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Turning inner space into outer space

September 27, 2015

Reminder: Safari's Reader has been making ads disappear for years

With all the fuss lately about ad blockers in the latest version of iOS, don’t forget that both mobile and desktop Safari have long had a built-in way of clearing the clutter — Reader.

Have a look at these screenshots from The Next Web:

If you tap on the icon to the left of the web address, it reverses colour and produces a version of the article with nothing but easy-to-read text.

You can go a step further and tap the icon to the right when you’re in Reader mode. This gives you options for text size, background colour, text colour and font.

It’s also guilt-free. Your visit to the website still counts as a “view” for the ads, and the publisher continues to get revenue for it.

Reader doesn’t block tracking, but you can turn on that option in your Safari settings.

The big downside is that Reader doesn’t actually speed up page load times because it’s only hiding ads, not blocking them.

Still, it’s a good option for those who feel uneasy about using blockers.