Do y’all know about textise? I don’t see mention of it come up in a quick search. https://www.textise.net/

It can be used with the duckduckgo bang !textise

It also works over Tor, where I can use it as a proxy to avoid Cloudflare checkpoints.

I don’t think that it is open source but not completely sure.

Copy from the site intro:

Textise is a new way of looking at the Web. It’s an internet tool that removes everything from a web page except for its text. In practice, this means that images, forms, scripts, adverts, they all go, leaving plain text. Find out more here… (https://textise.wordpress.com/about-textise/)

How to use this page

  1. Type or paste the URL of a web page into the box below and click “Textise”. A text only version of the web page will be displayed.
  2. Type a search term into the box, select a search engine from the drop-down list, and click “Search”. You will be taken to a text only version of the search results.
  • pragmakist@kbin.social
    482·
    1 year ago

    It’s a service.

    It’s a service given to you for free by a company with no apparant way of generating income.

    Would you think about that, please?

  • Most Auspicious@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    30·
    1 year ago

    Sounds like Firefox text mode with extra steps. Granted, it might be good for other browsers, but I personally am doing fine so far with a reader plugin on Palemoon.

    Also, as other users have mentioned already, it’s sus as heck.

    • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      Safari has reader mode (mobile and desktop) and it’s the best way to read most news and recipe sites. Except the ones doing stupid shit to obfuscate it anyways.

    • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.comEnglish
      4·
      1 year ago

      Oh good find. If I start using this I’m going to add dark mode and a MD preview mode (vs edit mode) so it can be used as a reader vs just a sharer.

      Edit: Also just added some sample code that may help with paywalls in their issue tracker.

        • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.comEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Uhm, offered dev code, so probably know what an MD is 😉 And sorry, wrong on dark mode as there is no dark mode in the latest Markdownr… I just had a chat with the dev in the issue tracker. It was trivial to add dark mode and preview mode, they are now in the main branch and will be in the next release.

  • pragmakist@kbin.social
    13·
    1 year ago

    Oh, by the way, text-only browsers are still a thing.

    You might want to look at links and/or lynx and see if they cover your usecase.

    • Cinner@lemmy.worldBEnglish
      8·
      1 year ago

      I was just thinking… “this isn’t new, this is 2 decades old and called lynx” lol

      edit: over 3 decades. the first version of lynx was released in 1992.

      I’ve used it on Linux but I’m sure it can be used on Windows via WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux).

  • teft@startrek.websiteEnglish
    9·
    1 year ago

    Is reader mode not enough? It’s the same damn thing and not put through some sketchy free service that is obviously mining your data.

    • syzizekyOPEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      Salient point. Dont get me wrong, I use FF reader mode all day long and I sing its praises to all who will listen. But I am using this to access content over Tor when cloudflare would otherwise prevent me from doing so.

      I would not recommend for anyone to feed all their browsing to a third party in a way that can easily be tied back to them, but I am using this tool to overcome a specific obstacle when I encounter it and not otherwise.

      Maybe I should have described this scenario more completely at the start of my post 🤷

  • Crul@lemm.eeEnglish
    7·
    1 year ago

    I prefer Tranquility Reader add-on (no need for a 3rd party service). Very similar to Firefox’ native Reader Mode, but more configurable and compatible with other addons (like translation).

  • hexagonwin@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    I like it, but I would prefer a local program to do this, or something like a userscript… ik firefox readermode does this but i use seamonkey and don’t have this kind of thing, so I only disable image and javascript (css when needed) which kinda gives me a broken layout

    • syzizekyOPEnglish
      4·
      1 year ago

      My use case is to access text and link content on a web page anonymously over Tor without getting blocked by Cloudflare (such as when browsing warez sites).