For articles that I find unpleasant to read (for reasons other than the content itself), I either use Readability through the GleeBox extension, where I can jus

For articles that I find unpleasant to read (for reasons other than the content itself), I either use Readability through the GleeBox extension, where I can just pull up the 'console' and use the '!read' command, or I use Instapaper. I can strongly recommend the latter, as it also provides basic bookmarking, organising, highlighting and 'social' features. But for the basics a Readability bookmarklet (or something similar) should be enough. It's still annoying though (although strangely animated gifs don't bother me)!