AI product readCollaborative web and PDF annotation tool that allows users to highlight, annotate, and tag web pages, PDF documents, and EPUBs
Enables collaborative reading, research organization, and discussion by allowing users to add annotations, highlights, tags, and comments directly on web content and documents
User installs extension, browses web pages or opens PDFs, selects text to highlight or annotate, writes comments/tags, and shares annotations with collaborators through Hypothesis groups. The extension injects a sidebar into web pages and provides a built-in PDF viewer. Annotations are stored on the Hypothesis service (hypothes.is) and synced across devices.
Highlight text on web pages, PDFs, and EPUBsCreate annotations with comments on any web contentTag and organize annotationsCollaborative annotation in shared groupsSupport for PDF viewing with built-in PDF.js viewerSidebar interface for browsing and managing annotations
- Target users
- Researchers / Students / Academics / Journalists / Knowledge workers / Anyone needing collaborative reading and annotation
- Source files are heavily minified (annotator.bundle.js, sidebar.bundle.js), making deeper code analysis difficult
- Could not inspect the actual Hypothesis API to determine if free tier has usage limits or feature restrictions
- The extension's profile.html and notebook.html are minimal HTML shells loading from the same bundle, limiting visibility into specific UI flows
MonetizationNo paid features detected
No evidence of paid feature gating, billing APIs, subscription logic, upgrade prompts, or premium feature checks in the extension source code. The 'premium' keyword match found in ui-playground.bundle.js line 276 is in unrelated sample text about California rolls (sushi description). No Stripe, payment, or billing integrations detected. The Hypothesis service (hypothes.is) offers organizational/enterprise plans externally, but the extension itself does not gate any features behind payment.
- Confidence
- 80
- Payment platform
- --
- Source
- AI / Medium
- Login required
- Yes
- Reason
- The extension uses OAuth to authenticate with the Hypothesis service (hypothes.is). The sidebar code has an `isLoggedIn` selector checking `profile.userid !== null` (sidebar.bundle.js line 109), and the UI shows a 'Log in' button for unauthorized users when accessing content (sidebar.bundle.js line 134). Creating annotations requires an authenticated user account on hypothes.is. The extension itself does not implement its own account system — it delegates authentication to the Hypothesis destination service via OAuth (oauthClientId configured in app.html line 10 and extension.bundle.js line 180).
This should be default in any browser. I'm not certain if the comment moderation mechanism is any good but having the ability to read users' comments on any given text on the web can be invaluable when doing serious reading. Within the first few minutes after installation, this extension already provided me insightful comments and answers.
After you annotate text, when you are writing your note, none of the text tools like "Bold", "Italics" work for me. When you hit Bold, you get * on either side of selected text. The Link function does not work. Please fix this. Also, pl add some more highlighter colors. Otherwise a good product.
It's great. Keep your good work and enhance some issues
great
Do hope you can introduce more highlight color rather than only a yellow pen.
I can't log in. I tried to make an account, I forgot I had one already. The extension told me that there's already an user with this email. I try to log in, the extension tell me that the user and password is not the right one. I reset my password by mail, I try to log with the new password, and then, it's still not ok.
A great extension, and something the web needs. This can serve as a personal note taker (although maybe other mechanisms might be better for that), or a distributed or centralized point for shared notes and discussions.
I wish I could rate this higher because, in the beginning, I really loved it. It allows you to annotate, highlight (although the highlight function acts up sometimes. You try to highlight one thing, then when you go to highlight something else, the first thing that you highlighted becomes un-highlighted). Also, it is nice that you can make page notes in general (i.e. if you want to summarize a page) or just highlight one specific word or phrase and make an annotation of that. Furthermore, it saves all annotations and highlights, even if you close the tab or turn off your computer and then later revisit the pdf. BUT, and this is a major flaw. I hope this gets fixed soon: I will be on a certain page and then all of a sudden the app suddenly takes over and moves 10-15 pages forward or backward to another page. And then I try to move back to the page I was on and the app just does it again. Pretty soon it turns into a battle of me and the app and I just want to give up on the assignment I am doing. Please fix this. I am becoming angry to the point where I am considering getting rid of this extension.
Fantastic app, i have downloaded about 10 of this extensions and tested em all for my research. Finding this one, simple, elegant and very helpful. I would love the possibility to use it with PDF files.
Great tool :-) Public read groups sounds like a good idea. Would love to see private groups too.