Safari Reader Mode
Hacker ApprovedRanked 2 of 3 reader modes by recommenders
Turns web articles into a distraction-free, readable view in Safari on Mac, iPhone and iPad. Critics say it sometimes misses or cuts off parts of an article.
Turns web articles into a distraction-free, readable view in Safari on Mac, iPhone and iPad. Critics say it sometimes misses or cuts off parts of an article.
19 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 13
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 68%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 13 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Distraction-free, readable view of pages
“I’m dropped into a perfectly readable, distraction free view of the content.”
Comment from 30 May 2026 in “What Is a Dickover?” “"Reader mode" in Safari that allowed me to actually read the article”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “The fuck off contact page” “I do almost all my reading on websites in Reader Mode”
Comment from 12 Apr 2026 in “The End of Eleventy” - Comment from 30 Jul 2026 in “Upper stage impacting the moon on 2026 August 5”
Works well on mobile and most sites
“It works practically everywhere, it's clean, and it looks great.”
Comment from 4 Feb 2026 in “Readr, Safari-Like Reading Mode for Chrome” “Safari reader mode on mobile works great.”
Comment from 23 Jun 2026 in “The Traditional Vi” Helps with jerky, hard-to-read sites
“Incredibly useful feature, especially on sites who's JavaScript is constantly jerking the DOM and/or scroller around.”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “TIME Is Serving AI Bots a Different Website, with Ads Built In” “This is why I always read this particular blog with Apple's Reader mode”
Comment from 30 Aug 2026 in “Bug Blindness”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Misses or truncates parts of articles
“neither Apple nor Mozilla apparently has sufficient resources to produce a reader mode that can reliably find the correct content elements”
Comment from 14 Dec 2025 in “Stop crawling my HTML – use the API” “For some reason Safari's reader view skips a part of the page.”
Comment from 18 Jan 2026 in “Profession by Isaac Asimov” “it sometimes gets half of an article, or nothing at all.”
Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “Show HN: Timber (iOS) and Timber Tabs (Mac) – best offline read-aloud LLMs”
Other reader modes people recommend
The two most recommended other reader modes, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Firefox Reader Mode | 58 | 10 | 85% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Safari Reader ModeThis page | 13 | 6 | 68% | 9 | — | Approved |
| Safari Hide Distracting Items | 8 | 1 | 89% | 7 | — | — |
What people said
17 of the 19 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“when you set it to Russia, Safari Reader's gigantic”
“reader on ios interprets it wrong as it picks up the first heading as the article's title”
“This is why I always read this particular blog with Apple's Reader mode”
“it sometimes gets half of an article, or nothing at all.”
“Safari's reader mode is a godsend for this article.”
“Incredibly useful feature, especially on sites who's JavaScript is constantly jerking the DOM and/or scroller around.”
“it was perfect for reading”
“Safari reader mode on mobile works great.”
“I’m dropped into a perfectly readable, distraction free view of the content.”
“I do almost all my reading on websites in Reader Mode”
“You should set reader mode as default.”
“Safari Reader View doesn’t support the site, so I backed out.”
“It works practically everywhere, it's clean, and it looks great.”
“For some reason Safari's reader view skips a part of the page.”
“neither Apple nor Mozilla apparently has sufficient resources to produce a reader mode that can reliably find the correct content elements”
“Switched to "Reader mode" and instant relief!”
“"Reader mode" in Safari that allowed me to actually read the article”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.