This is a great plug in. Request developer to add open AI TTS support.

Love this feature. Especially since I'm a poor reader.

Hilariously bad. Literally sounds like a backyard full of dogs barking. Not a single word was discernible.

This add-on claims to have "offline" voices which are "never sent to the internet".

However if you block access to the servers it contacts using a firewall:

1) You can see tons of access sent to "support.readaloud.app" and "chart.googleapis.com"

2) The text to speech stops working entirely. It won't read at all and says "Phone not connected". You can't even use the example offline test voice in configurations panel.

How is this even remotely offline if it can't work when not connected to the internet and their servers in particular?

Bro, 2024 with AI and all we got this google roboto voices? fr?

The version in Edge is fantastic, so I figured this one would be as well. No. Just Microsoft Sam quality voices.

The extension reads random parts of the lesson I want it to read, repeats words, and plays many paragraphs at a time. This is the worst read aloud extension I have ever tried using.

STEPS TO MAKE IT SOUND LESS ROBOTIC ----
1) right click extension icon and open options
2)change voice to GoogleTranslate English (scroll all the way to the bottom of the dropdown menu)
3)you'll be prompted to sign in; simply make a free account
4)you'll also be prompted to grant permissions for the call to google translate
5)enjoy

A little more robotic than possible but a lot faster than having to manually copy and paste text into a website which is all I want in an add-on like this. Also allows for speed change which is a plus.

Works well, but sadly only when I'm connected to WiFi. When I'm using cellphone data, it doesn't read anything. I wish they would fix this problem. Then I would give it 5 stars and recommend it to everyone I know!

***Edit:***
I contacted their tech support and they told me to change the settings from auto voice to English, and now it works! Highly recommended! Changing my rating to 5 stars!