Tired of ads, popups, and sidebars hijacking every article you try to read? Brutal Reader is a free Chrome extension that strips any webpage down to just the article — clean text, warm paper, zero distractions. One click. Works on Substack, news sites, blogs, Twitter articles. Free and open source, always.
Reading used to be simple. Open article, read article. Done.
Now it's: close the cookie banner, dismiss the popup, ignore the sticky header, skip the "you have 2 free articles" overlay, find where the actual text starts — and by then you've lost the will to read.
I got fed up and built Brutal Reader. One click and every webpage becomes just the article. Clean text, warm paper, nothing asking for your attention.
Free, open source, works on Substack, Twitter articles, news sites, blogs.
Read like it's 2005 again.
Akarsh Yadav