SwiftRead - read faster, learn more

Description

Reviews Reviews with text are a subset of all ratings.

3.3 average from 27 ratings.

1. ★☆☆☆☆ Richard · 12 Mar 2026
   The new version is buggy, the UI is poorly designed (there are multiple instances where there are two buttons on the same screen that do the same thing). The center letter is no longer highlighted, which makes it harder to read. When transitioning between speed reading and regular reading, it is harder to find your spot in the block of text because the last word you read is no longer highlighted. The option to read multiple words at a time is gone, which has been replaced with the number of pixels that you want to read at a time, which seems unnecessary and contrived.
   Developer reply · 9 Apr 2026

   Thanks for the detailed feedback, Richard. I hear you on the highlighted ‘focus letter’ from the legacy extension. I'm working on the best way to implement that same "easy to track" feeling, I’ll be sure to make an update as soon as I have something solid. The multi-word setting is now called "Focus span" under Settings > Speed Reading, and yes it's based on pixels now and represents the width of the screen you want to focus your eyes on every time text is highlighted. So the larger the "focus span", the more words will be highlighted at a time. This not only better aligns with the fact that the area our eyes have the sharpest focus for is a fixed size in our field of vision, but also better accommodates differing concepts of "words" across different languages (such as Japanese, Chinese, etc.). In the meantime, you can switch back to the legacy version if you prefer: https://swiftread.helpscoutdocs.com/article/52-switch-to-the-new-extension-experience
2. ★☆☆☆☆ Zach · 12 Mar 2026
   The new version seems buggier, and removing the colored letter as the focal point makes this extension basically pointless.
   Developer reply · 9 Apr 2026

   Thanks for the feedback, Zach. I understand the focal point letter coloring was a big part of what made the extension work for you. I'm actively thinking about the best way to further enhance the easy to track feeling of focus mode. For now, you can switch back to the legacy experience here: https://swiftread.helpscoutdocs.com/article/52-switch-to-the-new-extension-experience
3. ★☆☆☆☆ Zachary · 12 Mar 2026
   The new version's UI looks better, but the functional part of the extension has gotten worse. It removed the highlighted letter as a focal point, and the new line above and below the words basically does nothing to focus my eyes.
   Developer reply · 9 Apr 2026

   Hi, thanks for the feedback. The highlighted letter is not in the new experience yet — it interacts with the UI in tricky ways across screens and languages, so I'm working on alternatives to further enhance the "easy to track" feeling of the words in focus mode. Definitely hear you that it's important.
4. ★☆☆☆☆ noela · 11 Mar 2026
   The new version is SO buggy (random unnecessarily pauses no matter how i customize the pause settings, e.g. waiting more than 30 seconds over the world "political") and i can't find a way to revert to the old one, which was 10x better. They also stripped some of the most important customization options and added more paywalls. This thing used to be my favorite extension that I recommended to my friends and now it's unusable. I'm just going to use the "Speed Reading" android app on my phone instead unless the legacy extension gets brought back. This is extremely disappointing.
   Developer reply · 20 Mar 2026

   I'm sorry about the experience, noela. The long pauses on random words like "political" is a bug — that's not expected behavior, please reach out at help@swiftread.com with the article or document the issue occurred on and I'll look into it immediately. You can switch back to the legacy version right now: right-click the extension icon > Options > select "Legacy", or follow the steps here: https://swiftread.helpscoutdocs.com/article/52-switch-to-the-new-extension-experience.
5. ★☆☆☆☆ Raymond · 27 Dec 2025
   I tried on a couple of web pages (one on BusinessInsider and one on Medium). These have pretty clean blocks of text. I set the number of words to 6, to get closer to the Tim Ferris speed reading technique, which focuses on showing multiple lines, and full lines of text. The text presentation was incredibly choppy, zooming past phrases and hanging on others. It's really useless. Perhaps the multi-line feature in the Pro version would work, but I'm sure not going to spend $60 to find out!
6. ★☆☆☆☆ Amanda · 9 Jul 2025
   not working. i tried to read a pdf file and nothing, it just keeps loading the info doc. i pressed alt + v and nothing happens. im trying to read a pdf for school that has smaller font but nothing works. can this be fixed so it highlights withing the pdf plz.
7. ★☆☆☆☆ Isekai · 11 Oct 2024
   TRASH! that wont work on ebook pdf
8. ★★★★★ Mike · 7 Mar 2024
   Great reader, highly recommend!
9. ★★★★★ Fausto · 14 Dec 2022
   SwiftRead has helped me get through a lot more reading than i would have otherwise.
10. ★★★★★ Greg · 10 Nov 2021
    Thank you so much for this!! I was hoping for something like this for decades. Seriously wonderful application! Should win awards.

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Growth change in installs

Permissions Manifest V3 · 4 required · 1 optional

Reads and changes your data on all websites ⚠ sensitive · Can ask you for access to specific sites

• activeTab See the page you're currently viewing, only when you click the extension
• contextMenus Add items to your right-click menu
• scripting Run scripts on web pages you visit
• storage Save its own settings and data locally

Optional permissions

• system.display Read details of your displays

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