Wavenet for Chrome

Name: Wavenet for Chrome
Rating: 4.662650602409639 (83 reviews)
Author: Michael Poirier-Ginter

Text-to-Speech (TTS) extension that transforms highlighted text into high-quality natural sounding audio using Google Cloud's…

▶

Download

Install Compare

Wavenet for Chrome is a powerful Text-to-Speech (TTS) extension that converts your highlighted text into high-quality, natural-sounding audio using Google Cloud's advanced Text-to-Speech technology. It supports all Google WaveNet, Neural2, News, and Studio voices and languages, offering you a rich variety of voice options to suit your needs.

The extension includes adjustable pitch and speed settings, SSML support, and convenient keyboard shortcuts for quick reading aloud or downloading. You can easily download your selected text as an MP3 file. Additionally, Wavenet smartly chunks your text into sentences to bypass the 5000-character limit, making usage more efficient and cost-effective. Note that users need to create their own Google Cloud API key to use the extension, with detailed instructions included.

Extension Accessibility AI Productivity

By:

Michael Poirier-Ginter

Users:

10,000

Rating:

4.66

(83)

Version:

12 Last updated: 2023-07-30

Creation date:

2020-02-15

Risk:

Permissions:

contextMenus
downloads
storage
activeTab
scripting
offscreen

Host permissions:

<all_urls>

Size:

4.59MB

Email:

mi*****@gmail.com

Full description:

Source:

Chrome Web Store

Data ingested on:

2025-07-10

Ranking

# 7,226 ▲ 70

Other rankings

#565 in Workflow & Planning ▲ 5 #103 in text to speech keyword 73 ▼ 3 #119 in shift keyword 22 ▲ 2 #204 in speech to text keyword 40 ▼ 7 #207 in speech keyword 65 ▼ 13

User reviews

Users praise Wavenet for Chrome for its lifelike, high-quality text-to-speech voices, ease of setup using personal GCP API keys, and helpful features like adjustable speed, pitch, and MP3 downloads. Many appreciate the active development and user-focused approach. However, common issues include occasional failures without clear errors, insufficient documentation, limited API support beyond Google, SSML feature bugs, and concerns over audio download quality and voice availability. Despite these drawbacks, it remains a highly valued tool, especially for accessibility and productivity.

Pros

Very natural and high quality voice output that sounds lifelike.
Allows use of own Google Cloud Platform API key, giving users control and avoiding subscription fees.
Easy to set up and user-friendly interface with features like adjustable speed and pitch.
Provides useful features such as voice generation and MP3 download capabilities.
Regular updates and active developer support improving the extension.

Cons

Extension sometimes stops working without error messages, making troubleshooting difficult due to lack of documentation.
Limited support for APIs, currently only Google API supported; requests for adding Microsoft Azure and Amazon Polly support.
Issues with SSML support—only partially working or limited by character count in some versions.
Downloaded audio quality can be noticeably lower than expected and limited in duration (e.g., max 6 seconds).
Recent UI or version updates caused missing or changed voices and feature regressions impacting user experience.

Recent reviews

It's pretty good; it's exactly what I wanted! Easy setup; just you need GCP API key; and you're ready to go. Thank you developer!

Ak*****, 2025-04-14

Bravo, Michael! I just wanted to express my sincere gratitude for this incredible extension. I’ve relied on it for years-so much so that I fought tooth and nail to have it whitelisted at the school where I worked. In an era where many developers try to hustle a dollar by re-packaging API's, you’ve taken a refreshingly different approach. Allowing us to use our own API keys creates immense value from a simple bearer key. I wish more extensions followed your example. I can provide my own ChatGPT keys, yet the Google marketplace is now filled with barely functional extensions that charge monthly subscriptions just to resell GPT API at a premium. Thank you again for building such a fabulous tool. I was testing out Arc browser recently, and it took me about five minutes of browsing to realize Wavenet wasn’t installed. 😁 It’s become a must-have on all my machines, right up there with my password manager! I wish I knew how to contribute more on GitHub.

Pi*****, 2025-02-01

Love it

Da*****, 2024-10-23

View all user reviews ›

Extension safety

Risk impact

Risk impact measures the level of extra permissions an extension has access to. A low risk impact extension cannot do much harms, whereas a high risk impact extension can do a lot of damage like stealing your password, bypassing your security settings, and accessing your personal data. High risk impact extensions are not necessarily malicious. However, if they do turn malicious, they can be very harmful.

Wavenet for Chrome requires a few sensitive permissions. Exercise caution before installing.

Risk impact analysis details

Critical Allows access to all websites, posing a significant security risk as it can monitor and modify data from any visited site.
High ******* ******* **** *** ****** ***** *** ***** ** ******* **** ********* ********* ** * *********** *****
Medium ****** ********** ** ******** ********** *** ********* ******* ******** ****** ******** ****** ********

Risk likelihood

Risk likelihood measures the probability that a Chrome extension may turn malicious. This is determined by the publisher and the Chrome extension reputation on Chrome Web Store, the amount of time the Chrome extension has been around, and other signals about the Chrome extension. Our algorithms are not perfect, and are subject to change as we discover new ways to detect malicious extensions. We recommend that you always exercise caution when installing a Chrome extension.

Wavenet for Chrome has earned a good reputation and can be trusted.

Risk likelihood analysis details

High This extension has low user count. Unpopular extensions may not be stable or safe.
Low **** ********* *** ******* **** **** * ****** **** ***** ******** *** **** ****** ** ** ****** *** *****
Low **** ********* *** ***** **** **** * ****** **** ***** ********** *** **** ****** ** ** ****** *** *****
Good **** ********* ** ****** ** ********
Good **** ********* *** **** **** *******