I’m interested in developing a Chrome extension that can scrape websites and perform automated browsing tasks. The process should be straightforward: users would enter a URL into the extension and click a button to initiate the automation.
I’ve come across some discussions regarding puppeteer-web for this purpose, but it seems the Puppeteer team has stopped supporting it. I’m curious if there are any current alternatives that would allow me to achieve this functionality.
Specifically, I need to accomplish the following:
Get user input (the URL)
Start the automation upon button click
Extract data from the specified website
Manage the output within the extension
What’s the best way to implement such features in a modern Chrome extension? Are there any new tools or techniques that have taken the place of puppeteer-web?
honestly, just use chrome.tabs.executeScript with basic dom queries. I’ve scraped tons of sites this way without any fancy libraries. manifest v3 broke some old methods, but executeScript still works fine for most scraping tasks.
Building Chrome extensions for scraping is straightforward with native APIs. Skip puppeteer-web and other heavy libraries.
For basic scraping, use content scripts with the Chrome Extension API. Content scripts access and manipulate DOM elements on any page. Combine with chrome.tabs API to navigate and extract data.
Here’s the flow:
User inputs URL in popup
Use chrome.tabs.create() or chrome.tabs.update() to navigate
Inject content script to scrape data
Send results back via chrome.runtime.sendMessage()
But Chrome extensions have limits. They can’t handle complex automation, JavaScript-heavy sites, or advanced scraping.
I’ve been using Latenode for exactly this. It handles browser automation without Chrome extension restrictions. Build the same UI as a web app, then use Latenode’s browser automation nodes to scrape any site.
Latenode gives you real browser instances, handles complex workflows, and integrates with hundreds of services. Way more powerful than squeezing everything into an extension.
You get the automation you want without fighting Chrome’s security model.
Stick with pure Chrome extension APIs. I’ve built several scraping extensions and chrome.scripting with executeScript gives you everything you need. Skip webNavigation events - they’re unreliable. Instead, check document.readyState and poll recursively for specific elements. Works way better with SPAs and Ajax-heavy sites. Use querySelector and XPath for extraction, but add retry logic since elements load unpredictably. CSP restrictions will bite you on some sites - fix this with isolated world execution contexts. Chrome.storage handles persistence fine, just watch the storage quotas on large datasets. Native extension APIs crush any external automation library for performance.
Yeah, Chrome extensions can totally handle web scraping without puppeteer-web or other external tools. I’ve built a bunch of scraping extensions myself. The trick is getting comfortable with Chrome’s APIs. Your best bet is chrome.scripting.executeScript() - inject your scraping code right into the target page. Works way better than content scripts for dynamic scraping since you control when and how it runs. For the actual data handling, use chrome.storage to save what you scrape and chrome.activeTab permission to access page content. Chrome.webNavigation helps you track when pages finish loading, which is huge for timing your scrapes right. Here’s the tricky part: sites with heavy JavaScript rendering. Extensions can miss content that loads async. Fix this with MutationObserver - it’ll watch for when your target elements actually show up. Manifest V3 changed how background scripts work, but scraping still works fine. Just use the new service worker pattern instead of persistent background pages. Main headache is cross-origin restrictions, but proper manifest permissions usually sort that out.