Super Simple Highlighter (Fork)

March 20, 2026 · View on GitHub

This is a fork of Super Simple Highlighter by Dexterous Logic (Copyright 2014-2017).

A Chrome extension for highlighting text on web pages, with automatic restoration of highlights on each page revisit.

The extension now uses a context-first file layout: runtime code lives under src/, and icons/images/fonts live under assets/.

Selection toolbar

When you select text on a page, the extension shows a floating toolbar positioned near the cursor location for quick actions:

  • Google search: Open a new tab to search Google for the selected text
  • Highlight: Save the selection with your active highlight color
  • Comment & highlight: Create a highlight and attach a comment to it for later review
  • AI search: Open a new tab to search your configured AI target with the selected text

Selection toolbar screenshot

Changes in this fork

  • Manifest V3 migration: Upgraded from MV2 to MV3 (service worker, chrome.scripting API, etc.)
  • PING rejection fix: Content script injection now handles rejected PING messages correctly, allowing the inject-then-retry flow to work
  • PouchDB MV3 CSP fix: Replaced db.query() (map/reduce) with db.allDocs() + in-memory filtering to avoid Function() calls blocked by MV3's strict Content Security Policy
  • E2E tests: Added Playwright-based end-to-end tests for highlight creation and persistence
  • Selection toolbar: Added quick actions for Google search, highlight creation, highlight comments, and AI search, positioned near the cursor location with the AI action as the fourth button

Installation

Load as an unpacked extension in Chrome:

  1. Navigate to chrome://extensions/
  2. Enable "Developer mode"
  3. Click "Load unpacked" and select this directory

Testing

npm install
npx playwright install chromium
npx playwright test

License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 (or later), the same license as the original project. See LICENSE for the full text.

The original license and copyright notices have been preserved in full.

Third-party assets