The Readlang extension, browser by browser: what exists and how to install it

What exists for each browser

The table is the whole page at a glance. The sections below go through each row with the steps.

Checked 14 September 2026 against readlang.com, the Chrome Web Store, addons.mozilla.org and the Readlang forum.

Chrome: the Readlang Web Reader

Chrome is where the extension has the most users; the Chrome Web Store listing shows about 100,000. It is the reference version: when this guide says the Edge or Firefox version works like the Chrome one, this is the one it means.

1. Create a Readlang account or sign in at readlang.com. The extension is a front end for that account.
2. Open the Chrome Web Store and search for Readlang Web Reader, or follow the extension link from the Readlang site.
3. Click Add to Chrome and confirm the permissions; the extension needs to read the page you are on in order to make its words clickable.
4. Pin the Readlang icon to the toolbar through the puzzle-piece menu so it stays visible.
5. Open any article in the language you are learning and click the icon. The page turns into clickable text: click a word for a translation, select a run of words for a phrase.

Edge: the same extension, from the Chrome Web Store

Edge is built on Chromium, so it runs Chrome extensions unchanged. The route Readlang describes for Edge is the Chrome Web Store listing, and there is no need for a separate Edge version.

1. In Edge, open the Chrome Web Store and find the Readlang Web Reader listing.
2. If Edge shows a bar offering to allow extensions from other stores, allow it. Until you do, the Add button stays inactive.
3. Click Add to Chrome. Edge shows its own confirmation dialog; accept it.
4. Sign in at readlang.com in Edge if you have not already, then use the icon exactly as in Chrome.

Firefox: a separate extension since November 2025

The extension is still being updated: version 0.9.41 shipped on 14 September 2026 and the listing shows roughly 740 daily users. Checked 19 September 2026.

For years Firefox users had only the bookmarklet. In November 2025 Readlang published a proper Firefox extension on addons.mozilla.org, listed as Readlang Web Reader. It is a separate build, still receiving updates in September 2026, with around 700 daily users on the listing: small next to Chrome, as a ten-month-old port would be.

1. Open the listing: Readlang Web Reader on addons.mozilla.org.
2. Click Add to Firefox and accept the permission prompt.
3. Sign in at readlang.com in Firefox.
4. Click the Readlang icon on any page in your target language. It behaves like the Chrome extension: clickable words, selectable phrases, the same account and limits.

Firefox for Android

Firefox for Android installs extensions from the same listing, and the Readlang forum calls this by far the easiest way to use the Web Reader on an Android phone. Open the listing in Firefox on the phone, add it, sign in. It is the only mobile browser where a Readlang extension works at all; the Android page covers the rest, including the home-screen shortcut for people who would rather stay in Chrome.

Safari: a bookmarklet, not an extension

There is no Readlang extension for Safari, on macOS or on iOS. What Readlang offers instead is a bookmarklet: a bookmark whose address is a short piece of JavaScript rather than a web page. Clicking it sends the page you are on to Readlang, roughly the way the extension would.

Safari on a Mac

1. Sign in at readlang.com in Safari.
2. Add the bookmarklet from readlang.com to the Favorites bar. If the bar is hidden, show it from the View menu first.
3. In Safari privacy settings, allow third-party cookies; on current versions that is the switch that prevents cross-site tracking. Readlang states this requirement itself. Without it, the bookmarklet cannot see that you are signed in.
4. Open an article and click the bookmarklet.

Safari on an iPhone or iPad

Bookmarklets exist on iOS Safari too, and the Readlang forum has step-by-step instructions: save any page as a bookmark, then edit that bookmark and replace its address with the bookmarklet code from the forum post. It works, and it is fiddly enough that the official advice for phones is different: add readlang.com to the home screen and read texts you imported rather than live pages. The Readlang on iPhone page goes through both routes.

Brave, Opera, Vivaldi and other Chromium browsers

Readlang documents Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari, and nothing else. Brave, Opera, Vivaldi and most other desktop browsers are built on Chromium, and Chromium browsers can generally install extensions from the Chrome Web Store, so the Chrome steps above are the place to start. If something misbehaves, the forum is the place to ask; there is no official guidance for those browsers.

What the Web Reader actually does

The extension is not a separate reader. It is a bridge between the page you are on and your Readlang account, and it does three things.

• Turns any page into clickable text. Click the icon on an article, a blog post or a forum thread and the text becomes the same clickable text you get inside Readlang: click a word for a translation in place, select several words for a phrase. Plan limits apply: on the free plan phrases stop at ten a day and six words each; single words are unlimited.
• Imports a plain-text version to read later. Instead of reading in place, you can send the text of the page into your Readlang library, stripped of layout and ads, where it sits next to your uploaded books and feeds the same flashcard queue.
• Uses your popup dictionary. The dictionary you configure in Readlang, including a custom one, is the dictionary the extension uses. Words you translate through the extension are saved and scheduled like any other.

If most of your reading is news sites, blogs and forums in the language you are learning, the extension is the best thing Readlang makes. How it fits into the rest of the method, from the first click to the flashcards, is on the Readlang tutorial page.

Where the extension stops

Three places, and none of them is a bug.

• Mobile browsers other than Firefox for Android. Chrome on Android, Samsung Internet and Safari on iOS do not run the Readlang extension. On iOS the bookmarklet is the workaround; on Android, Firefox is. Otherwise the phone route is the home-screen shortcut and the texts you imported from a desktop.
• Safari, on any device. No extension exists. The bookmarklet needs third-party cookies allowed, which Safari blocks by default, and that is the setting to check first if the bookmarklet will not sign you in.
• Offline. The extension, like the rest of Readlang, sends every translation to the server. A page you opened on a plane stays unclickable until you land. The Readlang offline page covers what people do about that.

Kindle belongs on this list too: no extension for the Kindle browser, no official support, and a forum thread from March 2026 reporting that the site no longer works there. Kindle purchases cannot be uploaded either, because of DRM; only DRM-free EPUB and plain text can.

Reading web articles on an iPhone without an extension

Disclosure first: we make Readlang Mobile, a native iOS reader, an independent app not affiliated with Readlang, and it has no Safari extension. What it has instead is a paste-a-link reader: copy the address of an article in Safari, open the app, paste the link, and the article opens inside the reader as tappable text. Tap a word for the translation in place; tap the first and last word of a phrase for the whole phrase. By default, translation comes from Google Translate through the app's server; in Settings you can switch to Apple Translate, which runs on the device.

It is not a replacement for the Web Reader on a desktop: it does not touch the page you are looking at, it covers the roughly twenty languages Apple Translation handles on the device rather than a hundred, and it is iPhone and iPad only. On a phone, it is the shorter path from an article to a translated word. The free plan covers 30 translations a day, articles by link included; Premium removes the limit.

Questions people ask