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Auth and payments on Chrome extensions

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Came across this tweet and started exploring different solutions for adding authentication and payments for Google Chrome extensions. And I did find a few options that I have yet to try, but I will be listing out all different options for future references:

  1. Authenticate users with Google: Found this page on Chrome docs that teaches you how to use Google auth for Chrome apps, and it seems very detailed as it covers most of the required things.
  2. Authenticate with Firebase: Yes, Firebase docs also has a detailed page about using the Firebase auth for Chrome extensions. And from the first look, it looks simpler than the #1 method above.
  3. ExtensionPay: Found this amazing open-source API to accept payments in Chrome extensions. It has multi-browser and multi-device login supports. They also have a detailed documentation about the same, and also noticed it being mentioned at multiple places for being the easiest to set up.
  4. BrowserBill: I also found this solution being mentioned as a way to easily monetize Chrome extensions.
  5. Plasmo: A complete browser extension open-source SDK that claims to make the development process faster - calls itself Next.js for browser extensions.
  6. Better-Auth for Extensions: Can be used as an auth solution for Chrome extensions, uses Plasmo in the background.
  7. ExtensionFast: Another react-based boilerplate with inbuilt payments, auth, database, etc.

Of course, one can directly use Stripe or PayPal for accepting payments but those are a bit complicated to set up, at least for me at this point. I am seeing more and more people using the #3 ExtensionPay option for payments, as being discussed in forums and communities.

While researching, I found some other useful stuff for building Chrome extensions as well:

  1. ChromeKit: A boilerplate with ReactJS and TailwindCSS to speed up the development process. Started from $49 at the time.
  2. TurboStarter: Another boilerplate, not specific to Chrome extensions, but does have an option for extensions. Costlier, starts from $199.

And then I also found this informative blog post about different ways of earning money from Chrome extensions.

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