BetterChatGPT

BetterChatGPT is a browser extension for ChatGPT focused on quality-of-life improvements, customization, resilience, and diagnostics without replacing ChatGPT's native workflow. Chromium/Edge and Mozilla-signed Firefox builds are available.

v1.1 pre-release highlights

• Sidebar state persistence — remembers whether Projects and Chats are expanded or collapsed across reloads and browser restarts. Pinned is intentionally left to ChatGPT's native behavior because its current control can open a floating panel in some layouts.
• Project home shortcut — double-click a project in the sidebar to invoke ChatGPT's existing Project home action; the normal ... menu item remains available.
• Cross-device stale-chat protection — after the desktop tab has been idle or hidden, BetterChatGPT verifies the authoritative conversation tail before a normal follow-up sends. If another device advanced the chat, it resyncs rather than sending from an outdated parent_message_id.
• Native hang recorder — low-overhead diagnostics for severe ChatGPT/tool-call UI freezes that can occur even with BetterChatGPT disabled. On Chromium/Edge, a service worker can record when the page stops heartbeating; Firefox uses a background script. Diagnostic data contains timing/count metadata, not prompt or tool-result text.
• Queued send retained while ChatGPT now owns uploads natively.
• Classic dark gray now matches the ChatGPT desktop-app dark palette: conversation #121212 / #FCFCFC, composer #242424, sidebar #202020.
• Wide-mode polish for the conversation overflow (...) control and relocated Share row.
• Removed obsolete Live uploads while generating, Focus composer, and Long-chat optimizer features now superseded by native ChatGPT behavior.

The latest published build is v1.1-pre.1. The repository may contain newer pre.2 development source while that next pre-release is being tested.

Existing features

• Wide mode with independent conversation/composer width controls.
• Draggable B+ launcher and quick-action rail.
• Full visible-conversation Markdown export.
• User-bubble appearance controls and optional ChatGPT accent override.
• Conversation, composer, sidebar, and assistant-text color controls.
• Hybrid scrolling behavior for normal and voice conversations.
• Plain-text composer paste/copy cleanup.
• Queued follow-up sending while ChatGPT is generating.
• Edited-message attachment support using ChatGPT's native upload/Library metadata bridge.
• Settings profiles, local storage, browser sync, JSON import/export, and privacy-safe diagnostics.

Install — Edge / Chrome

Download BetterChatGPT v1.1-pre.1 for Chromium/Edge

SHA-256: 1bae81ab244260292144481b72f68bf16928dd35ce8427fa78467fe6185720b6

1. Extract BetterChatGPT-chromium-v1.1.zip.
2. Open edge://extensions or chrome://extensions.
3. Enable Developer mode.
4. Choose Load unpacked and select the extracted folder.

Install — Firefox

Download Mozilla-signed BetterChatGPT v1.1-pre.1 for Firefox

SHA-256: 9cbc02d768fc6b84799085615fd5282fc47c76342283865b8d7eae9c85e9a727

The XPI is signed by Mozilla AMO as unlisted add-on Better ChatGPT (better-chatgpt@marcmy.github.io, AMO add-on #3062261).

1. Download BetterChatGPT-firefox-v1.1.xpi.
2. In Firefox, open Add-ons and themes.
3. Use the gear menu → Install Add-on From File… and select the XPI.

Firefox packaging is generated from the same committed runtime with tools/build-firefox.mjs. The transform replaces Chromium's MV3 background service worker declaration with Firefox's background script declaration and adds the stable Gecko ID plus Mozilla's required data-collection declaration.

Firefox validation, packaging, and AMO signing are intentionally run only at release time. A manual BetterChatGPT Firefox Release workflow validates the release source, stages the Firefox transform, runs web-ext lint, packages the unsigned build, and—when signing is enabled—uses AMO_JWT_ISSUER and AMO_JWT_SECRET to request an unlisted Mozilla signature and upload the signed XPI as an Actions artifact.

Local Firefox release packaging:

node tools/build-firefox.mjs
npx --yes web-ext@10 lint --source-dir build/firefox-src
npx --yes web-ext@10 build --source-dir build/firefox-src --artifacts-dir build/firefox --overwrite-dest

See AMO_REVIEW_NOTES.md for Mozilla reviewer/build notes. Published release packages include a SHA256SUMS.txt release asset.

Settings

Click the floating B+ button in ChatGPT and choose Settings…. All regular settings apply immediately; Reload ChatGPT remains available only as a manual troubleshooting action.

The Native hang recorder lives under Advanced and intentionally remains active when BetterChatGPT's Master enable is off. This allows an A/B reproduction where BetterChatGPT's normal features are dormant but the recorder can still capture evidence from a native ChatGPT freeze. Disabling the extension itself from the browser's extension manager disables the recorder as well.

Privacy

BetterChatGPT runs locally in the ChatGPT page. The native hang recorder records performance/timing metadata and coarse UI counts only; it does not intentionally capture prompts, tool results, filenames, tokens, cookies, or conversation text. See PRIVACY.md.

Notes

ChatGPT's DOM and client behavior change frequently. BetterChatGPT deliberately reuses native ChatGPT actions where practical and keeps diagnostics defensive so a selector or UI change is less likely to take down the whole extension.