Auto-Downloder Chrome Extension

September 18th, 2021
comments, tech
Let's say you want Chrome to automatically download pieces of pages, such as Facebook comments. How could you do it? I recently wanted to do this and couldn't find docs, so here's what I did.

  1. Make a folder somewhere for a browser extension.

  2. In that folder, make manifest.json with contents like:

    {
      "name": "Downloader",
      "description": "Downloads stuff",
      "version": "1.0",
      "manifest_version": 3,
      "permissions": [
        "activeTab",
        "downloads"
      ],
      "background": {
        "service_worker": "background.js"
      },
      "content_scripts": [{
        "matches": [
          "https://example.com/path/*",
        ],
        "js": ["content_script.js"]
      }]
    }
    
  3. In content_script.js put:

    // This file extracts what you want from the page
    // and asks the background script to save it.
    
    // You write the code to extract what you want.
    const yourStringToSave =
      yourFunctionToExtractFromPage();
    
    chrome.runtime.sendMessage(
        /* extension id not needed */ undefined,
        [fileNameToUse,
         yourStringToSave]);
    
  4. In background.js put:

    // This file receives messages from the content
    // script and puts them in your Dowloads folder.
    
    function makeDataUrl(body) {
      // We use a data: url because Chrome has
      // trouble with object URLs in Incognito.
      return "data:application/json;base64," +
        btoa(unescape(encodeURIComponent(body)));
    }
    
    chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener(
      function(message) {
        const fname = message[0];
        const body = message[1];
    
        chrome.downloads.download({
          conflictAction: "overwrite",
          filename: fname,
          url: makeDataUrl(body),
        });
      });
    
  5. Visit chrome://extensions

  6. Enable Developer Mode

  7. Click the "Load unpacked" and select the extension directory

  8. If you need it in Incognito, click "Details" on the extension card and then enable "Allow in Incognito".

Example code: github.

(And, yes, this is how Facebook comments are back.)

Comment via: facebook, lesswrong, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Coping with shame

[Mod note: comments on this post about how I’m a good person who should feel better about myself will be deleted.

via Thing of Things August 4, 2026

Using AI to analyze life patterns

If you’re anything like me, you may have a lot of notes from various introspective activities – annual / monthly reviews, worksheets, therapy notes, etc. Often these notes are just gathering dust in a paper folder or some forgotten corner of Google Drive.…

via Victoria Krakovna July 30, 2026

Exercises in benchmarking and evals, part 7: DeepSWE, Senior SWE-Bench, napkin math, and winter tires

This is part of a series of exercises on benchmarking, evals, and experimental design (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)1. We're going to look at three questions, which are presented before the answers to give you time to think about the questions before seeing the a…

via Posts on July 23, 2026

more     (via openring)