I tried a bunch of apps, but quickly deleted each one. Either:
- Everything was locked behind a ~$30/month subscription (wasn't ready for that).
- Or the voices sounded robotic and painful to listen to.
Since I'm a software engineer, I decided to just build my own solution, a Chrome extension that reads articles out loud in a human-like voice. That's how Qariyo.com was born.
Some friends liked it too, so I thought: why not make it public? When I built it, I kept things simple: - Read the article out loud without breaking the flow, so it should work as a widget inside the page and not opening a new tab/page.
- Don't make me wait for the entire article to be converted before listening. I want to start as quickly as possible, without interruptions.
- No extra fluff (Snoop Dogg reading the article for you, etc. I don’t care). Just read the article out loud.
- And please, no subscriptions. I want to pay for what you use.
It's still an MVP, but it works well. If you want to try it, I'd love to hear your feedback!