What service for creating browser extensions to choose?
Most of us have heard about browser extensions, many actively use them in everyday life. They facilitate our access to popular services, promptly provide us with the necessary information.
I am familiar with browser extensions not by hearsay, I work in the IT business and many of the problems that I encounter in my work are successfully solved with the help of browser extensions.
Some time ago I tried to find an online service that would allow you to quickly create browser extensions for various needs. During the search, I came across three (free) services that aroused interest in me, and I want to share them with you, dear customers.
The development of this service has been the company Conduit, which has been engaged in browser extensions for more than 10 years. They claim about 260 thousand publishers and 250 million end users.
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Community Toolbar supports the following popular browsers and their updates: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari.
This service allows you to create toolbars and fill them with various widgets that can be downloaded from the Apps Marketplace repository. Some of these widgets are monetized and can generate income for toolbar owners, or, as they are called, publishers.
To generate income, Community Toolbar offers many monetization tools. For example, you can use the Active Rewards Program tool, which allows you to receive money for each active user or for users who use monetized widgets. Other monetization tools include distributing other software along with an installer, showing coupons, sponsored search queries, etc.
To distribute the created extension, Community Toolbar provides a landing-page, which contains a screenshot of the created toolbar and a button for downloading it.
After you start a campaign to distribute your toolbar, you will most likely need analytical data - for this, the Community Toolbar provides data (including country-specific) on the number of installations, active users, use of widgets, but unfortunately there is not enough data on the number product removals.
For those who want to use the API, the service provides documentation, but does not provide online development capabilities.
The next service that deserves attention is the Crossrider. This is a great developer-oriented online development platform with JavaScript knowledge. According to the service, about 15 thousand developers and 700 million (!) End-users use the Crossrider products.
Various extensions can be created on the basis of the Crossrider platform, among which are sidebars, browser buttons with different content, extensions without GUI - everything depends on the developer’s imagination and desire, and Crossrider provides excellent tools for this. The extension can be supplemented with various plugins, such as search plugin, e-mail plugin, etc.
Crossrider also supports popular browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari.
For those who want to monetize the created extension, Crossrider provides various tools such as coupons, sponsored search queries, adding InText ads.
Crossrider offers better options for distributing extensions than Community Toolbar — a customizable landing page, a “Thank You” page (appearing after installing the product), download links for an extension for each browser individually - these are just a few options. In addition, Crossrider offers product creation specifically for the Chrome Store and instructions for downloading it.
As for analytical data, Crossrider offers information on the number of installations / deletions, active users, including by country and by browser.
Without a doubt, Crossrider is the best service for developers. It contains detailed documentation, allows local development and synchronization with the online platform.
The latest service that aroused my interest is NeoBars - a product of Macte! Labs ”, which has been developing browser extensions for over 5 years.
Despite the fact that the service is in beta testing, in some respects it quite deserves a comparison with the “giants” mentioned above.
On the NeoBars platform, you can create different types of extensions: toolbars (InfoBars) with different widgets, Notifiers (pop-up window with different content, opening in the browser button). You can also create your own extensions using the Developer Tools tool and JavaScript knowledge.
NeoBars also supports the most popular browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari) and in addition to them also Opera.
This service does not use monetization tools yet, but as follows from the FAQ, the team is working on their implementation. However, publishers who create their extensions using the Developer Tools can add their monetization tools to the code.
To distribute created extensions, NeoBars offers a landing page with installers for Windows / Mac and links for each browser separately.
As for analytics, here NeoBars also provides extensive opportunities - data on the number of installations / deletions, active users, the use of widgets in toolbars - all this data can be analyzed by country and by browser. It should be mentioned that NeoBars allows you to receive analytics depending on the way the extension is distributed - using a Windows / Mac installer or browser-wise.
NeoBars allows you to develop your own online extensions using the Developer Tools tool, which allows developers to create modules for InfoBars and Notifiers, or to create individual products.
To help developers, a debugger was created - the Debugger Tool, which is installed as a browser extension and allows you to check and debug written code.
To summarize all of the above, I combined the information on each of the services in the diagram below:
To sum up briefly, Community Toolbar currently only offers toolbar creation, although browser extensions are constantly evolving. Crossrider allows you to develop various extensions, but this service is available only to developers.
NeoBars brought to the market of browser extensions a fresh and interesting concept - to make the creation of browser extensions available for various categories of people, even for those who do not know how to program. I wonder how this project will develop in the future and I hope that the team will continue to develop in the chosen direction.
Thanks for reading, waiting for your thoughts in the comments.
I am familiar with browser extensions not by hearsay, I work in the IT business and many of the problems that I encounter in my work are successfully solved with the help of browser extensions.
Some time ago I tried to find an online service that would allow you to quickly create browser extensions for various needs. During the search, I came across three (free) services that aroused interest in me, and I want to share them with you, dear customers.
Community toolbar
The development of this service has been the company Conduit, which has been engaged in browser extensions for more than 10 years. They claim about 260 thousand publishers and 250 million end users.
')
Community Toolbar supports the following popular browsers and their updates: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari.
This service allows you to create toolbars and fill them with various widgets that can be downloaded from the Apps Marketplace repository. Some of these widgets are monetized and can generate income for toolbar owners, or, as they are called, publishers.
To generate income, Community Toolbar offers many monetization tools. For example, you can use the Active Rewards Program tool, which allows you to receive money for each active user or for users who use monetized widgets. Other monetization tools include distributing other software along with an installer, showing coupons, sponsored search queries, etc.
To distribute the created extension, Community Toolbar provides a landing-page, which contains a screenshot of the created toolbar and a button for downloading it.
After you start a campaign to distribute your toolbar, you will most likely need analytical data - for this, the Community Toolbar provides data (including country-specific) on the number of installations, active users, use of widgets, but unfortunately there is not enough data on the number product removals.
For those who want to use the API, the service provides documentation, but does not provide online development capabilities.
Crossrider
The next service that deserves attention is the Crossrider. This is a great developer-oriented online development platform with JavaScript knowledge. According to the service, about 15 thousand developers and 700 million (!) End-users use the Crossrider products.
Various extensions can be created on the basis of the Crossrider platform, among which are sidebars, browser buttons with different content, extensions without GUI - everything depends on the developer’s imagination and desire, and Crossrider provides excellent tools for this. The extension can be supplemented with various plugins, such as search plugin, e-mail plugin, etc.
Crossrider also supports popular browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari.
For those who want to monetize the created extension, Crossrider provides various tools such as coupons, sponsored search queries, adding InText ads.
Crossrider offers better options for distributing extensions than Community Toolbar — a customizable landing page, a “Thank You” page (appearing after installing the product), download links for an extension for each browser individually - these are just a few options. In addition, Crossrider offers product creation specifically for the Chrome Store and instructions for downloading it.
As for analytical data, Crossrider offers information on the number of installations / deletions, active users, including by country and by browser.
Without a doubt, Crossrider is the best service for developers. It contains detailed documentation, allows local development and synchronization with the online platform.
NeoBars
The latest service that aroused my interest is NeoBars - a product of Macte! Labs ”, which has been developing browser extensions for over 5 years.
Despite the fact that the service is in beta testing, in some respects it quite deserves a comparison with the “giants” mentioned above.
On the NeoBars platform, you can create different types of extensions: toolbars (InfoBars) with different widgets, Notifiers (pop-up window with different content, opening in the browser button). You can also create your own extensions using the Developer Tools tool and JavaScript knowledge.
NeoBars also supports the most popular browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari) and in addition to them also Opera.
This service does not use monetization tools yet, but as follows from the FAQ, the team is working on their implementation. However, publishers who create their extensions using the Developer Tools can add their monetization tools to the code.
To distribute created extensions, NeoBars offers a landing page with installers for Windows / Mac and links for each browser separately.
As for analytics, here NeoBars also provides extensive opportunities - data on the number of installations / deletions, active users, the use of widgets in toolbars - all this data can be analyzed by country and by browser. It should be mentioned that NeoBars allows you to receive analytics depending on the way the extension is distributed - using a Windows / Mac installer or browser-wise.
NeoBars allows you to develop your own online extensions using the Developer Tools tool, which allows developers to create modules for InfoBars and Notifiers, or to create individual products.
To help developers, a debugger was created - the Debugger Tool, which is installed as a browser extension and allows you to check and debug written code.
To summarize all of the above, I combined the information on each of the services in the diagram below:
To sum up briefly, Community Toolbar currently only offers toolbar creation, although browser extensions are constantly evolving. Crossrider allows you to develop various extensions, but this service is available only to developers.
NeoBars brought to the market of browser extensions a fresh and interesting concept - to make the creation of browser extensions available for various categories of people, even for those who do not know how to program. I wonder how this project will develop in the future and I hope that the team will continue to develop in the chosen direction.
Thanks for reading, waiting for your thoughts in the comments.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/221951/
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