
A browser extension to make Medium more readable - exolymph
https://makemediumreadable.com/
======
pmlnr
Remember when blogging systems allowed you to choose a theme? Or that running
your own site allowed you to make the site without ads, nag bars, etc? Yeah,
maybe, but just maybe, when the next medium comes along with the promise of
saving the web, just stick to having your own site, where you're in control.

I know this extension is to read, not to write, but if most writers just have
used, say, Hugo, we'd not be here.

~~~
southerndrift
It comes down to chrome not supporting various css styles per site [1]. Other
browsers have a menu option to load alternative styles if a site provides
them.

[1] [https://www.thesitewizard.com/css/switch-alternate-css-
style...](https://www.thesitewizard.com/css/switch-alternate-css-styles.shtml)

~~~
pmlnr
sorry, what? you can just include the <style> on the server side, where you
render the page. Or do what I did, <style media="none"> and turn it on with a
js click, store the value in cookie/localstorage for which <style> needs to be
on.

I also don't really understand how this connects to the topic.

~~~
southerndrift
That creates the same functionality for one page but leaves the end-user
unaware of the general duality of content and style. Choosing a style from a
browser menu is not perfect but it is a hint for the end-user to see that each
and every page can be rendered differently quite easily. Without that
knowledge, end-users take the given layout as an unchangeable necessity and
don't expect several styles for their blogging system or a page without a nag
bar.

~~~
pmlnr
Ah. I wasn't referring to end user choices, I was talking about publisher
design choices.

Medium.com is a platform, where your control is negligable. Earlier hosts,
such as blogger, allowed you to theme your blog, you magazine, just like a
completely owned site would.

My comment has nothing to do with end user, or in-browser themeing.

------
dreamcompiler
It's a shame that almost every decent website (this one being a notable
exception) eventually succumbs to the temptation to go to war with their users
on behalf of their advertisers. Radio stations and podcasts are doing it too
by upping the percent of the *cast dedicated to ads in hopes of generating
more revenue.

This never ends well, especially since so many cord-cutters are less tolerant
of ads than people have ever been before.

Oh well. It's a nice opportunity for disruption, and the cycle repeats.

~~~
listenallyall
I'd argue that in many cases, the users go to war first. Ad blockers, paywall
bypassing, incognito mode, etc. make it virtually impossible for most sites to
survive on a straight ad model. The company has to find a way to survive, so
it tries memberships, click-bait, nag screens, gathering user data, and in
response an extension like this is built, and it keeps going back and forth
with anti-ad-blocker, anti-anti-ad-blocker, etc. Medium is far from blameless
here, their Twitter feed is repetitive and far too low on quality articles vs
junk. And yes, their nag screen and 3-article limit suck. But they need to do
something, don't you think?

If you are a user of ad blockers and additional strategies, what do you
envision as the endgame? No ads, ever? What kind of content are you expecting
at that point?

~~~
flukus
> The company has to find a way to survive

No it doesn't. Closing the business when they can't turn a profit is a
perfectly viable (maybe inevitable) course of action. When a local restaurant
is losing money do you expect them to close or to start padding the meals with
sawdust? Much of digital media has reached the point of charging you for the
sauce on your sawdust.

> What kind of content are you expecting at that point?

Much better content on average, less clickbait crap. You could halve the
quantity tomorrow and no one would notice.

~~~
nicbou
If restaurants offered meals for free, people wouldn't complain about the ads
on the menu. No restaurant offers free meals though.

Should we start charging for everything we see online?

------
r3n
In Safari you can ask it to load certain websites with reader view
automatically. If you do so, Safari will change to reader view as soon as it
can render the page.

This how I deal with the annoying stuff in Medium.

~~~
craftyguy
> This how I deal with the annoying stuff in Medium.

I deal with it by avoiding medium. Seriously, why support them in any way with
page views/whatever if you disagree with their presentation method?

~~~
blaqkangel
I would be interested in moving on from Medium but haven't found a serviceable
alternative. Do you have any recommendations?

~~~
pmlnr
Hand written HTML with FTP upload. Any static generator with rsync + ssh.
Github pages. Ghost, Known, Kirby, WordPress....

There's a plethora of options.

------
dzonga
Medium, is now full of clickbaitish articles + content marketing from various
people pandering their online courses. Way different from the medium, I fell
into when I discovered it. Recently deleted the mobile app.

~~~
tandav
Medium golden age was 2015-2016. Then it started transforming to clickbait-y,
ugly garbage.

My experience: personal blogs (github.io/whatever) has the most amount of
insights, 'a-ha moments', usefull info.

------
strikeX
I just use a bookmarked script which I came across on some thread here.

javascript:(function()%7B(function () %7Bvar i%2C elements %3D
document.querySelectorAll('body *')%3Bfor (i %3D 0%3B i < elements.length%3B
i%2B%2B) %7Bif (getComputedStyle(elements%5Bi%5D).position %3D%3D%3D 'fixed')
%7Belements%5Bi%5D.parentNode.removeChild(elements%5Bi%5D)%3B%7D%7D%7D)()%7D)()

I have bookmarked it and whenever there is an annoying pop-up or long headers
and footers just run the script. Very useful for these kinds of websites.

For those who don't know how to use the above script: Bookmark this page -> go
to all bookmarks and replace bookmark address/url with above script. Click on
this bookmark with medium website open and you will see all the crap go away.

------
ravenstine
> Open in App

To all sites that do this(I'm looking at you, Reddit), no, I do not want to
install yet another app just to continue _reading_. The web is already
_designed_ for reading. You hear that?

~~~
cowpig
I honestly don't understand why sites do this. Can someone explain it to me?

~~~
andrenotgiant
They (e.g. reddit the company) want you to do more than read. They want you to
subscribe and follow and user-generate content (and not block ads.)

They build an app because apps.

Then they compare behavior between app and website.

And there's a stupid, stupid analytics datapoint that shows "Users of the app
browse/subscribe/follow/post 2x more!"

That only happens because the only people willing to download and use the app
are the power users. But they just worked hard creating an app, and nobody
questions analytics data that tells them their hard work was worthwhile.

So now, armed with their supporting data, they begin pushing people to the app
because they think it will lead to more pageviews/subscribes/follows/posts and
eyeballs on ads.

~~~
skeletonjelly
In addition to this they can get solid data on engagement times, app usage,
where uses spend time on the page

~~~
striking
They can do that with the website, though. Not too hard to read a scroll
position in JS, or to warehouse page view records.

------
trishume
I want to install this addon, but it asks for permission to view and modify
data on all sites.

Both for security and loading javascript on every page I visit reasons, I wish
there was a version that only bound to medium.com. I know I could compile one
from source but that's a hassle.

~~~
thebaer
Then it wouldn't work on Medium-powered sites like hackernoon.com. There is an
open, up-for-grabs issue to fix that permission [0] if anyone wants to help us
solve this!

In the meantime, there isn't anything crazy you have to do to make it only
work on medium.com -- just clone the repo to your machine, change this one
line to "[https://medium.com/*"](https://medium.com/*") [1], and then load the
extension in your browser.

[0]
[https://github.com/thebaer/MMRA/issues/15](https://github.com/thebaer/MMRA/issues/15)

[1]
[https://github.com/thebaer/MMRA/blob/master/manifest.json#L2...](https://github.com/thebaer/MMRA/blob/master/manifest.json#L27)

~~~
thecatspaw
is there no way to ask for these permissions after having the plugin installed
allready?

I seem to remember that the Reddit enhancement suite does that

~~~
mplewis
That's the feature they want someone to write in that GitHub issue.

------
ErikAugust
I remember maybe 4-5 years ago looking at Medium’s CSS in order to emulate
their readability.

Things change.

------
ronjouch
Firefox users who either dislike the requirement for permission on all sites,
or don't want an additional extension: know that you can achieve about the
same with a few lines in your userContent.css [1]

    
    
      @-moz-document domain(medium.com), domain(backchannel.com), domain(hackernoon.com), domain(mondaynote.com), domain(artplusmarketing.com), domain(codeburst.io), domain(logrocket.com), domain(slack.engineering), regexp("https?://medium\..*") {.js-postShareWidget, .overlay, .overlay--lighter, .postActionsBar, .js-postActionsBar, .metabar, .js-metabar, .postMeterBar, .js-meterBanner, .highlightMenu, .highlightMenu--active, .popover, .js-popover, .popover--dark, .butterBar--privacy, .js-stickyFooter {display: none !important;}}
    

Obvious gotcha: incomplete list of domains, now _you_ have to add medium
domains when you meet them and restart Firefox.

[1]
[http://kb.mozillazine.org/index.php?title=UserContent.css](http://kb.mozillazine.org/index.php?title=UserContent.css)

------
Kalium
Firefox Reader Mode is the thing that I find makes Medium an enjoyable
experience. It's so much nicer than Medium ever was.

They should try that design.

------
newscracker
The creator (and maintainers) of Medium ought to crouch in a corner with
shame. People (including prominent voices on Twitter and the web) have
complained about Medium’s issues for some years. This extension is like one
more slap in the face for a platform that started with the premise that:

"There's been less progress toward raising the quality of what's produced."
[1]

Quality? Are we going to talk about quality in all its dimensions?

[1]:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium_(website)#Background](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium_\(website\)#Background)

------
otras
Every time this pops up on my radar, I always consider taking a stab at adding
the “make articles with gifs better” feature mentioned in the github issue,
but I always end up too busy with other work. I’ll carve out some time this
weekend to give it a shot. My workload stars are aligned for some open source,
and that would be a great feature!

------
hprotagonist
I use the Unobstruct ios app to dedickbar medium. Works quite well.

[https://medium.com/@tgaul/introducing-
unobstruct-230e4e95cf5...](https://medium.com/@tgaul/introducing-
unobstruct-230e4e95cf5e)

~~~
ronjouch
I use Unobstruct on iOS too and would love an equivalent in my browser. Does
anyone know one? (uBlockOrigin-usable blocklist or extension)

~~~
rainbowmverse
I don't know if the mobile version of uBlock Origin has it, but there's an eye
dropper button if you click the uBlock button on the toolbar. You can use that
to build block rules automagically. It reminds me of the API spies people used
to make for Visual Basic 6.

~~~
ronjouch
Thanks; I know how to make these rules and I have a few, but there's a lot of
them (lots of medium domains, and lots of non-medium ones that also deserve
the same treatment (de-dickbar-ification), both of them constantly changing)
so I'm looking for something assembled & maintained by a community.

I'll get in touch with EasyList folks (there's already a CookieMonster list to
get rid of EU cookie clutter, an Unobstruct one would be similar or both could
be merged) and the author of Unobstruct.

------
AgentOrange1234
Thank you so much for this. I loathe the pardon the interruption window.

------
the_imp
I've put together a Chrome extension that does the same thing, but it requires
no permissions and works on all other similar sites as well: Kill-Sticky adds
a keyboard shortcut (Alt+K or Cmd+K) that removes all sticky content, and re-
enables scrolling.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kill-
sticky/lekjlg...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kill-
sticky/lekjlgffkaencjnlcmbgibodhechofdb)

------
Cofike
I just have a bookmarklet that removes any sticky elements.

~~~
wtallis
I've been doing something similar for years, though the implementation method
has changed some as my preferred browser and the set of available extensions
has shifted. I want to browse the web with a white-list approach to which
pages are allowed to display elements that are anchored to screen coordinates
rather than scrolling with the page. Generally speaking, the only pages that
should be permitted to pin an element in front of the main content are web
apps, but most of the pages I visit are (or should be) purely document-
oriented.

------
ZachSaucier
Why just Medium? Make all articles readable (along with other features) with
Just Read: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/just-
read/dgmanlpm...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/just-
read/dgmanlpmmkibanfdgjocnabmcaclkmod?hl=en)

Full disclosure, I'm the developer of Just Read.

~~~
s_trumpet
Just Read is great, and I would be using it a lot more if I wasn't a Firefox
guy. Great work, though!

------
mbowcutt
I haven't used the Medium app on my Android device for some weeks now. Today I
got a notification about some article and swiped it away. Then later I got
another and realized: Wait, I don't normally get Medium notifications!

Not sure what changed but it was a nice reminder to delete the app.

Also, I was unaware that people found Medium to be a suboptimal reading
experience.

------
cyberferret
I miss the old medium, with it's "Collections" that allowed me to read (and
post) articles in specific interest areas.

Somehow the nature of the content back then was much more engaging too. It was
as raw as seeing a new band perform for the first time in some dive bar. Now
it is just a sanitised pool of sophisticated marketing brochures masquerading
as articles.

------
dethos
Why not just use the "reader" mode of the browser? (at least in Firefox this
works quite well)

------
okket
If you use Safari there is no need for an app or extension.

Just right click (macOS) / long press (iOS) on the "Reader" symbol and
activate "Use Reader Automatically on 'medium.com'". Same procedure for any
branded domain that uses Medium.

~~~
bluefin
FF also has a "Reader Mode" (F9), though it gets rid of all images.

------
spraak
Can it make Medium not ask me to pay for a subscription after N (3 at this
time) articles?

~~~
stephengillie
In what ways could Medium have financial income without transferring the
wealth from us?

~~~
slig
Asking its publishers to pay? Like WordPress or Ghost does.

------
beilabs
Does anyone else have issues with images on medium being slow to load, always
fuzzy and then taking ages to actually render? Seems like a constant problem
for my part of the world.

------
known
Change browser user agent general.useragent.override.medium.com to Opera/9.80
(Android; Opera Mini/20.1.2254/37.9178; U; en) Presto/2.12.423 Version/12.16

------
vezycash
Question:

Would adblockers and mods this extension still work when ad networks and sites
like these embrace webassembly?

Would it not be a crime to "reverse engineer" their code?

------
amaccuish
Still haven't got Medium to log me in properly. Keep getting signed out, I
assume it's because I block third party cookies...

------
sus_007
When I want a readable Medium, I simply toggle the Firefox's _built-in_ Reader
View(Ctrl+Alt+R). It's readable enough for me.

------
OoTheNigerian
Using Brave browser is how I tackle this.. With it you can selectively disable
Javascript, ads, etc on any or all sites you visit.

------
dvcrn
I think it's interesting that the author bought a domain just for this
extension

------
iicc
What "should" authors be using instead of medium?

~~~
drngdds
Literally any other blogging platform

------
java_script
> A browser extension to make Medium less annoying.

So this just blanks out the articles or what?

~~~
Gatsky
This gave me a good laugh. In my domain (healthcare), the articles on Medium
are rubbish.

~~~
drngdds
They're not all that great in the software field, either. 75% of them are just
content marketing.

------
saudioger
Remember when Medium was supposed to be the height of readability?

~~~
Traubenfuchs
Was it ever?

I only ever knew it as a showcase of ui&ux anti patterns / dark patterns.

------
ericpauley
> Read and change all your data on the websites you visit

Better luck next time.

~~~
samschooler
You can build it from source if you would like. It needs to do that because
some (most) medium posts are not on the medium.com domain.

[https://github.com/thebaer/MMRA](https://github.com/thebaer/MMRA)

------
Froyoh
What's with everyone using the "Make X Great Again" phrase?

~~~
arbie
I take it you're not from North America?

