Integrating Puppeteer in a Chrome extension: Help needed

Other Questions Puppeteer
1

Hey folks! I’m trying to build a Chrome extension that uses Puppeteer, but I’m hitting a wall. Here’s what I want to do:

  1. The extension activates when a user visits a specific page
  2. It grabs some info from that page
  3. Then it should use Puppeteer to open another site, input the data, and get a result
  4. Finally, it puts that result back on the original page

I’m stuck on step 3. The Puppeteer docs aren’t clicking for me, and I can’t figure out how to make it work in my extension’s script. Has anyone done this before? Any tips or good resources you can share? I’d really appreciate some guidance on how to set this up correctly. Thanks!

2

hey mate, i had the same issue. tried runnin puppeteer directly in the extension and it was a mess. what worked for me was using a cloud function (like AWS Lambda) to handle the puppeteer stuff. ur extension can call the function, it does the heavy liftin, and sends back the result. bit of a learning curve but way smoother once set up

3

I’ve encountered similar challenges with Puppeteer in Chrome extensions. A workaround I found effective is using a headless browser API service like Browserless or Puppeteer-as-a-service. These allow you to perform Puppeteer operations remotely without running it directly in your extension.

In your background script, you can make API calls to these services, sending the necessary data and receiving the results. This approach eliminates the need for a separate server while still leveraging Puppeteer’s capabilities. It’s more straightforward to implement and maintains a clean separation between your extension’s functionality and the web scraping tasks.

Remember to handle API rate limits and implement proper error handling for a smooth user experience.

4

I’ve implemented a similar setup in one of my projects. I discovered that Puppeteer isn’t meant to run directly in the content or background scripts of a Chrome extension. Instead, I created a separate Node.js server to handle all Puppeteer operations. My extension communicated with the server via HTTP requests initiated from the background script using chrome.runtime.sendMessage. The server processed the data using Puppeteer and sent back the result to update the page. This method, despite requiring extra setup for CORS and security measures, worked well and solved the integration issues I was facing.