Privacy Policy

The short version

Read Aloud Extension reads web pages out loud. It does not have an account, a login or a server of its own. Page text is collected in your browser, handed to Chrome's speech engine, and discarded. It is never sent to the developer, never stored, and never sold or shared with advertisers.

The one exception worth knowing about is Chrome's own cloud voices — see Speech synthesis below.

What the extension reads

• Text of the page you are on. Collected only in that tab, only when you press play or use a shortcut. It stays in the tab's memory for the duration of playback and is dropped when you stop.
• Text you have selected, when you ask for the selection to be read.
• PDF files you open in the built-in reader. The file is parsed in your browser by a local copy of pdf.js. It is never uploaded anywhere — not to the developer, not to any third party. Files you pick from your own disk stay on your disk.

None of this content reaches the developer. There is no backend to reach.

Speech synthesis

Speech is produced by Chrome's built-in speech service, which the extension calls through the standard chrome.tts API. Two kinds of voices exist and they behave differently:

• Local voices — installed on your computer by your operating system. Synthesis happens offline; the text never leaves your machine.
• Network voices — Google's higher-quality voices, marked with a cloud symbol (☁) in the voice list. Using one means Chrome sends the sentence being spoken to Google's speech servers in order to get the audio back. This is Chrome's own service and is governed by Google's Privacy Policy, not by the developer of this extension, who receives nothing.

If you would rather no text left your device at all, pick a voice without the cloud symbol. The extension works fully offline with local voices.

What is stored, and where

Two Chrome storage areas are used. Both belong to your browser profile; the developer has no access to either.

• Synced settings (chrome.storage.sync): chosen voice, speed, pitch, highlight colour, theme, and where reading should start. Chrome syncs these between computers where you are signed in to the same Google account, if you have Chrome sync turned on.
• Local settings (chrome.storage.local): the position you dragged the player to, whether the first-run hint has been shown, and which voices support which features on your machine.

Uninstalling the extension removes all of it.

Anonymous usage statistics

The extension reports a small number of anonymous events to Google Analytics 4, so that it is possible to tell which features are actually used and which ones break. What is sent:

• event names such as read_start, read_end, setting_changed, speech_error, pdf_opened;
• coarse parameters attached to them: whether a page or a selection was read and how reading was started (popup, context menu, keyboard shortcut, player), the language of the page, the rough number of text blocks, the reading speed, how long you listened and what share of the text was read, whether the chosen voice is automatic, local or cloud and its language, and, when the extension cannot read a page, only the kind of page (for example a browser settings page), never its address;
• a few settings of the extension itself: its version, the interface language, whether its icon is pinned to the toolbar and whether a keyboard shortcut is set;
• a randomly generated identifier, created on your device the first time the extension runs. It is not derived from anything about you, your browser or your Google account, and it is not linked to any other identifier.

What is never sent: page addresses, page titles, page text, selected text, PDF contents, file names, voice names, or anything you type.

Handling is covered by Google's Privacy Policy. Collected statistics are retained for 14 months and then deleted automatically.

The page shown after you uninstall

When you remove the extension, Chrome opens a short feedback page. It carries the version number and interface language in the address so that answers can be grouped by build. Nothing identifying travels with it. The page asks one optional question, and only what you deliberately type and send is recorded.

Why the permissions are needed

• Access to all websites — reading a page aloud requires reading its text, and the extension cannot know in advance which pages you will want read. Access is used only to gather text and draw the player and the highlight on the page you are actively using.
• Storage — to remember your settings.
• Text-to-speech — to speak.
• Context menus — for the right-click entries that start reading a selection or open a PDF in the reader.
• Scripting — so that reading works on tabs that were already open when you installed the extension, without a reload.

What is never done

• No selling or transfer of user data to third parties.
• No use of data for advertising, retargeting or credit assessment.
• No tracking of your browsing across sites.
• No accounts, no email harvesting, no fingerprinting.

Children

The extension is a general-purpose reading tool. It is not directed at children and does not knowingly collect information from them.

Changes to this policy

If the way data is handled ever changes, this page is updated and the date at the top changes with it. Material changes are also announced on the extension's Chrome Web Store listing before they take effect.

Limited Use

Read Aloud Extension's use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Chrome Web Store User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Contact

Questions about any of this: use the help and feedback form.