Open a single post page for the cleanest narration. CastReader reads the main post first; for a specific comment, expand and select that comment instead of sending an entire discussion tree into one audio queue.
To listen to Reddit, open the post's permalink rather than the home feed, then start CastReader so the main post body becomes the reading queue. Reddit comment trees are nested and often collapsed, so the reliable way to hear one comment is to expand it, select its text, and use selected-text reading. Deleted, removed, collapsed, or unloaded comments cannot be read until Reddit displays actual text.
Reddit is a feed, a post page, and a nested discussion tree at the same time. One extraction rule cannot safely treat all three as a single article.
Open the post's dedicated page before starting. This gives the reader one clear title and body instead of dozens of cards, promoted posts, voting controls, and previews from the feed.
Expand the target comment, drag across its text, and use selected-text reading. This avoids usernames, scores, timestamps, reply controls, and unrelated branches.
A full Reddit discussion does not have one obvious spoken order. Choose the useful branch and read comments individually rather than expecting a flat audio stream to preserve the conversation structure.
If Reddit marks a comment deleted or removed, or has not loaded a collapsed branch, the page contains no readable comment body. Expand available content first; CastReader does not recover hidden or removed text.
Click the post title or comments link so the URL points to that discussion. Avoid starting from the home, popular, or subreddit feed.
Press CastReader and confirm that the first spoken paragraph belongs to the post body. Stop if the queue begins with feed cards or unrelated navigation.
Open a collapsed branch and wait for the comment text to appear. Reddit cannot expose text-to-speech content that is not rendered.
Highlight the comment body and use selected-text reading. Repeat for the next useful reply if you want to follow one branch of the discussion.
A Reddit feed is not an article. It mixes post previews, community navigation, advertisements, votes, moderation labels, and infinite scrolling. Starting text-to-speech from the feed creates a noisy queue and gives the listener no clear boundary between one post and the next.
The permalink solves the first problem by giving the main post a stable reading surface. Comments remain harder because Reddit nests replies, collapses branches, and may render each comment inside its own component. Reading one selected comment preserves the choice a sighted reader makes when deciding which branch is worth attention.
No reader should claim to restore removed comments or bypass community restrictions. If the page shows deleted, removed, quarantined, age-gated, or unloaded content instead of the text, the safe answer is that there is nothing available to narrate until Reddit itself displays it.
Direct answers for posts, comments, feeds, old Reddit, collapsed branches, and mobile devices.
Open the post's dedicated discussion page in Chrome or Edge, then start CastReader. The single-post page is much cleaner than a subreddit or home feed.
Expand the comment, select its text, and use selected-text reading. That is more reliable than reading the entire nested thread and avoids scores, usernames, timestamps, and reply controls.
Not as one guaranteed conversation. Reddit threads branch and collapse, so there is no single linear spoken order. Read the main post first, then select the comments or branch you want.
A feed contains many post cards and interface elements rather than one article. Open the post permalink before starting playback.
Visible text can be read on both old and current Reddit interfaces, but their layouts differ. The same advice applies: open one post and select individual comments when needed.
No. If Reddit does not render the comment body, CastReader has no text to read and does not attempt to recover removed content.
The CastReader browser extension is for desktop Chrome and Edge. On a phone, use the operating system's screen-reading or selected-text speech control for the Reddit app or mobile website.
CastReader is free to start with daily allowances. Pro provides higher usage limits and additional voice and explanation access; see the pricing page for current limits.
Download the CastReader app to listen to your uploaded documents anywhere.
Hard numbers — not vibes — from authoritative sources
$2.22 billion
US audiobook sales in 2024, up 13% year-over-year (Publishers Weekly / Audio Publishers Association)
Source →51%
of US adults have listened to an audiobook in 2025 — roughly 134 million people (APA Consumer Survey 2025)
Source →2.2 billion
people globally with near- or far-vision impairment (WHO Fact Sheet, 2024). TTS is the primary access path for digital reading content.
Source →78%
of audiobook listeners multitask while listening — commute, chores, exercise (Audiolibrix Great Audiobook Survey, 2024)
Source →27.2 minutes
average single-trip US commute in 2024, up from 26.8 (US Census ACS via Statista). That's nearly an hour each day of audio-only time.
Source →effect size 0.35
measured comprehension lift from TTS for reading-disabled students across 22 studies (Wood, Moxley, Tighe & Wagner, Journal of Learning Disabilities, 2018)
Source →15.5 million
US adults with ADHD per CDC 2024 — about half diagnosed in adulthood (CDC MMWR, October 2024)
Source →Every Chrome Web Store review below is verifiable at the link in each card. We don't hide negative feedback — we answer it within 24 hours.
“This is 1 of the best TTS and its smooth. If this is truly free i'll keep this 100%. Every other TTS says its free but has a secret. They interrupt or they just say better ai voices pay. But i like this voice. I've tried loads and this is 1 of the best ones that actually says free.”
“Works perfectly on vivaldi. One suggestion though. I wish it had a play button appear next to a paragraph when we hover over it. Just like in the case of speechify.”
“Extremely user friendly short keys. Placed forward backward and speed up down as Natural as it could be. Voices are great and smooth. I would recommend it over many hyped products.”
“At the very least it's better than many paid TTS models. Still not as good as ElevenReader or LAP, but maybe the best free model for TTS.”
“So glad I can finally switch voices! The default was fine but I found one I actually enjoy listening to for hours. Small thing, huge difference.”
“Best one i found, user friendly, and great voice over.”
“ChatGPT's long answers are finally listenable. Let it generate while I listen — doubles my productivity. Love the inline button next to each response.”
“I tried using this add-on to listen to an ebook on the O'Reilly learning platform, and it works smoothly. However, it always restarts from the first paragraph whenever I scroll or select a different paragraph. Please consider adding a bookmark or checkpoint feature so users can mark where the reading should begin.”
↪ Founder reply
Replied by CastReader founder Yan Xu within 48 hours: acknowledged the issue, shipped a bookmark feature in the following release. Reviewer's verbatim feedback drove the v1.2 roadmap.
“Need to highlight text and select it.”
“Hard to select text.”
↪ Founder reply
Replied by CastReader founder Yan Xu within 24 hours: apologized, asked which site/browser the issue occurred on, provided a workaround using the keyboard shortcut, and offered direct support at support@castreader.com.
We re-test, re-write, and ship continuously. Every entry has a real date.
Rewrote landing pages with verbatim Chrome Web Store testimonials, real audiobook market data, and tested-12-extensions methodology. Every claim now has a sourceable link.
CastReader provides native apps for iPhone and Android; Android downloads are available directly from Google Play.
Wrote up the OCR pipeline: how CastReader handles Amazon's 184 random font alphabets and 361 unique glyphs per Kindle book. Shared in dev.to.
The phone app flow now has its own landing page for bookshelf sync, Read Aloud, synced highlighting, auto-scroll, background playback, and resume progress.
Ranked #10 in Daily, 99 upvotes, 4 community comments shaped the v1.2 roadmap.
Switched from older TTS engines to Kokoro neural voices. User reviews shifted from 'usable but robotic' to 'enjoy listening for hours' (verbatim from review by patrick chiang).
OCR success rate improved from 78% to 89% on English-language Kindle books. Multi-column page detection added for academic PDFs.
I built CastReader because I owned hundreds of Kindle books and couldn't listen to them on my morning runs without buying separate Audible copies. The technical problem — Amazon's Cloud Reader font encryption — turned out to be solvable with OCR. The product problem — making it actually pleasant across phones, desktops, and 8 supported languages — took two years of iteration. We're a small team. I answer every Chrome Web Store review personally (see testimonials above — including the 3-star and 1-star ones). If something's broken or missing, email support@castreader.com.
— Yan Xu, founder
Last reviewed: · CastReader Team — reviewed against 2025 testing data
A useful Reddit listening session follows your reading decisions instead of flattening the whole site into noise.
Official App Store and Google Play downloads · Chrome, Edge, and Firefox extensions