How to Enable Reader View Mode in the Brave Browser

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Many people have installed and are using the Brave browser in an effort to keep their data and browsing habits more private and secure, and yet inexplicably Brave has made how to use reader view more difficult to find than it should be.

Brave touts itself as being “on a mission to fix the web by giving users a safer, faster and better browsing experience”, explaining that Brave gives you “security and privacy by blocking trackers.” And, as Computerworld explains, “By eliminating ad trackers, Brave blocks efforts by advertisers to first identify users, then follow those users. That makes Brave users more anonymous, Brave Software has argued,” adding that “The company has also sworn that it does not, and will not, store any user data on its servers.”

Given the above, it seems almost antithetical to Brave’s mission, and the reason that people use Brave, that turning on reader mode is so darned elusive.

Until you consider this about Brave: yes, Brave removes (some) ads, and the corresponding ad tracking. But its intent is to replace them with its own ads. Keep this in the back of your mind while we go on to the next bit.

So, in case you are reading this not because you were searching for how to enable reader view in Brave, and aren’t familiar with reader view, reader view is a function that strips out all (or at least a great deal) of the extraneous non-text stuff that would otherwise be displayed on a web page when you visit it. This includes, among other things, pop-ups, some images, and… ads.

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Given that Brave’s intent is to get rid of the ads that you don’t want, but to replace them with ads of their own (a/k/a other ads that you may not want), it makes perfect sense that Brave would either not have, or bury, a feature that allows you to avoid their ads. Most other browsers that offer a reader view feature (Safari was the first, nearly 10 years ago, followed by others such as Firefox) make it extremely easy to find and enable reader view.

Firefox’s Icon to Enable Reader Mode
firefox reader view

Not so with Brave. So here is how to enable reader mode in Brave.

How to Enable Reader View Mode in the Brave Browser

Here’s the shocking part – it’s actually really easy to enable reader mode on Brave. The secret is that it is housed under, not unreasonably, the ‘View’ menu. Now, there was a time not long ago when it was not there, so please don’t feel like a dummy for not having found it there.

UPDATE: With Brave’s newest update, they have removed the reader view from the view option! There are, however, a few extensions that can accomplish the same thing; they are: Reader View Plus by Rebecca Herzog, Reader View by YoKris.dev, and Reading Mode by Carl Smith. Of all of these, we like Reader View by YoKris the best, as it provides the most options.

R.I.P. Brave’s Reader View Option
How to Enable Reader View Mode in the Brave Browser

(By the way, you can get Brave here.)

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10 thoughts on “How to Enable Reader View Mode in the Brave Browser

  1. Ironic – this site isn’t compatible with reader mode (Brave 1.61.116). It just shows the “tip us” screen rather than the content.

    1. Oh gosh! We had no idea, we’ll re-install Brave and look into that, thank you for letting us know!

  2. I don’t seem to be getting paid for any ads they said I had to link gemini or something else for my rewards I didn’t want to link either one of those but then it comes around and tells me I can get my rewards another way and I get an ad I get some kind of $30 crypto work and then I can’t use it and then it disappears. And now I’m right back where I started from the beginning so it’s been nothing but a waste of time not to count the fact that it seems a lot of websites that get anything to have a problem with before I do now so yeah I’ve been looking at reviews because I think that something is a little odd about it myself. It doesn’t seem to protect your data like it says it does the other person is right what you do is going into your Google history so if it tells you that it’s not going to do that and you catch it doing it that’s catching a website and a lie you start to kind of wonder about things.

  3. The more I use Brave the more I realize it’s full of “holes” that could of easily been filled by any company intent on delivering privacy. Making reader mode difficult to access and use is just a perfect example of their aims. I opted out of getting paid to see ads. I am clearly not the kind of user they want, I get it. I just think that their marketing sold privacy as their main value and they only deliver on the surface but underneath it’s pretty open. For example they seem to passing tracking data to Google, Twitter and Fagbook, regardless of settings. Thank you Wireshark.

  4. I am using Brave Version 1.15.76 Chromium: 86.0.4240.111 (Official Build) (64-bit), today 12/02/2020. There is no longer a Menu Bar with File, Edit, View, History, and Bookmarks. I cannot find “Reader Mode.” It appears Brave has determined it is not required for its consumers.

    1. Hey Lamont, thank you for bringing this to our attention; it’s almost like Brave doesn’t want us to be able to get rid of the clutter….and the ads. However, there are a few extensions that can accomplish the same thing, which we have just updated the article to list (can’t put the URLs here in a comment as our site disallows links in comments. ;~) )

  5. This article is misleading. Brave replaces the ads and pays the viewer directly for their voluntary participation in their ad program. You make it seem like something suspicious that all Brave is doing is replacing google ads with their ads. That is not Brave’s business model.

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