Reviews for Read Aloud: A Text to Speech Voice Reader
Read Aloud: A Text to Speech Voice Reader by LSD Software
Review by Firefox user 18331836
Rated 4 out of 5
by Firefox user 18331836, 6 months agoUsed this for like years to make my novels audiobooks and the desktop browser version of it works pretty well. IMO, the only good TTS voice is the microsoft zira one lol. Works very well for what it is, but the in-built firefox reader also has a TTS function, which is essentially the same thing. I don't discourage people from using this extension though, since it comes in handy when you just need one specific section TTS'd and it's quicker to activate than the in-built one.
An issue I found only on the desktop browser is that the highlighted text would jump ahead of the actual text the extension is reading and it would continue reading the text even if you press 'stop' (only in the case of the jumping highlighted text). Found that if this happens, press 'test' in the settings and the 'stop' after and it'll stop. Kind of annoying though since it happens every so often.
On the other hand, the mobile version of the extension is kinda meh. The issue I mentioned before doesn't seem to exist on mobile but a different one cropped up. On certain sites, or pages within the sites, the TTS randomly decides to change their voice to another. Again, only microsoft zira is listenable so it forces me to just stop the TTS and read manually.
Also, the 'sign in to use premium voices' have never acutally worked for me on mobile. Every time I click 'sign in', nothing appears T_T, lowkey frustrating. And apart from the offline voices, all of the voices don't work when I'm running on data. They do work when I'm using someone elses hotspot tho :(. Frustrating since I usually want to use mobile TTS when I'm out and about.
An issue I found only on the desktop browser is that the highlighted text would jump ahead of the actual text the extension is reading and it would continue reading the text even if you press 'stop' (only in the case of the jumping highlighted text). Found that if this happens, press 'test' in the settings and the 'stop' after and it'll stop. Kind of annoying though since it happens every so often.
On the other hand, the mobile version of the extension is kinda meh. The issue I mentioned before doesn't seem to exist on mobile but a different one cropped up. On certain sites, or pages within the sites, the TTS randomly decides to change their voice to another. Again, only microsoft zira is listenable so it forces me to just stop the TTS and read manually.
Also, the 'sign in to use premium voices' have never acutally worked for me on mobile. Every time I click 'sign in', nothing appears T_T, lowkey frustrating. And apart from the offline voices, all of the voices don't work when I'm running on data. They do work when I'm using someone elses hotspot tho :(. Frustrating since I usually want to use mobile TTS when I'm out and about.
1,012 reviews
- Rated 1 out of 5by Firefox user 14519523, 16 hours agoIt sounds like 2012 random robots on the internet. Terrible sound and ancient technology
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 18611207, 3 days agomy suggestion is to use piper voices ... its better for compreension...
- Rated 5 out of 5by Njaneer, 12 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 18599492, 13 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Fadil, 14 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by KadinaruDess, 14 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Dead Wolf, 16 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 12617117, 18 days agoFirst time user of the Read Aloud text to speech reader -- I am very impressed. I used the app to read a technical article and found the accuracy excellent. I also found the voice tone and intonation made for an exceptionally good listener experience. This is a great app and congratulations to its developers. Thank you!
- Rated 2 out of 5by Tiffany, 20 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 13097488, 23 days agoAn excellent way to get good TTS voices for Firefox. For the flatpak version I had to use flatseal to add .local/share/piper to the Persistent -> Files section to allow it to save the Piper voices.
- Rated 2 out of 5by Firefox user 18581980, 25 days ago
- Rated 3 out of 5by Stefan, a month agoIt's mostly great- easy to start, good customizability. Using google voices is really really nice. The only really annoying thing is I have to go into the settings to change the speed. I frequently find something going too slow or too fast for my liking, and if I could adjust that on the fly, instant 5 stars.
- Rated 2 out of 5by Firefox user 15291916, a month agoA screen reader that only works on some sites, and not others, has limited usefulness. Would be better if it could run here, but its options don't even show the "Run on sites with restrictions" option as it ought to.
- Rated 4 out of 5by ryloaf, a month agoI love this add-on so far. It really helps with my college courses, especially since the long texts I need to read get tiring from reading on my own. There are some issues with some pronunciation of words or speaking out the links/references, but nothing that fully interfere with what I need to read.
- Rated 5 out of 5by sdozachary, a month agoVery excellent plugin. I wonder if it would be possible to add hover icons to Android Firefox, AND it would make it easier to use!
- Rated 4 out of 5by ren, a month agoGood add-on, lots of customization. The default voice is annoying and hard to understand (imo) but there's so many to choose from after opening up the options menu. They are all named, which makes it easier to switch between different ones if you want. There are some silly ones (like "bells" or "bubbles.") and you can adjust the speed and pitch, too.
My only complaint is that it is kinda convoluted to get it to work with PDFs, which is the main thing i was planning on using it for. I'm willing to put in the extra effort, but it is annoying. Especially because I deal with pretty severe brain fog at times, and those are the times I would want to use this. Having to take extra steps when you're already confused as a baseline... it's not fun. Simple is better. If this could be simplified or side stepped, this would get 5 stars from me. - Rated 4 out of 5by Leon, a month agoIt uses a lot of resources, but it's very good and easy to use. I choose cori-high (UK) English voice and now my PC has a distinctive posh accent :)
- Rated 3 out of 5by Firefox user 18560902, a month ago
- Rated 4 out of 5by rat, a month ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 18075807, a month ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by bartman, a month ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by igorlogius, 2 months ago