- Published on
Improving websites with a personal browser extension
- Authors
- Name
- Peter Hartree
- @peterhartree
Perhaps my favourite vibe-coding project: a personal browser extension that tailors websites to my needs.
Over the past year or so, I've accumulated features like the following:
1. Summarise articles
I press ALT + S to get a summary of the current web page, right in my web browser.
It uses progressive summarisation, with prompts tailored to my taste.
The tl;dr is generated by a very fast model, so it comes back within a second. The more detailed summaries use slower models, but still load within 5 seconds.
2. Speed dial for my web apps
I press CMD + Shift + ., then 1 for o3, 4 for Gemini, or c to make a calendar event. Etc.
3. Google Meet: sound check
Plays a 2 second test sound when I open a Google Meet link. This stops me joining calls with the audio output muted, then going to another tab while I wait for attendees, then not hearing when they join.
4. Google Meet: find the right account
I have several Google accounts. Often, only one can join a given call. For some reason, Google Meet doesn't automatically switch to the account that has access. Now it does.
Want to use this? It's here.
5. Google Docs: show tab outlines
Normally, if you want to see the tab outline, you need to click to view the tab, then wait half a second, then click again to show the outline.
Now I just click the tab once.
6. AirBnB & Booking.com: show me the pictures, and the prices!
Shows price information above the fold, and adds a keyboard shortcut to view pictures.
7. Xero and Crunch: don't make me click
Accounting software makes me do so much repetitive clicking, especially during bank reconciliation. Now, much less.
8. Clean URLs
Common decency says you should always remove utm tracking parameters from links before sharing them. My extension does this automatically.
9. Keyboard shortcuts for ChatGPT
Somehow, ChatGPT still doesn't have good keyboard shortcuts. Well, now it does. My favourite: CTRL+G to add Google Docs to conversations.
10. Be less distracted by your email
I made this one back in 2015. Inbox When Ready hides your Gmail inbox by default, so you can write new messages and search your archive without getting distracted.
Would you like to use these?
I've made some of these public:
Would you like some of the others? Email me, and I can share you a private copy.
Want to make your own?
Warning: browser extensions are sometimes tricky to vibe-code. The issue is that you're hacking on top of the code of third-party websites that you can't control. If you get unlucky, this could be a frustrating project.
If you're just starting out, be sure to "go meta" and ask the LLM to teach you the best workflow for extension development. And feel free to email me if you get stuck.
If you're a developer planning a more ambitious project, maybe start with a boilerplate.