How to Use Sider AI to Summarize and Chat With Any Web Page
Sider is a browser extension that puts an AI sidebar next to whatever you’re reading. It summarizes pages, chats with PDFs, rewrites text, and translates — all without switching tabs to a chatbot.
What Does Sider Do, Exactly?
It reads the current page and answers questions about its content. Highlight a paragraph and ask for a simpler version; upload a PDF and ask for risks. Everything happens in a side panel so you keep your reading position.
How to Install and Set Up Sider
- Install the extension from the Chrome or Edge store.
- Sign in with Google or email.
- Pick a model: Sider routes to several, including GPT and Claude variants depending on your plan.
- Pin the extension so the sidebar opens with one click (Alt+S on most setups).
- Open any article and click Sider to auto-summarize.
How Do You Summarize a Long Article or PDF?
For web pages, the built-in Summarize button produces a bulleted TL;DR in a few seconds. For PDFs, open the file in the browser or upload it to the sidebar and ask questions directly. It handles research papers and contracts well, but tables and scanned image-only PDFs degrade — OCR accuracy is the bottleneck there, not the model.
How Much Does Sider Cost?
The free plan gives a daily cap on AI credits, enough for light summarizing and a few chats. The paid tiers raise the cap and unlock higher-end models plus unlimited PDF chat. If you only summarize a few pages a week, the free plan may be all you need.
| Plan | Credits | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Daily-limited | Casual reading and summaries |
| Paid | Higher/unlimited | Heavy research, premium models |
Where Does Sider Fall Short?
Credit metering is the main complaint — power users hit the daily limit mid-task. Summaries of opinion pieces can flatten the nuance into bland statements. And it works best in Chromium browsers; Firefox support is thinner. If you live in Safari, look at native options first.
Is Sider Worth Installing?
Yes if you read a lot of long articles, PDFs, or non-native-language content and want help inline. It is not a coding tool or an agent that runs tasks. Treat it as a reading and writing companion, and it earns its keep.
Quick Summary
- Sider is a browser extension that adds an AI sidebar to any page or PDF.
- Install from Chrome/Edge, sign in, and summarize with one click.
- Free plan has a daily credit cap; paid tiers add premium models.
- Best on text-heavy pages; weak on scanned PDFs and tables.
- Not a coding agent — it’s a reading and writing assistant.
