Reading Glasses for Windows

Reading Glasses is a nifty Google Chrome extension that lets you read on the Web only what you want to read while blocking out the rest.

A small Reading-Glasses icon will appear to the right-hand side of your address bar after the quick install. While you are reading a body of text, highlight your focus and click the icon. Doing so will white out everything other than the text. The problem with this extension is that it can be very finicky; sometimes it whites out more than you want it to, and sometimes less. It seems that luck may have something to do with this one.

Though it is nice to be able to ignore ads on the sides of articles, this add-on is great for other activities such as Facebook chat. Click on your chat box and then the Reading Glasses icon, and the entire page will white-out except for your conversation. This can also be useful for blocking out material that is not suitable for work.

Reading Glasses has some usability flaws, but once you get it to work the results are quite handy.