FingerRead
Read with your scroll wheel.
FingerRead highlights text one character or one word at a time as you turn the scroll wheel. Select a passage, scroll, and the highlight follows your hand. No text-to-speech, no preset reading speed — you control both pace and position.
It is the digital equivalent of finger tracking — running a finger along the words to keep your place as you read — except that the highlight advances with your scroll wheel instead of your finger.
What it does
- Select, then scroll. The highlight advances through your selection and keeps up with your hand in any direction.
- Character or word stepping. Chinese steps by character by default; a word mode keeps Chinese words intact and degrades gracefully to characters for unknown words.
- Handles real pages. Shadow DOM, nested scrolling containers, dynamically loaded content, and
contenteditableeditors are supported. If the text changes under you, the session is dropped rather than left stale. - Finger tracking, without the finger. The technique of tracing the words you read keeps your attention on the line; here the tracing is a highlight driven by the wheel.
- Your hand sets the pace. A gain curve reads fast scrolls as skips and slow scrolls as single steps, with a short pause at sentence ends.
- Your text stays yours. The reading pipeline runs entirely in the page. Page content is never uploaded — see Privacy.
Try it right here — this paragraph is a live demo of the reading highlight.
Reading is a physical habit as much as a mental one: many readers trace the line with a finger or a pen to keep their place. FingerRead turns that trace into a highlight that moves when you scroll the wheel. 慢滚逐字前进，快滚大步跳读，句尾稍作停顿，让眼睛始终跟着高亮走。Click the paragraph, then roll your wheel: each notch moves the highlight one word forward or back. 中文字符逐字高亮，英文按整词移动。Press Escape or click outside to stop.
Click to activate · wheel to step · Esc to stop · position —. In the extension, activation is by selecting text instead of clicking, and scrolling speed is smoothed by a gain curve with a pause at sentence ends. Your browser does not support the CSS Custom Highlight API, so the demo is disabled here.
Want this on every page you read? Install FingerRead and the 7-day full-feature trial starts on first use — no sign-up, no card.
Start the 7-day trialPricing
Prices are shown excluding taxes. Taxes (VAT/GST/sales tax) are calculated at checkout based on your billing country, and purchases are processed by our merchant of record.
New accounts get a 7-day trial with every feature unlocked — no card and no sign-up required: install the extension and the trial starts on first use.
How to buy
- Install FingerRead from your browser's extension store. Planned for Firefox, Chrome and Edge — publishing once store review clears; other Chromium-based browsers such as Brave and Vivaldi will work too.
- Open the extension's options page and sign in with your email — we send a 6-digit code, no password to remember.
- Pick a plan. Payment opens in a separate page; your membership activates automatically once the payment completes.
Your membership is tied to your email account, not to a device, so the same purchase works on every browser and computer you sign in from.
FAQ
Does it read the text aloud?
No. FingerRead is a visual highlight, not text-to-speech. It is designed for people who read faster than a fixed speaking rate and want the screen to keep up with their eyes.
Do you see the pages I read?
No. Highlighting happens inside the page you are reading. The extension talks to our server only to check your membership status. Page content, URLs, and selections are never sent.
How many devices can I use?
As many as you like. Your membership is attached to your email account, not to a device or an installation.
What is the trial, and do I need a card?
New accounts get 7 days with all features enabled, including word stepping. No card and no payment details are needed to start the trial.
Which browsers and languages?
Chromium-based browsers (Chrome, Edge, Brave, and others) and Firefox. The interface and documentation are in Chinese; character and word stepping work for any language, with word segmentation tuned for Chinese.
Can I get a refund?
Yes — see the refund policy. In short: 14 days from your first purchase, no questions asked.
What happens if I lose access to my email?
Write to hi@microstep.today and we will help you move the membership to another address you control.