5 handy tools for deferred reading offline

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Save interesting articles and read, regardless of your Internet connection.

1. Pocket

• Price: shareware.
• Platforms: web, Android, iOS, Kobo.
• Browser widget: Chrome, Firefox, Opera.
• Subscription: $ 50 a year.

Pocket is one of the most popular apps for saving your favorite content for later. The main advantage is synchronization across multiple devices. Pocket saves your article link and automatically downloads it for offline viewing. It also has its own feed of personalized recommendations, which is based on the analysis of the materials you have saved: if you like reading recipes or articles about Italian cuisine in the application, then the recommendations will include the most interesting things that other users have read on this topic.

Pocket has a very simple and nice design, as well as its own black theme. The font and design can be chosen for yourself. However, you cannot customize the interface for each individual device: if you have selected a certain font on your phone, then in the application on your computer you will have the same font.

Pocket has a paid Premium subscription that will remove sponsored content from your feed and keep copies of all your favorite links, even if they are removed from the Internet.

To save a specific link to Pocket on your phone, just find the Share button on your device and select the app. Then it will be automatically uploaded to your feed. If you use the Firefox browser on your computer, then saving any of your material is much easier than in other browsers: just click the Pocket button in the upper right corner and log in through your account. To install Pocket on another browser, install one of the extensions below.

2. Instapaper

• Price: free.
• Platforms: web, Android, iOS.
• Browser widget: Chrome, Firefox, Opera.
• Subscription: no.

Pocket's biggest competitor is Instapaper. Despite the fact that the functionality in the two apps is almost identical, Instapaper feels very different. In one click, you can create your notes, send an article to the Kindle, use the multifunctional search for your materials.

Instapaper has a very simple interface and fewer customizations than Pocket. However, that doesn't make Instapaper's design worse. On the contrary, the absence of redundancy and unnecessary elements turns your material into a kind of newspaper, which is pleasant to read at breakfast or on the subway. You can also connect various services to your Instapaper account, such as Twitter, Facebook, Evernote and others. With them, you can save any material directly from the social network.

Instapaper's speed reading function opens up an interesting formula for reading text: instead of the entire article, separate words appear on the screen one after another, the display speed can be adjusted for yourself. The app will tell you how long you have left to read and how many words you have read using this function. It is very convenient for those who want to master the skill of speed reading or just learn to focus on a specific text.

Since 2016, all Instapaper premium features have been made available to any user for free. If you use Pocket, but decide to move to Instapaper, then know: it's not as difficult to do as it seems.

Instapaper by Instapaper Developer

3. PaperSpan

• Price: free.
• Platforms: web, Android, iOS.
• Browser widget: Chrome.
• Subscription: no.

PaperSpan is very similar to Instapaper: all its features are free, and the application itself has a very simple interface that is not difficult to understand. The only difference between PaperScan and all the other apps on this list is the lack of any interesting reading features. There is no speed reading, no special folders that would automatically divide your saved materials into categories - here you have to create folders yourself.

This application is perfect for those who like to work with text. And it's not that hard in PaperSpan: you just select the desired piece and add a whole note to it. It is very easy to go to it through the main menu without opening the saved article itself. And if you want to listen to the text, then the speech synthesis function will help you with this.

PaperSpan: Save Web for Later Sravan Kumar

PaperSpan - Read Later Offline Sravan Kumar

4. Offline pages in Chrome

The Chrome browser has the ability to save links as separate files, and then open and read them. Unlike other applications that find the article itself by reference and convert it to text, the browser only downloads the entire page - accordingly, there is no question of any text settings here. But if it is convenient for you to view the link in the form in which it is initially, then this browser function is perfect for you.

If you want to save the page via a computer, then go to the settings, select the "Additional tools" menu and click on "Save page as …". You just need to choose the folder where you want to place your page. After that, it will download and you can open it for offline reading in a browser.

In the Chrome app on your phone, saving a page is even easier: click on the menu button and select the "Save" icon. The article will be in the "Downloads" tab, from there you can either read it or delete it.

Also, the browser has a function of the current version of the page, which allows you to update the link and download it in a new way.

5. Reading list in Safari

The Safari browser for macOS and iOS has had a deferred Reading List feature for a long time. While Chrome just downloads links, Safari follows the Pocket principle and only saves text so you can read it later. Reading List is synchronized between devices: you can read the text both on the phone and on the computer.