Zen Reader

About

Zen Reader is a distraction-free reader mode for web articles, blog posts, and news pages.

Click the toolbar icon on any article page and Zen Reader extracts the main text, hides everything else (ads, sidebars, navigation, popups, social widgets), and presents it in a clean reading overlay.

FEATURES
- Automatic article extraction from <article>, <main>, and content-dense pages
- Auto-generated Table of Contents from the page's headings (H1-H4) with smooth scroll
- Estimated reading time and word count
- Three reading themes: Light, Sepia, Dark (auto-follows system theme by default)
- Font size controls (A- / A+)
- One-click Print / Save as PDF with optimized print stylesheet
- Press Escape or click X to return to the original page
- Fully isolated via Shadow DOM - the host page's CSS cannot affect the reader, and the reader cannot affect the host page

PRIVACY
- No data collection, no tracking, no analytics, no remote servers
- Runs entirely in your browser, only on the active tab, only when you click the toolbar icon
- Open source: all logic is local in content.js

WHAT THIS EXTENSION DOES NOT DO
- It does not play audio or video
- It does not download or process images, music, or video files
- It does not modify the underlying webpage
- It does not work on chrome:// or extension pages (browser restriction)

PERMISSIONS EXPLAINED
- "activeTab": needed to read the current tab's article text when you click the icon
- "scripting": needed to inject the reader overlay into the current tab

Built for readers who want web articles to look like a book - no ads, no popups, no clutter.