ReadFlow — Fast Focus Reader

About

ReadFlow is an all-in-one reading enhancer that bundles bionic-style focus reading, distraction-free reader mode, text-to-speech, AI summaries, persistent highlights, and a spaced-repetition vocabulary review — all without a single backend server. Bring your own AI keys and pay literal cents instead of $20/mo for a stack of separate paid extensions.

⚡ ADAPTIVE FOCUS READING
Bold the leading characters of each word so your eye locks onto the fixation point and skims the rest. Most "bionic" extensions use a fixed 50% ratio. ReadFlow adapts:
• Short words (≤3 chars): just the first letter
• Medium words (4–8): your chosen ratio (default 40%)
• Long words (9+): slightly less ink, easier to scan
• Skips code, math, inputs, links — only touches body prose
• 4 modes: Subtle / Standard / Vivid / First letter

📖 READER MODE
One click strips ads, sidebars, and pop-ups, then renders the article in a clean overlay with 4 themes (Light, Sepia, Dark, Midnight) and adjustable typography. Built on Mozilla Readability — same engine Firefox uses.

🔊 TEXT-TO-SPEECH (TWO ENGINES)
• Built-in Web Speech (free, browser-native, supports any language your OS has voices for)
• Cloud TTS via your own ElevenLabs or OpenAI key (natural human-grade voices)
• Auto-detects the article's language and picks the best matching voice
• Pause / Resume / Restart / Stop — full transport controls
• Save the cloud-generated audio as MP3 for offline listening (commute, jogging)

✨ AI SUMMARY (BYOK)
Bring your own API key from Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, or Groq. Press Summarize and get a TL;DR + 3-6 key bullets in your browser language (or any language you pick). Cached per page so revisits are instant. Groq has a generous free tier — no credit card needed.

⭐ PERSISTENT HIGHLIGHTS + NOTES
Select any text and pick a color (yellow / green / blue / pink). Add a note via the 📝 button. Highlights are stored locally and re-rendered the next time you open the page. Click any highlight to edit or delete.

📚 VOCABULARY REVIEW (SPACED REPETITION)
Save unfamiliar words while reading. Then open the dedicated review page and rate each card with Anki-style buttons (Again / Hard / Good / Easy). The same SM-2 algorithm that powers Anki schedules your next review automatically. Optional ✨ AI Define button uses your AI key to provide a quick definition + translation in your language.

📖 READING POSITION MEMORY
Long article? Close the tab and come back tomorrow — ReadFlow shows a "Continue where you left off" pill that smoothly scrolls you back to your last position.

🌍 8-LANGUAGE UI
The popup auto-translates to your browser language: English · Türkçe · Español · Deutsch · Français · Português · Italiano · 日本語. Independent of Chrome's UI language so the popup matches your reading preference even if Chrome itself runs in English.

🎯 PER-SITE CONTROL
• One-click toggle on/off for any site
• Force a different mode or font on specific sites
• Article-only mode skips homepages and lists
• Site rules manager in the Options page

⌨️ KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS
• Alt+Shift+R — open the menu
• Alt+Shift+B — toggle ReadFlow on this site
• Alt+Shift+T — read selected text aloud (or the article if nothing selected)

🔒 PRIVACY-FIRST (REALLY)
• Zero data collection — no analytics, no telemetry, no cookies
• Zero outbound network requests from the extension itself (Cloud TTS / AI go to YOUR chosen provider with YOUR key)
• All highlights, vocab, settings stay in your browser (synced via your Chrome account if you're signed in)
• Open source

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WHY ANOTHER READING EXTENSION?

Most reading enhancers are single-purpose. To get bionic + reader + TTS + highlights + vocab + AI summary you'd need 5–6 separate extensions and pay $20–40/month total.

ReadFlow bundles them, makes everything BYOK so you control costs, and stores all your data locally. No account, no subscription, no servers.

Compared to popular paid alternatives:
• vs Speechify ($139/yr): we use BYOK ElevenLabs/OpenAI for cloud voices — cheaper for casual use
• vs Liner ($9/mo): same highlight + AI summary features, no cross-device sync though
• vs Bionic Reading® official: better algorithm, smart skip, premium UI, more themes
• vs Just Read ($5/mo): we add bionic + TTS + AI summary on top of reader mode

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CHANGELOG

1.2.0 — Spaced repetition vocabulary review (SM-2), audio export (MP3), AI define-word
1.1.0 — Persistent highlights, AI summary, reading position memory, cloud TTS
1.0.0 — Initial release with bionic transform, reader mode, TTS

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CREDITS

• Mozilla Readability (Apache 2.0) — article extraction
• Dexie (Apache 2.0) — IndexedDB wrapper
• Anki / SuperMemo — SM-2 algorithm reference
Full attributions in the project's THIRDPARTY.md.

If you find a site where ReadFlow misbehaves, open an issue on the project's repository — fixes ship fast.
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