chrome extension ever. It speaks EVERYTHING that you do with your mouse or keyboard. And there's no way to turn that off - no way to control it. All I want is to have text from a Google Doc read to me. With Microsoft Word this is effortless. But with this extension I am told EVERYTHING I do with my computer, including every letter I type. Its endless prattle will drive you crazy. Oh, and it has sound effects for different actions, to be even more annoying. Never have I hit "Remove from Chrome" so quickly. Losing this extension was sweet relief.
- (2023-03-06) Beth Meeker: Works great if you could toggle it on and off. Instead it works incessantly until you remove the extension.....
- (2023-03-05) Ej Eason: it won't read any page at all, not even a sound.
- (2023-02-27) T K: Can't turn the darn thing off!
- (2023-02-27) Maria Cecilia Balda: mi pc es una avión, pero esta extensión me cuelga todas las webs a las que entro. Si apreto tab al mismo tiempo que habla el lector se tilda todo. O sea siempre. malisima
- (2023-02-24) Karan Simone: It really is the worse reader that I have ever used. It reads everything but what I want it to read. Difficult to turn on and off. Nothing good to say...would be 0 stars if I could.
- (2023-02-23) Wolfgang K.: Stimme kommt schlecht mit vielen Wörtern klar und ist alles in allem sehr unausgereift und improvisiert
- (2023-02-17) Tyler Samuelson: Quite literally the worst possible screen reader. Needlessly complicated to toggle on/off, impossible to successfully remap any shortcuts, and it reads everything BUT what I need it to read. Not worth the built-in frustration. Embarrassing level of quality from Chrome Dev Tools.
- (2023-02-15) kuk kusk: finner ikke ut hvordan man skrur av
- (2023-02-11) lethargy: I think its broken again. I'm getting this error message, "Error code: RESULT_CODE_KILLED_BAD_MESSAGE" when using this extension.
- (2023-02-06) Samuel Oxenford: One of the many reasons this extension is bad is because it messes up Chrome pages (history, extensions, etc.) I can't even scroll past my 6 other extensions to turn it off. I had to remove it from Chrome. The "Narrator" that comes with Windows is way better than this junk.
- (2023-02-05) Mrittick Choudhury: As a Product UXUI Designer, I'm both amused and embarrassed at this, I really don't know what to say 😂 why cannot the user decide when to pause & resume to screen reader, make it stop LMAO
- (2023-02-02) Sheila Lebron: Hear ye, hear ye! Upon reading and in support of every single one of the most recently added "1-Star" reviews, know this: You have just learned of the curse which will be casted onto whoever plays into allowing their pre-conditioned mindset to find it a "good enough" reason for deciding to get/do/say what they want to be logical when such actions are taken on the bases of giving things (in this case, using this tool) the "benefit of the doubt" which, by default, will excuse their conscience about choosing to ignore the "negative" experiences shared by other reviewers. And just for the sake of forming their own opinions on the bases of personal experience, they, too, shall feel the 'extension' (pun intended) of the dark side. From here forward, all who will have chosen to add this extension shall undeniably recognize and feel regret about not having worked harder on reconditioning their pre-conditioned minds sharp enough to recognize when things that are better left unknown are in front of their faces and enabling themselves to make better choices.
- (2023-01-20) Gerardo Gonzalez: I don't know where to start..........horrible, I have to reinstall the app just to write a comment...it's not helpful, it's very annoying and there are different bugs with this app a huge field to improve. .. I needed this app for school... but I couldn't stand this app for a minute literally...... I think I'll keep working with Microsoft Edge... I was hoping the read-aloud feature would be better than Edge... It's amazing how Edge beat Chrome on this one by miles. -5 starts
- (2022-03-21) Abigail Epplett: Really terrible extension. Annoying, no choices for voice type or speed. The built-in screen reader for Edge is far superior to this option. Once again, Google is inexcusably inaccessible to visually impaired users. I uninstalled immediately after installing once I figured out the convoluted method for uninstalling.
Statistics
Installs
200,000
history
Category
Rating
2.5097 (1,079 votes)
Last update / version
2024-04-21 / 53.0.2784.15
Listing languages