Quick start
Written for people who have never installed a browser extension. About ten minutes, most of it waiting.
What this does
A popular restaurant can have five thousand reviews. Nobody reads five thousand reviews. Review Atlas reads them for you and gives you one short page: what people love, what they complain about, the subjects that keep coming up, and the staff members customers mention by name.
It only ever runs when you click a button, and only on the place you are looking at. You choose which AI does the reading — one on the internet, or one running on your own computer.
Step 1 — Install it
Not published yet. The extension is waiting for Chrome Web Store review, so the button above is not live. Once it is, installing takes one click: press it, then press Add extension in the box Chrome shows you.
In the meantime it can be installed from the source code, which does need someone comfortable with a command line — the steps are in the README.
After installing, click the puzzle-piece icon at the top right of Chrome and pin Review Atlas, so its icon sits in the toolbar where you can reach it.
Step 2 — Choose who does the reading
The extension does not include an AI of its own — it uses one you choose. On many newer computers Chrome already has one built in, and there is nothing to do. Otherwise there are two ways, and neither is wrong — it is a trade between effort and privacy.
First, the easy case — the AI built into Chrome
Recent versions of Chrome come with a small AI model of their own that runs on your computer. If yours can run it, Review Atlas uses it from the start: nothing to install, nothing to sign up for, and the reviews never leave your computer. You can skip straight to Step 3.
- It needs a fairly new computer: Windows 10 or 11, macOS 13 or later, or Linux, about 22 GB of free disk space, and either a graphics card with more than 4 GB of memory or 16 GB of RAM.
- The first time, Chrome downloads the model — a few gigabytes, once. The loading screen shows how far along it is, and the reviews are collected meanwhile.
- It writes summaries in English, Japanese, Spanish, French and German. If you picked another language in settings, the summary comes out in English and says so.
- It reads fewer reviews per place than the options below, and on a computer without a graphics card one summary can take a few minutes.
To check, open ⚙ settings, choose Built-in under AI Provider and press Check availability. If it says the model is not available, pick one of the two options below.
An AI on the internet
Quickest to set up and works on any laptop. You sign up with a provider, copy a long password-like string called an API key, and paste it into the extension. The review text is sent to that provider to be summarized.
An AI on your computer
Free, and the reviews never leave your machine. You install one extra program and download an AI model, which is a file of a few gigabytes. Slower on older computers.
| If this sounds like you… | Pick |
|---|---|
| I want nothing to set up at all | The AI built into Chrome, if my computer can run it |
| I want it working in five minutes | An AI on the internet |
| My laptop is a few years old, or short on disk space | An AI on the internet |
| I would rather nothing left my computer | An AI on my computer |
| I do not want to sign up for anything | An AI on my computer |
| I am summarizing a lot of places and want it free | An AI on my computer |
Option A — an AI on the internet
Google Gemini and Groq both have a free allowance at the time of writing, which is usually plenty for this; OpenAI, Claude and Grok charge per use. The steps are the same whichever you choose.
- Create an API key with the provider you picked — for example Google AI Studio for Gemini, or the Groq console. You sign in, ask for a new key, and it shows you a long string of characters. Copy it.
- Click the Review Atlas icon in Chrome, then the ⚙ button at the top right of the popup.
- Under AI Provider, click the provider you chose.
- Paste the key into the key box.
- Press Test connection. It should say it connected, and the model list fills in by itself. Leave the model as it is unless you have a reason to change it.
- Press Save.
Treat the key like a password: anyone who has it can spend your allowance. The extension stores it encrypted, shows it only as a ✓ Saved badge afterwards, and never puts it on the page you are browsing. The ✕ button removes it.
Option B — an AI on your computer
- Install Ollama — a normal app for Mac, Windows or Linux. Once installed it runs quietly in the background; there is nothing to start each time.
- Add a model to it. A good first one is
llama3.2, which is a couple of gigabytes. You can pick it in the Ollama app, or, if a terminal does not scare you, runollama pull llama3.2. - In Review Atlas, open ⚙ settings and choose Ollama under AI Provider.
- Press Test connection. The model box then lists what you actually have installed — choose your model there.
- Press Save.
Already run LM Studio, Jan, llama.cpp or something similar? Choose Local server instead and pick your program from the preset list — the address is filled in for you. Details are in the Setup & FAQ.
Step 3 — Summarize a place
- Open Google Maps and search for a business — a restaurant, hotel, clinic, anything with reviews.
- Click the place so its panel opens on the left.
- Click the Review Atlas icon. It shows the place name, rating, address and phone straight away.
- Press Analyze Reviews.
- Wait. The extension checks your AI is responding, then scrolls the reviews panel to collect reviews — you will see the page moving on its own, which is normal — and then asks the AI to summarize them. A minute is typical for a busy place.
Leave the popup open while it works. Clicking elsewhere closes it and stops the run; just press Analyze Reviews again.
Reading the result
| On screen | What it means |
|---|---|
| ✓ What people love | Praise that came up repeatedly — not one person's opinion. |
| ✗ Common complaints | The same, for problems. |
| ◆ Top themes | Subjects the reviews keep returning to, such as waiting times or parking. |
| ★ Frequently mentioned staff | People customers named. Absent when nobody was named. |
| The badge near the top | The overall mood of the reviews: positive, mixed, or negative. |
| "113 of 5,967 reviews analyzed" | 5,967 is what Google reports for the place; 113 is how many were actually read this time. More is not always better — see Analysis depth below. |
| ↺ Re-analyze | Summarize the same reviews again, for instance after switching AI provider. Does not re-read the page. |
| ⟳ Fresh | Read the page again from scratch. Use it if the place has new reviews. |
| ⏱ in the header | Your recent summaries. They are kept for a day, on your computer only. |
Three settings worth knowing
| Setting | What to do with it |
|---|---|
| Review scope | All gives the fullest picture. Recent, or 1 / 3 / 6 Months and 1 Year, answer a different question: is this place still good? Handy when a restaurant has changed hands. |
| Analysis depth | How many of the collected reviews are handed to the AI. Quick is fastest, Thorough reads the most. On a computer-run AI, Thorough can be slow — start with Balanced. |
| Output language | The language the summary is written in. It does not matter what language the reviews are in. |
If something goes wrong
"Ollama is not ready" or "Gemini is not ready"
Your AI answered nothing, or refused. The extension checks this before reading the page, so no time was wasted. The message says what it found — a key that looks wrong, or a program that is not running. Press Settings, fix it, and try again. The Analyze anyway button is there for the rare setup that works even though the check fails; if you are not sure, fix the setting instead.
"Built-in model is not ready" or "No AI provider is set up yet"
This computer cannot run the AI built into Chrome — usually too little free disk space or memory, or an older Chrome. Nothing was read from the page. Open ⚙ settings and choose one of the other two options from Step 2.
"Open a business on Google Maps"
The tab you are on is not a place page. Search for a business on Google Maps, click the result so its panel opens, then click the icon again.
It says there are no reviews
Either the place genuinely has none, or the page had not finished loading. Give it a moment, scroll the page once by hand, and try again.
It is taking ages
Two things take time: collecting reviews, and the AI writing the summary. A place with thousands of reviews takes longer to collect; a model on your own computer takes longer to write. Lower Analysis depth, or reduce the number of reviews in settings.
The summary is in the wrong language
Set Output language in settings, then press ↺ Re-analyze.
Telling us about a problem
The version number sits in the popup header, next to the name. Including it, plus the provider and model you use, makes a report far easier to act on. Write to minglau0315@gmail.com or open an issue on GitHub.
Words you will see
| Word | In plain terms |
|---|---|
| Model | The AI itself. Bigger models write better summaries and run slower. |
| API key | A long password that lets the extension use your account with an AI provider. |
| Local / local server | Running on your own computer, rather than on someone else's. |
| Endpoint | The address of an AI program, usually something like http://localhost:11434. localhost means "this computer". |
| Context window | How much text a model can consider at once. Too small, and long batches of reviews get cut short. |
Is any of this private?
There is no Review Atlas server, and nothing is tracked. If you use the AI built into Chrome, or chose one on your own computer, the reviews never leave it. If you chose one on the internet, the review text goes to that provider and nowhere else. The full details are on the privacy page.
Want the technical version — other local runtimes, sampling settings, tuning? That is the Setup & FAQ.