Chrome support for Greasemonkey

Back in December, I happened to click on a Greasemonkey script in Chrome and was shocked that it just worked. At the time, I wrote a note within Google that said

Whoa. I just clicked on a Greasemonkey script in the latest dev version of Chrome (4.0.266.0 on Linux). Chrome offered to install the GM script, so I said okay. The script ran perfectly in Chrome with no changes at all! I don’t know how many Greasemonkey scripts will run in Chrome unchanged, but at least some will.

Last week brought that news as an official announcement. My guess is that scripts that don’t use specific Greasemonkey APIs should be fine.

(Side-note: I found a good post from November that claims that ~60% of Greasemonkey scripts don’t use any sort of special API calls at all. The top API calls appear to be GM_getValue and GM_setValue (16.5% of Greasemonkey scripts), plus GM_xmlhttpRequest (15.5% of Greasemonkey scripts). It’s unclear which of these functions might be worth supporting. Some could have security implications (GM_xmlhttpRequest). Others like the get/setValue functions could be done by using other ways to store data.)

So this is cool. There’s a good chance that your favorite Greasemonkey script might just work in Chrome. Personally, I recommend the dev channel version of Chrome. It gets all the cool features early, and it’s been very stable/fast for me.

38 Responses to Chrome support for Greasemonkey (Leave a comment)

  1. i have been using greasemonkey in firefox only.. let me try it in chorme also..
    thanks matt…

  2. Matt
    Btw, do you intend to continue on your Twitter-free diet for the rest of february too? ๐Ÿ™‚

  3. The Greasemonkey is a good plugin, but if the chrome can support the ” firebug” and “yslow”, I ‘d glad to use.

  4. Chrome to be the new Firefox? I’m using it more and more, but once all the SEO plug ins work on chrome I may totally convert.

  5. Yes. I have been using the Dev version ever since the day (actually moment) Chrome was released and it has never been any trouble for me. I am very excited about the Greasmonkey scripts and have promptly tried out all my favourites. Everyone of them seem to work fine.

  6. saw the news earlier ! sounds awesome to me !

  7. this is useful to me, as i use greasmonkey scripts for better orkut ๐Ÿ™‚

  8. can’t wait to try it out

  9. It would be nice if all browsers had this support by default. Between the SQLite integration and A/V handling in HTML5, the browser is really becoming a legitimate programming platform. Userscripting is the last piece of the puzzle.

  10. Sounds really good..I would like to give it a try!!!

  11. I have yet to install Chrome on my pc, but I may get around to it soon.
    I’m pretty behind on things Chrome related, so It’s going to be a little uphill when I do.

    Do you have a particular set of add-ons you prefer/like?
    Also do you have a, or is there a, preferred site where to acquire your plug-ins from?

    I am a developer(programming, script, design etc) so dev related plug-ins would be highly preferred.
    Whatever suggestive knick-knacks that can be utilized to make my life easier for development would be appreciated.

  12. I have yet to try Chrome and will do so just to try it out

  13. Hey,

    It sounds really great…!
    But i have a question, Matt. Does Greasemonkey works with same efficiency as it works for Mozilla Firefox 3.6 or in previous version ?
    Actually i have been using Greasemonkey in Mozilla as an addon and have seen that it works fine. But as compared to some of the extensions which i have used in Chrome, i still have a doubt on its efficiency.
    What do you say about this ?

  14. That’s freakin’ awesome news… especially since the Social Media Metrics Greasemonkey Plugin For Google Analytics is such a useful tool. Now I should be able to use it in Chrome too.

  15. Been using Chrome on my iMac for a while without a problem. FWIW

  16. Great news Matt!

  17. Cheers Matt, now downloaded and using dev chrome. Got to admit that G have not yet got me convinced. I am still a FF user but because of development have C installed also – time will out I suppose.

  18. I use both Chrome and Firefox, but, at least for now, my primary browser is Firefox.

    Why? It’s more versatile and useful, and it has the plug-ins I need. I’ve also had occasional problems with Chrome not loading web pages correctly, or not loading them at all.

  19. Thats good, it means chrome support GM scripts without installing any addons and other browsers like firefox require addons.

  20. you want to put chrome on the idea of open source, but must remain open as an independent development, can write code if you do not meet 100% GNU licenses.
    I understand that you take the good, but it is not clear that you distribute your code so that all can work on it.

  21. Right now, I use Mozilla Firefox 3.6. I think it’s the best browser. No offence.

  22. Wow – that means that millions of MW (mafia wars) players can use Chrome for the MW-autoplayer scripts.
    Should be a noticeable amount of new Chrome users coming in ๐Ÿ˜‰

    Br, Andreas

  23. Nice info Matt, but I cannot speak to Chrome. I definately will load it now as we speak.

    btw, I am against a twitter-free diet…

    Twitter and other social media are the only things I have in my tool bag that can remotely compete with mega corporations that have millions of dollars a year available for internet advertising.

    My advise for you is that you might as well just shut off every google page return for ANY keyword or keyword phrase page return after page three, because NOBODY looks past page 3 or page 5 of any search return, and EVERY mega internet corporation out there OWNS the first 3-5 pages of ANY keyword search result anyway.

    Way to go world !! Limit yourself in every way to the 30 – 40 or so business’s for ANYTHING you need in life to the 30 or so businesses that have the largest advertising budget for the keyword phrase you choose to input into a search engine.

    That’s right noobs, the first several pages of any search result almost always belong to the business with the absolut most money. I am sure that there will be a few naysayers to respond here with their adverse comments, but I love discomfort.

    Give it to me.

  24. chrome is probably the fastest for me and has better functionality for everyday browsing than ie8

  25. Chrome has always been much quicker for me and stable too deffo a winner and the more scripts the better for me

  26. I used to be Firefox fanatic, but every new version seems to be slower and slower and with 10+ plugins it likes to crash more often than explorer. I will give a try to Chrome. I had no idea it can manage Greasmonkey, but I tried it and it’s running very well…

    Elli

  27. hey matt i saw a google search result page in different style and fashion. It has some logos in left and also some beautiful drop down list. But i could see such style in firefox, not in any other browser. Moreover i am not able to see such type in Google in any other my friends computer either. why so can you clear me in this

    Screen shot
    http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2zog00g&s=6

  28. Thanks for sharing wonderful information.
    I keep visiting your blog to update my knowledge. Thanks Matt.

  29. I’ve had some issues with Chrome – I installed it on my laptop then started getting erorrs stating I was out of RAM when trying to convert a jpg into a favicon. I didn’t notice it was Chrome at first as I made sure it wasn’t running. However, I then uninstalled it and everything was back to normal :S

  30. I guess I was one of the first in germany use chrome, and for a lot of my daily work Chrome is great, so the only reason I still keep firefox all the time was that greasemonkey plugin…. (Very usefull to create download-links for streaming pages ๐Ÿ˜‰
    So now I am happy to know, that I can tidy up my laptop… to be honest, I never think about check, if greasemonkey will work here… so surprised to read it in your blog.

  31. Finally! The monkey comes to Chrome!

  32. I started using Chrome recently, and I admit it is getting better. However in term of plug-ins, I still vouch for Firefox as it has more valuable plug-ins to me such as ‘Firebug’. Granted, chrome has its own developers tool, but its really not the same with Firebug. So greasemonkey plug-in, will be a plus definitely for chrome, but it would be a boost if firebug can be integrated as well.

  33. Thanks for the information.

    I had issues with Chrome as well, but going through tedious installations it sudenly magically worked

  34. This is very good news Matt!

    I use a few Greasemoney Scripts in Firefox on Ubuntu.

    I have download the Google Chrome Beta for Linux and so far I must say its a very slick browser, and extremely stable for a beta. I am impressed.

    Does Google have a repository for the dev version of Chrome? If so where can I find the information to add it to my software sources?

  35. Awesome, I love Chrome. Been using it for months and had no idea about the dev channel version. Will have to check it out ASAP. Thanks

  36. Thanks Matt, I have been using Chrome more and more lately since Firefox has become bloated it seems, Chrome is so much faster, just have to opt out of letting the big G keep a history of everything you do, Greasemonkey will be a nice addition!!

  37. I was having a hard time finding any Greasemonkey scripts that worked on Chrome. Thus far, only the remove Facebook ads and threaded tweets were the only ones I used…..

  38. I’ve been a FireFox user for over 3 years now, but this new dev channel version of Chrome sounds like it might be very useful. FireFox seems to have slowed to a crawl with all the add ons I’ve installed. I’ll give it a go:)

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