Text to Speech for Google Chrome™

Overview

Text to Speech for Google Chrome™ — Natural AI Voices, 100% Free & Private Turn any web page into an audiobook. Text to Speech reads articles, news, documentation, emails and any selected text aloud with stunningly natural neural voices — and everything runs locally on your computer. No account, no subscription, no cloud servers, no data collection. Ever. WHY THIS EXTENSION IS DIFFERENT Most text-to-speech extensions either sound robotic or send your text to paid cloud services. We rebuilt this extension from the ground up to do neither. Version 4.0 brings the Kokoro neural voice engine directly into your browser using WebGPU acceleration: near-human voice quality, generated entirely on your own device, completely free and even available offline. Your reading material never leaves your computer. Please note there is a 330 megabyte download later on after installation to use the Kokoro neural voice. LISTEN TO ANYTHING IN TWO CLICKS • Read a selection — highlight any text, right-click, and choose "Read selection" (or just press Alt+R). • Read a whole page — one click in the toolbar popup, and the extension intelligently extracts the actual article using the same technology that powers Firefox's Reader View. No more listening to navigation menus, cookie banners, sidebars or footer links — just the content you actually want to hear. • Follow along visually — the sentence currently being read is highlighted on the page and smoothly scrolled into view, perfect for proofreading, language learning, or readers with dyslexia. A PLAYER THAT STAYS OUT OF YOUR WAY While reading, a sleek floating mini-player appears on the page: play/pause, jump to the previous or next sentence, change the reading speed on the fly (0.5× to 3×), or close it instantly. Drag it anywhere — it remembers its position for every website. It even remembers your preferred reading speed per site, so your favorite news site can be faster than that dense research blog. Global keyboard shortcuts (Alt+R to read, Alt+P to play/pause) work without touching the mouse. THREE VOICE ENGINES, ONE SMART CHOICE 1. Kokoro Neural Voices (recommended) — breathtakingly natural AI voices powered by WebGPU on your own graphics hardware. A one-time free model download (~330MB) in Settings unlocks six premium voices (US & UK English, male & female). After that it works fully offline. 2. Chrome System Voices — your operating system's built-in voices (including Windows natural voices and high-quality macOS voices). Available instantly with zero download. 3. Web Speech voices — a universal fallback so the extension works on every machine, even older hardware without a GPU. The extension automatically picks the best engine your device supports — or pin your favorite voice in Settings and preview any voice before choosing. BUILT-IN AI: SUMMARIZE & TRANSLATE, THEN LISTEN On devices that support Chrome's built-in AI (Gemini Nano), two superpowers appear in your right-click menu: • Summarize & read — too busy to hear a 4,000-word article? Get the key points spoken to you in seconds. Choose short, medium or long summaries in Settings. • Translate & read — translate any page or selection into Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian and more, then hear it aloud. Ideal for language learners and multilingual readers. Like everything else in this extension, the AI runs entirely on your device. No API keys, no usage limits, no cloud. PRIVACY YOU CAN VERIFY, NOT JUST TRUST • No data collected — the privacy disclosure says "no data collected" because there is literally nothing to collect. Speech synthesis, summarization and translation all happen on your machine. • Minimal permissions — the extension does NOT request access to "read data on all websites." It only touches a page when you explicitly invoke it on that page (right-click, shortcut, or popup). • Works offline — once the neural voice model is downloaded, you can listen to saved pages on a plane with zero connectivity. PERFECT FOR • Students and researchers who absorb information better by listening • Professionals who want to "read" articles while cooking, commuting or exercising • People with dyslexia, low vision, eye strain or reading fatigue • Language learners who want to hear native-quality pronunciation with synchronized highlighting • Writers and editors proofreading their own work by ear • Anyone who simply prefers listening over reading EASY TO START, AVAILABLE IN 40+ LANGUAGES Install, right-click, listen — that's it. A quick-start guide opens on installation and stays one click away in the popup whenever you need it. The interface is localized into more than 40 languages, from Spanish and German to Japanese, Arabic and Hindi. WHAT'S NEW IN VERSION 4.0 • Complete rebuild on Manifest V3 — faster, safer, and future-proof • NEW: Kokoro neural AI voices — free, offline, near-human quality • NEW: Summarize & read and Translate & read with on-device AI • NEW: Smart article extraction — skips menus, ads and clutter • NEW: Sentence-by-sentence highlighting that can't break web pages • NEW: Floating mini-player with per-site speed memory • Drastically reduced permissions for your privacy Listen to the web the way it should sound. Install Text to Speech today — free forever, private by design. Disclaimer: Please note this extension is NOT made by Google and is made by an independent development team. All copyrights belong to their respective owners. Google doesn’t endorse or sponsor this Chrome extension. Text to Speech for Google Chrome™ is not owned by, is not licensed by and is not a subsidiary of Google Inc.