Chrome Extension Development

There are almost 5 billion internet users in the world. That’s a striking two-thirds of our global population! People browse the internet for different reasons and if you come up with unique solutions that can increase the internet user’s productivity, reduce distractions, and just make their overall browsing experience better then wouldn’t that be awesome? Chrome extensions can do that and more!

Developing a chrome extension is a great idea (especially if you follow the 5 hot tips for efficient chrome extension development) because these small add-ons can help users customize the google chrome browser and enhance their user experience by expanding the browser’s capabilities and adding additional functionalities. Businesses that use special chrome extensions make their work more efficient by streamlining their tasks and increasing overall productivity.

So let’s go ahead and check out what are chrome extensions and find out the right way to go about your chrome extension development journey:

Avail a complimentary Chrome Extension consultation!

What Is Chrome Extension?

Ideally, chrome extensions are mini-programs installed on the chrome browser to serve one primary purpose. The main purpose of chrome extension development commonly revolves around the objective to improve or enhance the users’ web experience, broadly in three ways:

1. By pulling up productivity
2. By helping to aggregate information
3. By making a flat web experience fun

Benefits Of Using Chrome Extensions

Enabling increased functionality, freedom, and innovative solutions, chrome extensions can help users enhance their internet browsing experience in different ways. You can also customize your chrome browser adding new features based on your unique personal preferences and requirements. This is why there are more than 137,345 extensions available for Chrome.

Here are the top benefits that the most efficient chrome extensions commonly impart:

Increase Productivity And Efficiency

You can customize your chrome browser according to your requirements and incorporate useful features and functionalities that can improve your workflow and productivity. Various extensions can help businesses save time and boost productivity by automating tasks, monitoring employees, and controlling overall business processes.

Provide Multi-Device Support

During the current times when working remotely is gaining popularity, people are gaining more freedom to get their work done from different locations! This means people are not confined to working from a single device like a company desktop and they can choose to work from different devices like their laptops and tablets. A chrome extension provides its user the flexibility to sync their extensions to any device they log on to. This is extremely convenient for the users and the businesses as well.

Privacy And Security

We are living in a digital era where sneaky websites are constantly trying to steal the user’s data and monitor their activities, not to mention the threats from hackers, malicious viruses, and spyware! The solution? Custom online security and VPN extensions that can protect your data and give you the privacy and peace of mind that you deserve. An increasing number of businesses are becoming aware of these benefits and getting bespoke extensions developed for their in-house operations.

Efficient Project Management

Collaboration, communication, and on-time delivery are the three pillars of efficient project management. Chrome extensions can help in monitoring tasks, tracking progress, and sharing resources with team members easily. Bespoke features like setting due dates, reminders, customizing tasks, and group chats can really help in managing projects successfully from the start to finish.

Support Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing is becoming an extremely competitive field where it's crucial to stand out from the competition but in order to do that marketers need access to multiple tools and websites to effectively analyze data and performance. Switching between multiple websites can be extremely time-consuming and confusing for anybody. Hence, special extensions that can provide key metrics of any domain in one place can be the holy grail for any digital marketer.

Smart Online Shopping

Who doesn’t like shopping online? Who doesn’t love to save some time and money while at it? As a result, simple browser extensions that can address these ever-growing needs of modern consumers have the potential of gaining huge popularity. Popular features supported by these extensions can include - notifying the user when there’s a price drop on their favorite product or when their wishlisted product is back in stock and comparing prices of a product from several platforms.

Earn profits

Browser extensions can be a great source of income if it addresses the right pain points of consumers and has robust functionality. There are several ways to make money from chrome extensions like charging a subscription fee, adding advertisements, or affiliate marketing. The best part is, the ways to monetize chrome extensions are many, too!

How To Develop Chrome Extension - The Step-By-Step Guide

Google chrome is the most popular and reliable internet browser in the world making chrome the primary browser of more than 3.2 billion internet users! And that’s exactly the hotspot the businesses are making the most of, via custom chrome extension development. However, you have to be careful while planning the project and the following guide will help you make your development process much more efficient:

Decide The Main purpose & Functionality Of The Extension

Figure out what will be the extension’s main purpose and what features would support it. Follow best practices to ensure user satisfaction without compromising on their safety and privacy.

Find A Competent Development Team

Work with an experienced team of chrome extension developers who possess expertise in developing custom extensions. Using the right technology and high-quality codes will give your extension an edge over the others.

Design The User Interface

Collaborate with the development team to design a functional user interface. The UI of your chrome plugin should be simple and easy to use without any unnecessary clutter.

Development

After communicating requirements to the chrome extension developers and establishing the scope of the project let the experts handle all the technicalities of developing your chrome extension.

Test Out Your Extension

Test the extension carefully after the development team is done from their side to provide any important feedback and fix the bugs that might come up.

Launch & Support

Once everything looks good and your extension functions properly it’s time to launch your extension! And always remember to address the user feedback, whether you’re publishing it on the chrome web store or using it for your business.

Let’s Plan Your Custom Chrome Extension!

Challenges In Chrome Extension Development & How To Overcome Them

Developing a chrome extension can be extremely rewarding but you might face some challenges in the process, so here’s a list of probable red flags you can face on the way and some useful tips on how to overcome them and keep your chrome extension development process running smoothly.

Chrome Extension Development Pain Points and Solutions:

Development Can Be Tricky

Development Can Be Tricky

It’s a no-brainer that chrome extensions development can be extremely challenging if you don’t have any prior knowledge in developing custom extensions. Working with an experienced team of chrome web developers who have worked on similar projects in the past can solve this problem. But you should conduct a thorough background check on your vendors - look into their past track records, client feedback, employee background, and understand their workflow before hiring them.

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Not Widely Supported

Not Widely Supported

Browser extensions are usually not supported on mobile devices hence most of the users may only come from desktops and laptops. So it would be a good idea to develop a separate mobile application to satisfy the requirements of your mobile users.

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Code Easily Decrypted

Code Easily Decrypted

Simple browser extensions can be easily decrypted and used by your competitors. Hence, it's important to use technologies like API to secure your proprietary information from outsiders.

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Reliance On The Web-Store

Reliance On The Web-Store

If a person has published their extensions on the chrome web store for monetizing it then they are at the web store’s mercy as they can remove or suspend the listing from their store anytime. To prevent such scenarios respect the chrome web store’s guidelines and never allow any malicious bugs in your plugin.

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Huge Competition

Huge Competition

Again, if a business wants to monetize their chrome extension then they will be facing huge competition from similar extensions on the web-store. Only 1.79% of extensions have more than 100,000 users. To beat the competition offer robust functionalities and unique solutions to address your user’s pain points.

It’s a no-brainer that chrome extensions development can be extremely challenging if you don’t have any prior knowledge in developing custom extensions. Working with an experienced team of chrome web developers who have worked on similar projects in the past can solve this problem. But you should conduct a thorough background check on your vendors - look into their past track records, client feedback, employee background, and understand their workflow before hiring them.

Browser extensions are usually not supported on mobile devices hence most of the users may only come from desktops and laptops. So it would be a good idea to develop a separate mobile application to satisfy the requirements of your mobile users.

Simple browser extensions can be easily decrypted and used by your competitors. Hence, it's important to use technologies like API to secure your proprietary information from outsiders.

If a person has published their extensions on the chrome web store for monetizing it then they are at the web store’s mercy as they can remove or suspend the listing from their store anytime. To prevent such scenarios respect the chrome web store’s guidelines and never allow any malicious bugs in your plugin.

Again, if a business wants to monetize their chrome extension then they will be facing huge competition from similar extensions on the web-store. Only 1.79% of extensions have more than 100,000 users. To beat the competition offer robust functionalities and unique solutions to address your user’s pain points.

Chrome Extension Development Services We Offer

BinaryFolks offers the best in class custom chrome extension development services. What sets us apart is our proven experience of working with the latest technologies to offer completely customizable state-of-the-art chrome extensions. Our company has an immaculate track record of working on a range of scaleable browser extension projects. We specialize in implementing JavaScript APIs for secure third-party API integrations for your extension. Our skilled team of chrome web developers are dedicated to providing robust and full-featured browser extensions for every purpose and will never compromise on the code quality and performance of a project. Here are some prominent chrome extension development services we offer:

Extensions For Productivity

Screenshot Extension
Gmail Extension
Project Management Extension
Time Management Extension

Security & Privacy Extensions

Online Security Extension
Adblocker Extension
VPN Chrome Extension
Password Chrome Extension

Ecommerce Extensions

Shopify Extension
eBay Chrome Extension
Amazon Extension
Etsy Extension

Social Media Extensions

Few Selected Chrome Extensions We Developed Recently

Our diversified experience from working with several cutting-edge startups and fortune 50 companies from around the world makes us a reliable choice for your next chrome extension development project. We collaborate with companies from various industries to produce some of the finest extensions for our clients. Check out a few of the latest chrome extensions we have developed recently:

Web Scraping Extensions

Enterprise Productivity Extension

Security & Privacy Extensions

Adblock Extensions

Ecommerce Extensions

Social Media Extensions

Password Management Extension

Chrome Extension Maintenance & Support

What extension are you looking to develop?

FAQs

Yes, chrome extensions can be monetized since there’s a huge demand for custom extensions in the market so there are a variety of ways a chrome extension can generate revenue like:

1. Charging the customers for the extension.
2. Including in-app payments with the extension.
3. Search advertisements and affiliate marketing.
4. And you can also choose to sell the extension.
5. Read more about monetizing your extension here!

You should use custom chrome extensions for your business because many ready-made chrome extensions available in the market are malicious in nature. They collect your personal data and make unwanted changes to your browser, which can end up causing more harm than good to your business. Hence, even though chrome extensions are great tools that can improve your productivity and streamline your workflow but you should be careful and only use chrome extensions that are built by trusted developers who are transparent, ethical, and follow all the regulations and policies for your security.
Check out why Chrome Extension Development can be the best investment for your business here!

Several chrome extensions in the market can affect your browser’s performance because they increase the memory consumption of your browser and negatively affect the browsing speed. If you have installed a lot of extensions in your browser then the impact on your performance will be more noticeable. To overcome this issue you should use well-built and credible chrome extensions that can address your major pain points and requirements without significantly affecting your browser performance.

The cost of developing a chrome extension can vary significantly because it depends on different factors like - the main purpose of the extension, the features, the complexity of the project, the user interface, and maintenance requirements. Discuss your requirements with a good chrome extension development company to get a clear idea of the cost of building your chrome extension. Contact us now to get a free consultation and get answers to all your questions!

From adding new functionalities to removing unwanted features there are so many situations where chrome extensions can come in handy. As a business or a start-up, you should invest in custom chrome extensions because you can gain a lot of advantages like streamlining your workflow, having greater control over your team, and even providing additional benefits to your customers. Having custom chrome extensions can solve specific problems for your business, give you an edge over the competition, protect your organization’s privacy, and give you complete control over all the features and functionalities you want to implement. Also, check out Why Chrome Extension Development can be the best investment for your SaaS product here!

Chrome Extension Development Company

What Is Chrome Extension?