Zhongwen: The Popular Chinese Learning Tool

Name: Zhongwen: The Popular Chinese Learning Tool
Rating: 4.7209 (43 reviews)
Author: Christian Schiller

Official Firefox port of the Zhongwen Chrome extension (http://github.com/cschiller/zhongwen). Translate Chinese characters by hovering over them with the mouse. Includes internal word list, links to Chinese Grammar Wiki, tone colors, and more.

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Features & Capabilities

Zhongwen is a powerful Firefox extension designed to enhance your Chinese language learning experience. By hovering over Chinese characters on any webpage, you instantly get translations from a comprehensive dictionary, including both simplified and traditional characters. It displays Hanyu Pinyin with colorful tone indicators to help reinforce pronunciation and tone recognition.

The extension features an internal word list to save vocabulary for later study, supports exporting to Anki and Skritter, and provides direct links to the Chinese Grammar Wiki for deeper understanding. Keyboard navigation enables quick lookup of individual characters or words without using the mouse. Additional functionalities include quick access to multiple online dictionaries and customizable settings to tailor your learning preferences. Zhongwen is an all-in-one tool for learners seeking seamless, interactive Chinese reading and study.

User Growth & Download Statistics

Add-on Education Developer Tools

By:

Daily users:

Rating:

Version:

5.16.0 Last updated: 2025-04-27

Version code:

5937909

Creation date:

2019-03-02

Risk:

Permissions:

Content scripts matches:

<all_urls>

Size:

5.19MB

URLs:

Website

Full description:

Source:

Firefox Add-ons Store

Data ingested on:

2026-06-18

Compare stats and ranking:

Ranking

# 948 ▼ 4

Other rankings

#34 in Language Support

#11 in learn keyword 27

#21 in tool keyword 56

#25 in earn keyword 35 ▲ 1

#34 in grammar keyword 70

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For Developers

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Contact the developer

Chrome-Stats does not own this Firefox add-on. Please use these information below to contact the Firefox add-on developer.

Developed by:

Christian Schiller

Firefox Add-ons Store

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/zhongwen/

Website:

https://github.com/cschiller/zhongwen/issues

User Reviews

Users overwhelmingly praise Zhongwen as an essential, time-saving Chinese learning tool with instant hover lookups and strong long-term reliability. The main consistent problems reported are a missing toolbar icon and cases where the extension fails to activate after install or updates, making it unusable for some people.

Pros

Highly useful and regarded as essential for Chinese learners (often compared to Pleco).
Instant character lookup/hover translations that make reading Chinese much easier.
Time-saving and effective — helps users tackle more advanced materials.
Reliable and long-term favorite; many users reinstall it on new devices.

Cons

Missing toolbar icon/no add-on logo — users cannot find or enable it in the toolbar.
Extension sometimes fails to activate or work after installation or updates, rendering it unusable.

Recent reviews

Amazing app, my best resource as a learner! Lets me explore more advanced materials I wouldn't dare go near without it. The notes, grammar usage etc work so well.

by Ca*****, 2025-09-23

after trying probably every single available chinese character reading tool I stick with this one. so 5/5

by El*****, 2025-09-15

by Fi*****, 2025-07-31

View all user reviews ›

Is Zhongwen: The Popular Chinese Learning Tool Safe?

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.

Zhongwen: The Popular Chinese Learning Tool requires some sensitive permissions that could impact your browser and data security. Exercise caution before installing.

Risk impact analysis details

Critical Grants access to browser tabs, which can be used to track user browsing habits and history, presenting a privacy concern.
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Risk likelihood

Risk likelihood measures the probability that a Firefox add-on may turn malicious. This is determined by the publisher and the Firefox add-on reputation on Firefox Add-ons Store, the amount of time the Firefox add-on has been around, and other signals about the Firefox add-on. 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 Firefox add-on.

Zhongwen: The Popular Chinese Learning Tool has earned a fairly good reputation and likely can be trusted.

Risk likelihood analysis details

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