Is there an official Claude Chrome extension?

Yes. Anthropic publishes Claude for Chrome, a side-panel extension that can also act on the page. Availability has been tied to higher-tier Claude plans, so check your subscription before relying on it.

Is a Claude Chrome extension free?

It depends on the extension. The official one has been limited to paid Claude tiers. Third-party sidebars are mostly subscriptions with a capped free tier. LocalBridge charges a one-time licence and uses whatever Claude account you already have.

Are Claude Chrome extensions safe?

The extension platform is safe; individual extensions vary. Check the publisher, read the permissions against the feature, and prefer tools that send page content straight to the assistant rather than through their own servers.

How do I install a Claude extension in Chrome?

Open the Chrome Web Store listing, click Add to Chrome, approve the permission prompt, then pin the extension from the puzzle-piece menu so you can see when it is running.

Can Claude read the tabs I have open?

Not by itself. An extension has to read those tabs and pass the text along. LocalBridge does exactly that for the tabs you tick, and nothing else.

Claude Chrome extensions, explained

There is an official Claude extension from Anthropic, and there is a crowd of third-party ones. They do different jobs, ask for different permissions, and only some of them work on an ordinary Claude plan. Here is how to tell them apart.

What a Claude Chrome extension actually does

Claude on its own cannot see your browser. Every extension in this category exists to close that gap, and they close it in one of three ways: by putting a Claude chat panel beside the page, by letting Claude act on the page, or by moving the page's text into your normal Claude conversation.

The difference matters more than the feature lists suggest. A sidebar is convenient for the page in front of you. Acting on a page is powerful and comes with real risk on sites you are signed in to. Moving text is the narrowest option, and it is the one that scales to a question spanning eight tabs.

The official extension from Anthropic

Anthropic publishes Claude for Chrome, which places Claude in a side panel and can take actions in the browser on your behalf. Being first-party, nothing sits between you and the model.

Two caveats. Access has been restricted to higher Claude subscription tiers, so many people who search for this cannot install it today. And it is built around the active tab, which leaves the common case, one question across several pages, unsolved.

How to install a Claude extension safely

Install from the Chrome Web Store rather than a downloaded file, and read the publisher name before you click Add. A large number of extensions in this category are clones with unfamiliar publishers.

Then read the permission prompt. Reading tab titles, reading page content, and acting on every site you visit are three very different levels of access. Anything asking for more than its feature needs is worth skipping, regardless of how good the listing looks.

After installing, pin the extension so you can see when it is active, and check whether page content is processed on your machine, sent to the model directly, or routed through the publisher's own servers.

Sending several tabs to Claude at once

Most extensions in this space handle one page. The question you actually have, comparing four papers, reconciling a doc page with an issue and a changelog, usually needs several.

LocalBridge is built for that specific case: tick the tabs, and their readable text goes into Claude as one numbered block with each page's title and URL attached, so you can ask Claude which source says what. It does not host a chat, so you keep using your own Claude account, and it is a one-time licence rather than a subscription.

FAQ

Is there an official Claude Chrome extension?: Yes. Anthropic publishes Claude for Chrome, a side-panel extension that can also act on the page. Availability has been tied to higher-tier Claude plans, so check your subscription before relying on it.
Is a Claude Chrome extension free?: It depends on the extension. The official one has been limited to paid Claude tiers. Third-party sidebars are mostly subscriptions with a capped free tier. LocalBridge charges a one-time licence and uses whatever Claude account you already have.
Are Claude Chrome extensions safe?: The extension platform is safe; individual extensions vary. Check the publisher, read the permissions against the feature, and prefer tools that send page content straight to the assistant rather than through their own servers.
How do I install a Claude extension in Chrome?: Open the Chrome Web Store listing, click Add to Chrome, approve the permission prompt, then pin the extension from the puzzle-piece menu so you can see when it is running.
Can Claude read the tabs I have open?: Not by itself. An extension has to read those tabs and pass the text along. LocalBridge does exactly that for the tabs you tick, and nothing else.

Send your tabs to Claude

Tick the tabs, click once, and their text lands in Claude with titles and URLs intact. One-time licence.

See how it works