This post explains how to create an extension or add-on for Chrome or Chromium.
Overview of Chrome Extension Creation
Main steps to create a Chrome Extension:
- Developing a Chrome Extension
- Publishing the Chrome Extension
- Porting the Chrome Extension to Firefox Add-on (optional)
Developing a Chrome Extension
This section explains how to develop a Chrome extension.
Components of a Chrome extension
In the context of a Chrome extension, a pop-up is the panel that is displayed when the extension icon is pressed. It is defined as an HTML document.
A content script is an script that can modify the content of a site.
A mandatory file in a Chrome extension is manifest.json. It contains the metadata about the extension, including the extension name, description, content scripts, link to pop-up HTML document and link to icon image.
Chrome Extension Development Tutorial
You can follow the instructions from the official Chrome starting guide on this external link.
IDEs and Code Editors for Chrome Extension Development
Visual Studio Code is a code editor. You can use npm package chrome-types to take advantage of auto-completion for the Chrome API.
Publishing a Chrome Extension
Chrome extensions are usually obtained from the Chrome Web Store.
You can check the extensions available at the Chrome Web Store on this external link.
To publish a Chrome Extension in the Chrome Web Store you need to register. You can find instructions about how to register on the
The total cost of publishing all the Chrome Extensions that you want, as of 2023, is 5.00 USD.
You need a Chrome Web Store developer account to upload it, and its registration is 5.00 USD.
Porting Chrome Extensions to Firefox add-ons
The equivalent of Chrome extensions in Firefox are called add-ons.
You can read an article about how to port them on this external link.