Building a Chrome Extension Empire
I have been building chrome extensions for a while now. The idea is simple: build 30 extensions, solve real problems, drive traffic to my website, and figure out the monetization later. The first one is live. It is called Briefly AI, and it solves a problem I have every single day.
The Problem
I read a lot on the web. Articles, documentation, blog posts, research papers. Most of them are too long, and most of the time I do not need the full article. I need the gist. I need the summary. I could use ChatGPT or Claude, but that requires copying the URL, opening a new tab, pasting the link, and waiting for the model to process. That is too many steps for something I want to do 20 times a day.
Briefly AI is the answer. One click on the extension icon, and it scrapes the current page, sends it to OpenAI, and gives me a summary in the popup. Done.
The Stack
The extension uses Manifest V3, which is the latest standard from Google. The permissions are hardened to just activeTab, which means the extension only accesses the page when I explicitly click it. No background tracking, no data storage, no creepy permissions.
The frontend is vanilla JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. No React, no build step, no complexity. The backend is OpenAI API, called through a background script that handles the CORS issue. Everything lives in about 5 files.
The GitHub repo is open source. Anyone can fork it, modify it, or learn from it.
The Store Rejection Story
This is where it gets interesting. I submitted the extension twice and got rejected both times.
The first rejection was for unused permissions. I had requested scripting and storage in the manifest but did not use them in the way the reviewer expected. The feedback was direct: “Manifest includes permissions not used: scripting, storage.”
The second rejection was for hardcoded content scripts. I had configured the extension to inject into every page by default, which is a privacy red flag for reviewers. They saw it as potential surveillance.
The fix was simple but important. I stripped both permissions and relied solely on activeTab. This grants access only when the user explicitly clicks the extension icon. The hardened manifest passed automated review on the first try.
This is the philosophy for the entire library. Every extension will follow the same principle: request only what is absolutely necessary.
Why This Matters
Chrome extensions are an underrated distribution channel. They sit in the browser, they solve real problems, and they can drive consistent traffic to a website or service. Unlike mobile apps, there is no install friction. Unlike SaaS, there is no signup barrier.
The Chrome Web Store has over 130,000 extensions. Most of them are either abandoned or poorly built. The opportunity is in building high-quality, privacy-respecting tools that people actually want to use.
I am building 30 of these. The next ones are a tab manager and an SEO analyzer. Each one solves a specific problem. Each one has a clear call to action. Each one is open source.
The goal is not just the extensions. The goal is to build a library that demonstrates capability, drives traffic, and creates a foundation for whatever comes next.
Get It
The extension is live on the Chrome Web Store. Try it out. If you find it useful, share it. If you want to build your own, the code is on GitHub.
Briefly AI on Chrome Web Store
This is Project 001 of 30+. More to come.