Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Reader mode
Raised as a usability problem by 22 people on Hacker News over 10 years (2017–2026), in 22 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
- 1
- 2
- 3
Every issue, all time, most people first
Reader mode loses much of the article text, forcing workaroundsUnreviewed
20172026- Plugins and text browser fail to show the page's text, so the reader can't read it2024-10-22
- Reader mode puts all the article text into one long paragraph2023-03-16
- Some sites show only part of their text, or none, in Reader view2022-05-20
Article page scrolling is so annoying readers give upUnreviewed
20172026- Article page scrolling is so annoying the reader gives up on it2026-08-31
- Page keeps resetting scroll progress to the top of the article in reader mode2026-04-06
- Web scrolling is a nightmare; reader mode lacks a book-style page option2023-07-28
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 23 complaints
- Article page scrolling is so annoying the reader gives up on it2026-08-31
- Page keeps resetting scroll progress to the top of the article in reader mode2026-04-06
- Reader mode instantly reloads and sends user back to the original page2026-02-25
- Sentences repeat many times and long paragraphs are cut off on iPhone2025-03-17
- Screenshots take up space between paragraphs, making reading awkward to navigate2024-12-03
- Plugins and text browser fail to show the page's text, so the reader can't read it2024-10-22
- Reader View icon gets clicked by accident before finishing the first screen2024-04-18
- Web scrolling is a nightmare; reader mode lacks a book-style page option2023-07-28
- Tan text on the page is very hard to read2023-05-07
- Screen reader users are told to turn off their screen reader to read the page2023-04-30
- Reader mode puts all the article text into one long paragraph2023-03-16
- The reader is very hard to use on mobile devices2022-10-22
- Some sites show only part of their text, or none, in Reader view2022-05-20
- Custom fonts, colors and margins get broken by sites, and the options are buried in browsers2022-04-25
- Websites display semi-broken in reader mode because it hides or drops content unpredictably2022-04-09
- Reader mode fails to work on one specific essay website2022-02-13
- Drops divs, blocks following hyperlinks to next pages, and mishandles RTL text2021-08-25
- Reader mode option appears only after page finishes loading, or sites hide it2021-08-25
- No toolbar icon to toggle it off; must edit a whitelist instead2021-04-08
- Page content gets scrambled after a couple of seconds, making it annoying to read2019-12-25
- Reader Mode loses much of the article text, forcing workarounds2019-10-25
- Reader mode silently drops paragraphs and images, so readers can't tell what's missing2018-10-12
- Reader view only appears on pages meeting hidden content-length heuristics, so the blog index doesn't get it2017-07-21