BetterSearch

Instantly search, find, and highlight any text on the current page with fuzzy full-text search.

A Chrome extension that opens a side panel with a powerful search bar — type a query and get ranked results from the page's content, with highlighted matches and one-click navigation.

Features

• Fuzzy full-text search — powered by MiniSearch, with prefix matching and typo tolerance
• Side panel UI — stays open alongside the page, doesn't block content
• Highlighted matches — click a result to scroll to it and highlight matching terms
• Dark mode — system, light, or dark theme with one-click toggle
• Keyboard shortcut — Alt+F to open/close
• Right-click menu — "Search with BetterSearch" on any web page
• SPA support — automatically re-indexes when the page content changes
• Unsupported page detection — gracefully handles chrome://, about:, and other restricted pages

Installation

From source

git clone https://github.com/bytevet/bettersearch.git
cd bettersearch
npm install
npm run build

Then load the dist/ folder as an unpacked extension:

1. Open chrome://extensions/
2. Enable Developer mode
3. Click Load unpacked and select the dist/ folder

From releases

Download the latest bettersearch.zip from Releases, unzip it, and load as an unpacked extension.

Usage

1. Navigate to any web page
2. Click the BetterSearch icon in the toolbar, press Alt+F, or right-click and select Search with BetterSearch
3. Type your query — results appear instantly with highlighted snippets
4. Click a result to scroll to the match on the page

Development

npm run dev       # Build + watch mode
npm test          # Run unit & component tests
npm run test:e2e  # Run Playwright end-to-end tests
npm run package   # Build + zip for Chrome Web Store

Project structure

src/
├── background/     # Service worker (panel lifecycle, context menu)
├── content/        # Content script (extraction, indexing, highlighting)
├── sidepanel/      # React app (UI, hooks, components)
├── shared/         # Types, messages, constants
├── components/ui/  # shadcn/ui components
└── lib/            # Utilities (cn, escapeRegex)

Tech stack

• TypeScript + React 18
• Vite (build tooling)
• Tailwind CSS v4 + shadcn/ui (base-nova)
• MiniSearch (full-text search engine)
• Vitest + React Testing Library (unit/component tests)
• Playwright (end-to-end tests)
• Chrome Extension Manifest V3

License

MIT