Chrome Addons

Open with Firefox

Open with Firefox is a small Chrome/Chromium extension for people who use Chrome for video calls and Firefox for normal browsing. It adds an Open with Firefox entry to the link context menu, so links from chats in Jitsi, BigBlueButton or similar tools can be opened in Firefox without copy and paste.

github

What it does

  • adds a link-only Open with Firefox context menu entry
  • uses Chrome Native Messaging because browser extensions cannot start local programs directly
  • sends the selected link URL to a local native host
  • starts Firefox with that URL
  • supports Google Chrome and Chromium on Linux first

Tech

The browser part is a Manifest V3 extension with contextMenus and nativeMessaging permissions. The native host is a small Python script that speaks the Native Messaging protocol over stdin/stdout and launches firefox directly.

Security model

The native host only accepts JSON object messages and only opens http:// and https:// URLs. It rejects arbitrary command strings and does not invoke a shell.

Status

The Linux path for Google Chrome and Chromium is implemented, including an installer script for the Native Messaging manifest and a local host test script. macOS and Windows still need platform-specific native host manifests.