Hands vs ODYSY
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Hands
Surf the web without touching your screen using hand gestures. Ideal for cooking, repairs, or workouts, it allows vertical scrolling and page navigation. Offers an optional add-on for hands-free favorite page management.
- Hands-free vertical scrolling
- Gesture-based page navigation
- Optional 'Hands-free Favorites' add-on
- Customizable 'drop hand' gesture (iPhone only)
- Integrated help and feedback
- Bookmark favorite sites
- Time spent waiting meter
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Getting your hands dirty? With this app you can surf the web without touching the screen. It's fantastic for reading recipes while you cook, following repair instructions with greasy hands, working out, putting on makeup, or catching up on news while you are doing household chores whilst wearing gloves. This app has also proven useful to people with arthritis, or when fine movement is difficult or painful. You use similar gestures to those you would use on a touch screen, so it feels natural right away. IMPORTANT: watch the video here to see how the gestures work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWI7b9NzQPc Please take 10 seconds to check how to actually use the app before giving it 1 star review! Simply browse the web normally to the page you want, then put down or dock your device. You can now use upwards or downwards hand gestures in front of your phone to scroll the page vertically, or "swipe" sideways to move between your favorite pages. Features • Hands-free Browser has been in the top utility 10 apps in many countries worldwide. • Slick, fully functional web browser with vertical scrolling gesture support • Optional "Hands-free Favorites" add-on lets you navigate through all your favorite pages by swiping, 100% hands-free! • Bonus "Hands-free Favorites" feature: a "drop hand" gesture which you can assign to any browsing action you like! (iPhone only) • Get similar gesture features on your iPhone/iPad to those found on some other latest brands of phones, right now! • Integrated help and feedback tips to show you how the gestures work right away. • Bookmark your favorite sites quickly and easily. • Turn off the on-screen help, for advanced users. • "Time spent waiting for load" meter. See how much of your life you are wasting while waiting for webpages to load! • Prompt support from the developer, accessible from within the app. If you want a feature added or have some problems, the developer is happy to help. This app uses the front-facing camera and computer vision algorithms to detect hand motion over the device camera. It works reliably under normal lighting conditions, from distances of 20cm up to 1 metre.
ODYSY
This browser is designed for focused, long-form reading by minimizing distractions. It offers features like hyperlink previews, reading progress saving, and highlighting to enhance comprehension and maintain immersion.
- Hyperlink preview for continuous exploration
- Saves reading progress and position
- Highlighting of important phrases
- Distraction-free reading environment
- Optimized for long-form articles
- Share articles easily
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ODYSY is a mobile web browser optimized for deep reading through hypertexts. * The main feature of ODYSY is hyperlink preview. After finishing an article, tap the ‘NeXT’ button to explore other articles among hyperlink previews — without leaving your flow. * ODYSY remembers where you paused reading and brings you back to the exact page and spot — just like a bookmark, making it ideal for reading long articles over time. * To share an article, simply swipe left on it in the History list. * You can also highlight impressive phrases of a document. (The most recent highlight on each page will also appear in the history list.) * It’s strongly recommended for reading articles saved in your Safari Reading List or discovered on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media. ODYSY create a space of focus, calm, and intellectual leisure as you read slowly, not hurriedly. It is also suitable for students and lifelong learners who want to explore academic articles, humanities, or even career paths. There are tons of great online media that provide insightful articles. Wikipedia tunneling is also a powerful way to explore the web, discover the world, and feed your intellectual curiosity. Examples of outstanding media: Aeon, Atlantic, Axios, Big Think, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Guardian, Medium, NPR, New York Times, New Yorker, Noema Magazine, ProPublica, Quartz, Rest of World, Reuters, Space.com, TechCrunch, Time, Verge, Vox, The Washington Post, WIRED, and more. However, mainstream browsers like Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera, and Safari often provide a distracting experience — not suitable for focused, long-form reading. This is partly due to the inherently scattered nature of hypertext. While hyperlinks offer the advantage of infinite knowledge connectivity, they also make it hard to stay immersed in a single article or topic. That’s why ODYSY is designed to provide a calm, distraction-free reading experience. Unlike traditional browsers, ODYSY is built to support and protect deep reading habits in the digital age. It provides an optimized experience for deep reading of web documents and learning deeply about any topic. It helps you read slowly and deeply within the hypertext environment — enhancing your literacy and preserving your intellectual curiosity. Intellectual curiosity is a core human trait — a driver of creativity, learning, and progress. Reading habits deeply influence how that curiosity grows. Writers and scholars like Maryanne Wolf, David Levy, Ian Leslie, and Nicholas Carr have raised concerns about how digital distractions impair our attention and literacy. They advocate for deeper reading habits in the age of the internet. The web is a sea of knowledge — a vast, endless book, and the most exciting magazine on Earth. Make the best use of it with ODYSY. We support your intellectual journey. Enjoy your deep reading odyssey with ODYSY!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: ODYSY at 4.5 against Hands's 3.6. ODYSY also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 1) and ads (none vs shown). Hands's advantage is ratings volume (14 vs 2) and iOS requirement (12.0 vs 17.2). On price, update cadence and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Hands sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. ODYSY asks for nothing beyond the download.
ODYSY holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 3.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Hands has 14 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 58% of Hands's written reviews are positive against 86% of ODYSY's.
Hands ships an update monthly, ODYSY every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 13, 2026 and October 12, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Hands | ODYSY |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.6 (14 ratings) | 4.5 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 57.9% of reviews | 85.7% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 14 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Monthly | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 17.2 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 6 MB | 1 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 17+ |
| Developer | James Hudson | XPinn Inc. |
Customer experience
Hands
ODYSY
In-app purchases
Hands
- Hands-free Favorites$1.99
ODYSY
No in-app purchases









