While checking for an update to a Firefox add-on I use a lot, I discovered “Read Aloud: A Text to Speech Voice Reader.” Curious, I added it to the extensions I have enabled for Firefox. (Version 60.2.2esr -32 bit.) In experimenting with it, I concluded it works as described. It has a variety of voices available, the default voices are Microsoft David Desktop or Microsoft Zira Desktop both for U.S. English.
Beyond that there are many other options, some of them from Amazon, others from Google Translate. The app supports 40+ languages. Adjustments can be made to the pitch, speed and volume. It is also possible to turn highlighting on or off. For my testing, I found the Amazon British English (Amy) voice to be my preferred voice.
When the highlighting feature is turned on, the text appears highlighted in yellow, in a drop-down menu underneath the activation icon (The icon looks like a megaphone and appears in the toolbar when the extension has been downloaded.) I found the highlighting feature distracting so may turn highlighting off.
Apparently a recent Firefox upgrade disabled the apps ability to read PDF’s and the context menu may not always appear. Since I just added this extension, I do not know what, if anything may be missing. However, if the context menu does disappear, there is a work-around for that. The workarounds are also useful if one prefers to use only keyboard commands.
- To Play – Alt-P
- To Stop – Alt-O
- Go Forward – Alt-Period or “Alt-.”
- To Rewind – Alt-Comma or “Alt,”
If you should forget Alt-P – click the Read Aloud icon (a megaphone) in your toolbar. If it’s playing, click on the stop button. Then click the gear button next to the play button. A larger “Options” box will open, at the top you will see “Edit shortcut keys” that will open a new tab with the short cut keys listed. Using Alt-P will speak what you highlighted. If you don’t highlight anything, it reads the whole page I believe. Highlighting text may be how one controls how much and just what is read on the page.
Oddly enough, when I visited the Mozilla reviews page for this app to see what others said about this app and turned the app on, the page was not read. A drop-down message appeared “Can not read this page” with a link to report problems – which I did. Another oddity is that if you are on a page and switch to a different one, the app continues to read the original page. It is necessary to turn the app off and turn it on for each page.
As for the reviews, all reviews were generally positive; the app received an average rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars rating and some reviewers said they would up their review rating to 5 if the problems with PDF’s and the context menu were fixed.
For visually impaired users, JAWS, NVDA or Window-Eyes are necessary but for users who want to have websites read for any other reason, or just occasionally, this app is worthy of the ratings and reviews given it. I may not use it much but I can see it as being helpful if my eyes are tired or I just don’t want to spend another minute reading from a computer screen.
Indeed, the “learn more” description of the extension says “Tired of sitting, tired of reading? Click a button, jump on your bed, and have the article read aloud to you. You can choose from many available male and female voices. You can also set the pitch of the voice and the reading speed.” which suggests to me that the developer recognizes that the extension has its limitations and would likely be of limited use to blind and visually impaired users who use a commercial product such as JAWS. Still it would be useful to this user set in a pinch.
Note: the developer has developed a similar app for the Chrome Browser. Visit, Read Aloud Browser Extensions to learn a bit more. The privacy policy is found at Read Aloud Browser Extension Privacy Policy
WINAHEAD 