Your browser’s voices, and which ones can follow along
This lists the read-aloud voices your own browser has, and tests each one for something you cannot see from the name: whether it tells the page where it is in the sentence while it speaks. Free, no sign-up. It runs in your browser — nothing is sent to us or to anyone else.
Why the last column is the interesting one
Underlining the exact word being spoken is not a drawing problem. The browser has to say “I am at character 24 now” while the voice talks, and not every voice does. When a voice stays silent about its position, a page can still read your text aloud — it just cannot mark the word, because there is no position to mark. The test above speaks one short fixed sentence with the voice you picked and counts how many word positions came back.
What this does not do
- It does not read the page you came from. It speaks one fixed sample sentence, so that every voice is measured on the same words.
- It only describes this computer and this browser. The voice list is whatever your system and browser happen to have installed; another machine will show a different list and can give a different answer per voice.
- “No word positions” is not broken. That voice can still read text aloud. It just cannot be followed word by word.
If you wanted this on the page you are actually reading
That is the extension this site is here for: it reads a web page aloud and highlights each sentence where it is, on the page itself rather than in a side panel, using the same voices your browser just listed. It is free on the Chrome Web Store.
This page counts that it was visited and that the button above was pressed (the path and the date, nothing else: no cookie, no IP address, and never anything about your voices). Questions: support@rehobothbuilds.com. A person reads it.