Need A QR Reader?
QR apps let you quickly read more information while at the store, the kitchen table, or even at the cemetery. You may already have a QR app installed on your phone but if you can’t find it or have one that doesn’t work quickly or at a distance, read the following.
First, a couple quick tips. If when using your QR reader, it requires you tap “open in browser” before going to a web page, you can go into your QR reader settings and change it so it opens a web page directly. In most QR reader settings, you can also tell it to close the QR reader program after scanning a QR code, so you don’t have to close the app later.
QR Code Reader by Scan
It is free and works with Android, iPhone, and Kindle. Go to your normal app store and search for “QR Code Reader Scan” and it should show QR Code Reader by Scan as one of the options on the screen to install.
Its biggest strengths are this app reads further away and was fast at reading the code. The flashlight feature is great. It can read barcodes. It is a small app file size compared to many. It requires a minimal amount of access to your phones features. It is used by millions and has a 4.4 star rating.
It currently has over 50 million downloads on the Play store with over a half million reviews giving it 4.4 stars. We did not see any ads, but some apps will eventually monetize by occasionally using ads.
Not all QR readers can do barcodes. QR Code Reader by Scan can also scan barcodes such as EAN, UPC, and ISBN, but a newer or better camera resolution is probably best for using with barcodes. It does not handle online shopping via barcodes, which is probably a good thing for security reasons.
You just open this tool and point. However, it has some options. It allows you to turn on your flashlight (if you have one on your phone) if there is low lighting. Just press the Lightening symbol at the top of the screen. Many QR readers do not have this valuable light feature. You can tap the 3 dots on the top-right and tap Settings to uncheck “Ask before opening”. This saves watching for a required tap to see a webpage.
It is only just over 2 mb, which is smaller than most. When installing, it asks for access to location, photo files, camera, and wifi connection. All QR readers need access to photo file access, camera, and wifi, so they can work. It’s a good idea to avoid apps that want access to your other phone features such as microphone and contacts unless there is a good reason!
We found it worked good on an older phone. It did not require to hold the phone very still and worked at about a foot away from our test QR code. It worked with less light compared to several others. A newer phone with a better camera scanned about 3x further away with our test QR code and grabbed the QR code quicker.