Text-only version of any website — the reader mode that always works
Type a URL, done: bahntastic delivers any website as a lean text skeleton — readable on any phone, in reader mode online, without an app or extension, and without "this page is not supported". Free, no account.
Why this beats your browser's reader mode
Every page, not just articles
Reader mode in Chrome or Safari extracts a single article — and gives up on front pages, forums, club and government sites ("not compatible with this page"). bahntastic reduces the whole page instead: links, lists and tables survive, so you can browse through a site, not just read one text.
No app, no extension
Works in every browser on every device — including the places where extensions don't exist at all (Chrome and Safari on your phone). Nothing to install, nothing to set up: typing an address is the whole workflow. A living alternative to Textise and the late Outline.com.
Side effect: radically light
The text skeleton usually weighs less than a tenth of the original — that's why bahntastic exists in the first place: built for train Wi-Fi, useful anywhere the network barely works. More on the home page.
Honesty in the fine print
What doesn't work
Logins don't work (we deliberately never forward cookies), forms and web apps don't either, and the result is intentionally not pretty — it's a reading tool, not a new browser for everything. If you want to save pages for later, read this instead: Is bahntastic a Pocket alternative?
On a laptop? The free bahntastic extension makes every page light without any server: images load only on click, trackers are blocked — all locally in your browser.