PageLens–A Chrome extension that uses AI to summarize your tab

PageLens, a new Chrome extension, uses Anthropic's Claude AI to summarize, explain, or flag important details in the current tab, and is strictly read-only, with no automation layer. Users add their own Anthropic API key, which is stored locally and sent directly to Anthropic, and the extension requires only activeTab, scripting, sidePanel, and storage permissions. The project is open-source under the MIT license and available on GitHub.

PageLens is a Chrome extension that lets you ask an AI questions about the page you're currently looking at, summarize it, explain it simply, or flag things worth noticing fees, fine print, deadlines, data collection, etc . It is strictly read-only. PageLens only reads the visible text of the current tab and sends it to Claude for analysis. It never clicks, types, fills forms, or submits anything on your behalf, unlike most "AI browser agent" extensions, there is no action/automation layer at all, which keeps the trust and risk profile much simpler. - Click the PageLens toolbar icon to open the side panel. - Add your own Anthropic API key in settings stored locally via chrome.storage , sent directly from your browser to Anthropic's API — it never passes through any third-party server . - Ask a question, or use a quick action Summarize / Explain simply / What should I watch for? . - PageLens reads the current tab's text and headings, sends it with your question to Claude, and shows the answer in the panel. - Clone or download this repo. - Open chrome://extensions in Chrome. - Turn on Developer mode top right . - Click Load unpacked and select this project's folder. - Pin the PageLens icon and click it to open the side panel. - Add your Anthropic API key in the ⚙ settings panel. manifest.json MV3 manifest — activeTab, scripting, sidePanel, storage only background.js Opens the side panel on toolbar click sidepanel.html/css Side panel UI sidepanel.js Page reading + Anthropic API calls + chat rendering icons/ Toolbar icons | Permission | Why | |---|---| activeTab | Read the current tab only when you actively use the extension | scripting | Inject a read-only text-extraction function into the page | sidePanel | Show the chat UI in Chrome's side panel | storage | Save your API key/model choice locally | host permissions: <all urls | Allow reading any page you choose to ask about | No cookies , no webRequest , no ability to modify page content or navigate — the extension physically cannot take actions on a page, only read it. - Highlight-to-ask: right-click a text selection and ask about just that. - Per-page memory: cache summaries so re-visiting a page is instant. - Export chat as notes / send to a notes app. - Support Firefox/Edge via the WebExtensions API mostly a manifest tweak . - Streaming responses instead of waiting for the full answer. MIT — do whatever you like with it.