Chrome on Android can now read, as Google is rolling out a new accessibility feature called Listen to this page in the mobile app, which gives the browser text-to-speech capabilities.
According to Chrome's official help page, the tool can be accessed by tapping the three-dot menu in the top right corner and the new functionality can be found in the fourth section of the browser menu.
When you activate the feature, an audio controls panel is displayed at the bottom of the screen with a wide range of options. It has your standard set of tools like a progress indicator, a play/pause button, plus the website and page name at the top along with additional controls that were apparently inspired by YouTube.
You'll get a 10-second rewind and 10-second fast-forward option, plus the ability to change the playback speed. Users can reduce the speed to half or up to four times normal playback.
You can press down on the audio player to hide most of the controls. The only two things that remain on the screen are the play/pause button and the website name. As for the length of the playback, it totally depends on the length of the article.
For example, our recent article on DJI drones is about 14 minutes long, while our article on The Lego Movie is almost seven minutes long.
Packed with features
So far everything is superficial, but you will find more in the additional menu. According to 9To5Google, this section allows you to disable the text highlighting and auto-scrolling features. Additionally, it's where you change the language of the speaking voice, with 12 in total, including English, Spanish, Hindi, French and Arabic.
You can also modify the way it reads text to fit a certain style. For example, “Ruby” speaks with a warm, mid-tone voice, “Moss” has a calm and serious way of speaking, while “Field” is lower and brighter.
The options also increase when looking at other dialects. With English, you have ten voices to choose from in four different accents. The American accent is the one with the most options, with four voices of its own, while the rest only have two.
Availability
Listening to this page will still work even if you go to other tabs, since “the control bar will remain docked.” But there is a limitation. This only works while Chrome is in the foreground. So if you close the browser or return to the home screen, the text-to-speech feature stops.
The feature is part of the latest Chrome update on Android, so be sure to install the latest patch. You may not see the option in the browser menu.
Initially we did not find it, although you can activate it manually. All you have to do is type chrome://flags/#read-aloud in the URL bar and activate the tool in the following menu.
It's unknown if there are plans to expand Chrome's text-to-speech feature elsewhere, but there's a chance Google could do so. A leak from September 2023 claimed that Chrome on the desktop will one day receive its own read aloud feature.
Check out TechRadar's list of the best Android phones for 2024 if you're looking to upgrade.
