Browser extensions

AliasVault offers browser extensions compatible with both Chrome and Firefox. This guide explains how to build and debug the extensions locally.

Development Setup

The browser extensions are built using:

• React: https://react.dev/
• WXT: https://wxt.dev/ (A framework for cross-browser extension development)
• Vite: https://vitejs.dev/

Install dependencies

Make sure you have Node.js installed on your host machine, then install the dependencies:

cd browser-extensions/chrome
npm install

Development Mode

WXT provides a development mode that automatically reloads changes and opens a new browser window with the extension loaded:

# For Google Chrome development
npm run dev:chrome

# For Firefox development
npm run dev:firefox

# For Microsoft Edge development
npm run dev:edge

Building and Loading the Extensions Manually

Google Chrome

1. Build the extension:

   npm run build:chrome
   

2. Load in Chrome:
   • Open Chrome and navigate to chrome://extensions/
   • Enable “Developer mode” in the top right corner
   • Click “Load unpacked” and the folder ./browser-extension/dist/chrome-mv3

Firefox

1. Build the extension:

   npm run build:firefox
   

2. Load in Firefox:
   • Open Firefox and navigate to about:debugging
   • Click “This Firefox” in the left sidebar
   • Click “Load Temporary Add-on”
   • Navigate to the ./browser-extension/dist/firefox-mv2 folder and select the manifest.json file

Microsoft Edge

1. Build the extension:

   npm run build:edge
   

2. Load in Edge:
   • Open Edge and navigate to edge://extensions/
   • Enable “Developer mode” in the top right corner
   • Click “Load unpacked” and the folder ./browser-extension/dist/edge-mv3

Safari

1. Build the extension:

   npm run build:safari
   

2. Open the Xcode project in the safari-xcode/AliasVault/AliasVault.xcodeproj folder and build / run the app.

3. The extension will be installed automatically in Safari. Follow the on-screen MacOS app instructions to complete the installation.

Automatic tests

The extension has a suite of automatic tests that are run on every pull request. These tests are located in the __tests__ directories scattered throughout the browser extension codebase.

Run the tests

To run the tests locally, you can use the npm run test command. This will run all tests.

npm run test

Manual tests

In order to test for client side issues, here is a list of public websites that have caused issues in the past and can be used to test whether the extension is (still) working correctly.

Websites that have caused issues

The following websites have been known to cause issues in the past (but should be fixed now). After making changes to the extension, you can test whether the extension is (still) working correctly by using the websites below.

Website	Reason
Paprika Shopping	Popup CSS style conflicts
Bloshing	Popup CSS style conflicts
GameFAQs	Popup buttons not working
Hacker News	Popup and client favicon not showing due to SVG format
Bitwarden	Autofill password not detected (input not long enough), manually typing in works
Microsoft Online	Password gets reset after autofill
ING Bank	Autofill doesn’t detect input fields and AliasVault autofill icon placement is off
GitHub Issues	The “New issue -> Blank Issue” title field causes the autofill to trigger because of a parent form (outside of the role=modal div)