5 Useful Chrome Extensions for Automating Repetitive Browsing Tasks | Tips & Tricks
Working in today’s fast-paced world can be daunting. There is so much to do with so little time available. Thankfully, automation is fast becoming a solution available to everyone. Activities such as filling out forms and job registrations are no longer tedious. Complex activities like scouring the Internet for information are now automated even!
If you are looking for ways to automate your daily repetitive browsing tasks, these five extensions for your Chrome browser will automate your Web experience.
1. Chromium Browser Automation (CBA)
The Chromium Browser Automation is a simple extension for your browser. It’s a full-featured automation tool that helps you avoid repetitive activities.
It can help you automate simple activities like filling out forms while still being complex enough to support scripting and injection.
Some of its major functions:
- Record: Here you can record activities you are currently carrying out on your web browser. Record in this sense does not mean a screen recording. It means that the extension stores all your interactions with the web page.
- Play: This feature allows you to “play” your recorded interactions. This means you will be able to fill out a form again, re-access your email or delete a bookmark with a simple click of a button!
- Injection: This is for the more advanced users – web developers. You can inject your scripts into a web page to see how it affects site performance. This is useful for debugging and app testing.
Due to its simple interface, the CBA is easy to use with little or no prior browser automation experience. If this is your first time attempting automation, you are good to go!
2. KantuX Automation Tool
The developers tout this tool as the smartest automation tool ever built for browsing. While a lofty claim, it is also justifiable. The KantuX automation tool is one of the most robust tools available for free.
It is capable of interacting with almost all websites. It supports sites with complex features like dialog boxes and frames. It also supports AJAX, JavaScript, and flash. It can even do simple data mining!
Here’s a couple of the features that you get using KantuX.
- Innate interaction with Chrome’s core: KantuX shares the same Chromium technology. This means that you can expect fluid interaction with the browser. There are minimal bugs and lags despite its intimidating feature set.
- Compatibility with MS Excel: KantuX features allow you to populate excel sheets from web pages. You can also populate web forms from excel. This ‘import and export’ feature makes data mining a breeze.
- Filling Out Forms: The capability of filling out forms with this tool is the most robust among all other tools.
Other features include playing, recording, pausing and updating macros.
Despite these many features, the learning curve for KantuX is very gentle. All of these features are condensed into a visual tool, so you don’t have to learn any new language or read pages of documentation to use KantuX.
3. Universal Automation for Job Search
Unlike other automation tools that attempt to do everything, Universal Automation does one and does it to perfection. The Universal Automation tool is a job-search tool designed to search for and apply to jobs.
It does this by searching through a difficult job board for available positions. It matches these jobs to your specialty and sends the application.
After sending these applications, it sends you the application ID and codes. This is to provide proof of your application to the job.
Once installed, click on the button located on your browser toolbar.
It takes you to a page that grants you the option to configure the extension for your use. Click on “Options.”
The next page contains a form that you only have to fill out once. Once you have completed the form, click “Save” and you are good to go!
This is a job search and application tool, so tailor your expectations appropriately. It is an effective tool nonetheless and can save you tons of time and stress with job applications.
4. iMacros for Chrome
iMacros is another robust and powerful browser automation tool. Its features match up to KantuX in all aspects, only that it takes it a bit further.
iMacros is capable of other functions such as web scripting, data extraction, and web testing. It is also the only automation app capable of multi-page form filling.
Its most impressive features are:
- Data Extraction: For data miners this is a big deal. iMacros is capable of extracting details from web pages to populate a data sheet. If you want to compare prices of commodities among online stores, you should use iMacros.
- Web testing: iMacros is capable of conducting rigorous web tests that consume lots of time. User experience tests can be easily recorded and replayed as many times as you want, saving time and resources.
- Compatibility with MS Excel: This allows you to fill out forms from excel sheets and vice versa.
iMacros’ simple user interface makes it easy to use and learn. Its robust wiki and community forums also mean that you can never be stuck for information.
5. Katalon Recorder
The Katalon Recorder is an updated version for the obsolete Selenium IDE. It is a powerful automation tool focused on testing.
It also supports a lot of popular programming languages such as Java, C#, Ruby, Python, etc. It is useful for recording, replaying, debugging and displaying test results for Chrome.
Using this tool you can interact with web elements. You can also record all the actions you have performed on a web app.
Creating and managing test cases are a breeze, and playing automated test cases takes a few simple clicks. It is also one of the fastest tools available for web automation.
Conclusion
Automating web activities is a necessary part of all web app development. User experience and debugging rely on it. Automating the filling out of forms can also be of immense benefit to ordinary users. Regardless of what you do online, there’s something these automation extensions can do for you.