Chrome Web Store
56Versions
1Code reviewed

No malware found

In code review (v2.22.0)

Our reviewer read version 2.22.0 — the most recent version we have reviewed — and found no malicious behaviour. The version shown here has not been individually reviewed yet.

What our analysis found

Read Aloud: A Text to Speech Voice Reader, used by 6,000,000 people, showed no malicious code in Extension Auditor's review. Its permissions mean it can inject scripts into pages. It comes from a trusted publisher and was last updated in July 2026.

The extension's permissions and network activity are all necessary for its core text-to-speech functionality: injecting content scripts to extract text, sending text to TTS services (including Google Translate, cloud APIs, and the publisher's own backend), using OAuth for premium features, and offscreen audio playback. All data flows are either to first-party services (,) or well-known providers and are disclosed in the CWS privacy collection (personally identifiable information, authentication, website content). The ML risk score is 0.00 and the publisher has a strong reputation with 6M+ users over 5 years, supporting the benign assessment.

Read Aloud: A Text to Speech Voice Reader

Read Aloud: A Text to Speech Voice Reader

ID: hdhinadidafjejdhmfkjgnolgimiaplp

Extension Info & Metadata

Status
Active
Version
2.24.0
Size
0.46 MB
Rating
4.1/5
Reviews
3,600
Users
6,000,000
Type
Extension
Updated
Jul 10, 2026
Category
Accessibility
Price
Free
Featured
Yes
Visibility
Listed
Mature
No
By Google
No
Trusted
Yes
This publisherTrack record
1extension
All still listed
Scanned by Extension Auditor — Low RiskDevelopers: embed this badge to link to this report.

Publisher Contextual Analysis

Trusted
Author
http://lsdsoftware.com/View Profile
Country
US
MX records exist
Yes
Domain exists
Yes
Is disposable
No
Is role-based
Yes
Mailbox exists
Yes
Address
158 Magellan Ave San Jose, CA 95116 US
Website
Visit
Extensions
1
Active
1
Obsolete
0
Listed
1
Unlisted
0
Users
6,000,000

Screenshots & videos

Screenshot 2

Install growth

Item
Type
Severity
Description
scripting
Permission
Critical
This permission allows injection and execution of JavaScript on any webpage. Rated Critical because it can modify page content, steal sensitive data, and inject malicious code into any site the extension has access to.
identity
Permission
High
This permission accesses Chrome identity service and user information. Rated High because it can obtain OAuth tokens, access connected accounts, and impersonate the user in authenticated service.
offscreen
Permission
High
This permission creates hidden browser documents with full DOM access. Rated High because it can run background operations invisibly, potentially executing malicious code without user awareness.
Contextual Risk Factors
Risk Factor
High
The following context increases the overall risk:• 20% increase: Access to sensitive domains increases potential impact
activeTab
Permission
Medium
This permission grants temporary access to the current tab. Rated Medium because it can access current page content when invoked, though limited to user-initiated actions.
storage
Permission
Medium
This permission allows storing data locally in the browser. Rated Medium because it can persist sensitive user data, track user activities over time, and potentially store malicious payloads.
https://translate.google.com/
Host
Medium
Host permission — access limited to this URL pattern.
Access to Sensitive Domains
Risk Factor
Medium
This extension requests access to sensitive domains: https://translate.google.com/
contextMenus
Permission
Low
This permission adds items to browser context menus. Rated Medium because it only modifies right-click menus without access to page content.
tts
Permission
Low
This permission enables text-to-speech functionality. Rated Low because it can only convert visible text to speech without accessing sensitive data.
ttsEngine
Permission
Low
This permission implements a text-to-speech engine. Rated Low because it only processes text for speech conversion without storing or transmitting data.

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About this extension

Read aloud the current web-page article with one click, using text to speech (TTS). Supports 40+ languages.

Read the publisher’s full description

Read Aloud uses text-to-speech (TTS) technology to convert webpage text to audio. It works on a variety of websites, including news sites, blogs, fan fiction, publications, textbooks, school and course materials. Read Aloud helps users who prefer to listen to content instead of reading, including children learning to read and those with dyslexia or other learning disabilities. Read Aloud allows you to select from a variety of text-to-speech voices, including native voices provided by the browser and AI voices from cloud providers such as Google Wavenet, Amazon Polly, IBM Watson, Microsoft Azure, and OpenAI. Cloud-based voices may require additional in-app purchase or bringing your own API key to enable. Read Aloud can read PDF, Google Docs, Google Play books, Amazon Kindle, and EPUB (via the excellent EPUBReader extension from epubread.com). To use Read Aloud, navigate to the web page you want to read, then click the Read Aloud icon on the browser menu. You can also use the shortcut keys ALT-P, ALT-O, ALT-Comma, and ALT-Period to activate the extension. If some text is selected, Read Aloud will read only the selected text. Additionally, you can right click the text selection and start Read Aloud from the context menu. To change the voice, reading speed, pitch, or enable text highlighting, go to the Options page via the Gear button on the extension popup (you'll need to stop playback to see the Gear button). You can also access the Options page from the context menu by right clicking the extension icon. On the extension popup, there are buttons to increase/decrease the the size of the popup window, the font size, as well as toggle dark mode. Read Aloud is an open-source project. If you wish to contribute bug fixes or translations, please visit the GitHub page at https://github.com/ken107/read-aloud

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Extension files

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URLs
51
IPv4
2

URLs

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No URLs found
No IP addresses found

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