22 pieces · Browser Extensions, Privacy Tools, and Open Web Resources
The enterprise policy that kept Manifest V2 alive is gone, and Chrome 150 removes the last MV2 flag on June 30, 2026. What changed, why migration guidance written before now is stale, and what content blockers do next.
By Daniel Osei · 6 min · 14 July 2026
A practical guide to the contextMenus API — how to build context menu extensions, what permissions they actually need, performance considerations, and what to look for when reviewing one before installing it.
By Daniel Osei · 8 min · 6 May 2026
A practical walkthrough of migrating Chrome extensions from Manifest V2 to V3 — service workers, declarativeNetRequest, host permissions, and Firefox compatibility differences.
By Daniel Osei · 8 min · 29 April 2026
A practical look at tab management extensions architecture — what it does, how it works, and where the real-world tradeoffs live for developers and privacy-conscious users.
By Daniel Osei · 6 min · 18 March 2026
A practical look at firefox mv3 implementation differences — what it does, how it works, and where the real-world tradeoffs live for developers and privacy-conscious users.
By Daniel Osei · 6 min · 7 January 2026
A practical look at greasemonkey userscripts guide — what it does, how it works, and where the real-world tradeoffs live for developers and privacy-conscious users.
By Daniel Osei · 6 min · 22 October 2025
A practical look at password manager extension security — what it does, how it works, and where the real-world tradeoffs live for developers and privacy-conscious users.
By Daniel Osei · 7 min · 6 August 2025
A practical look at screen reader browser extensions accessibility — what it does, how it works, and where the real-world tradeoffs live for developers and privacy-conscious users.
By Daniel Osei · 7 min · 21 May 2025
A retrospective on the TranslatePage Firefox extension — how it brought right-click translation to Firefox in the early web era, and how browser-native translation and modern alternatives compare to what it offered.
By Sofia Reinholt · 7 min · 13 March 2025
A retrospective on the TabHomePage Firefox extension — how it let users set a custom page for new tabs before browsers made this a native setting, and what current alternatives look like.
By Sofia Reinholt · 7 min · 6 March 2025
A practical look at ublock origin advanced configuration — what it does, how it works, and where the real-world tradeoffs live for developers and privacy-conscious users.
By Daniel Osei · 7 min · 5 March 2025
A retrospective on the PasteQuote Firefox extension — how it automated the Usenet and email quoting convention of prepending '>' to pasted text, and what happened to that convention as communication moved to the modern web.
By Sofia Reinholt · 7 min · 20 February 2025
A retrospective on the ContextHighlight Firefox extension — how it let users persistently highlight selected and searched text on webpages, and what modern tools do the same job today.
By Sofia Reinholt · 6 min · 13 February 2025
A retrospective on the ImageToolbar Firefox extension — how it recreated Internet Explorer's hover image controls for Firefox users, and why it was eventually made obsolete by better browser design.
By Sofia Reinholt · 6 min · 4 February 2025
An editorial retrospective on the DisableTarget Firefox extension — how it stopped links from hijacking your browsing session with target=_blank, why the problem still exists, and what modern solutions look like.
By Sofia Reinholt · 6 min · 23 January 2025
A retrospective on the ContextSearch Firefox extension — how it brought search-from-context-menu to the browser in 2004, why it was eventually absorbed, and what modern alternatives exist today.
By Sofia Reinholt · 6 min · 16 January 2025
A practical look at manifest v3 service worker migration — what it does, how it works, and where the real-world tradeoffs live for developers and privacy-conscious users.
By Daniel Osei · 6 min · 18 December 2024
A practical look at content script security best practices — what it does, how it works, and where the real-world tradeoffs live for developers and privacy-conscious users.
By Daniel Osei · 6 min · 9 October 2024
A practical look at firefox extension development getting started — what it does, how it works, and where the real-world tradeoffs live for developers and privacy-conscious users.
By Daniel Osei · 6 min · 24 July 2024
A practical breakdown of Chrome extension permissions — what each one grants, where the real risks live, and how to evaluate an extension before installing it.
By Daniel Osei · 5 min · 8 May 2024
Google rolled out a set of new trust signals for the Chrome Web Store in 2023 — Established Publisher status, featured badges, and stricter review processes. Here's what each badge actually verifies, and what it doesn't.
By Daniel Osei · 8 min · 15 June 2023
Chrome's early Manifest V3 developer preview proposed replacing webRequest blocking with declarativeNetRequest. Ad blocker and privacy extension developers warned it would gut their capabilities.
By Daniel Osei · 8 min · 13 October 2020