DEV Community: Yahor Besarab

I Built a YouTube Extension. People Download It All Over the World.

Yahor Besarab — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 16:12:46 +0000

When I was just starting out, I kept asking myself: “Why bother? There’s already plenty out there — ChatGPT, websites, other extensions.”

But I got tired of spending half an hour on videos I could understand in a minute. That’s how the whole thing started.

What Got on My Nerves

You open YouTube and there’s a 40–60 minute video. An interview, a tutorial, a review. No time to watch the whole thing, but you don’t want to miss it either — what if the one important idea is in there?

I tried different options:

Websites — they ask you to sign up, then hit you with “limit reached, pay up”
ChatGPT — you copy the link, explain what you need, wait. A few minutes per video
Other extensions — some only work on articles, some only on YouTube, some spit out a mess instead of a clear summary
At some point I just shelved the project and thought: “Okay, enough.”

Why I Finished It Anyway

Everything Right on YouTube

I didn’t need “another website.” I needed this: you’re on YouTube → you click the button → you get the gist.

That’s what the extension does:

Short summary — main points as a list, no fluff
Full video text — if subtitles exist, you can read and copy them
Alt+S shortcut — works on other sites too
No jumping to another tab, no copying links by hand.

Not Just YouTube

Then I realized the same problem shows up with articles and long text online.

So the extension can also:

summarize articles on websites
work with PDFs in the browser
summarize selected text — highlight it, right-click
ask questions about a video or article (“what’s this about?”, “what should I remember?”)
translate the summary into another language
save history — go back to an old summary anytime

Used in Countries All Over the World
I built it for myself. I thought it would stay a small tool “for me and people like me.”

After I published it on the Chrome Web Store, installs started coming from all over — the US, Europe, Asia, Latin America. No ads: people just Google things like “youtube summary” or “summarize youtube video” and find it.

🔥 YouTube Video Summarizer: Free with AI — https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/youtube-video-summarizer/pgodlmoknkhodghicfjchampnbdajjno

Turns out “no time to watch a long video” isn’t just my problem — it’s everyone’s.

Why I Wrote This
Not to say “I have the best AI on the planet.”

Because I got tired of choosing between “watch for an hour” and “walk away with nothing.” If you open YouTube, see a long video, and think “I wish someone would just tell me what’s in it” — this is for that.

Try it on any long video with subtitles. Usually half a minute is enough to decide — keep watching or close the tab.

youtube #chromeextension #productivity #ai #summarizer

I Built a Browser Extension People Actually Use in the US

Yahor Besarab — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 13:42:19 +0000

Honestly: the first few paragraphs of this story make it sound like the product isn’t needed at all.

“Another HTML to PDF tool?” — Ctrl+P, Print, two dozen converter sites, half the browsers can save a page already. Why would anyone ship the same thing to the Chrome Web Store?

I thought that too. I shut the project down more than once, because I couldn’t see why anyone would want another “Save as PDF” button.

The path was long and messy: idea → prototype → “this is pointless” → code again → doubt again → launch → first installs from the US that I didn’t expect.

If you stick around until the end, you’ll see two moments that made me finish HTML to PDF Converter: Upload & Paste Code anyway. Not “unique AI.” Not a revolution. Two gaps everyone pretends don’t exist.

Almost quit
Needed a PDF for a report. Online converter: sign-up, watermark, table split across pages. Ctrl+P on a long page — half the content missing. On an SPA — empty white blocks.

Two reasons I came back

PDF isn’t just for live websites.
An .html file on disk, or markup copied from an editor — Ctrl+P doesn’t help, online tools give you a blank page. What you need: Upload + Paste → preview → PDF.
Full ≠ Clean.

Full — looks like the site: layout, images, the whole page.
Clean — just the text, no ads or nav.
Edit before save — hide a block before capture, not in an editor after.

The US
Built it for myself. First installs — from the US, no ads: people Google paste html to pdf and find it.

HTML to PDF Converter: Upload & Paste Code — https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/html-to-pdf-converter-upl/lgibppnndlldhndielnddalgioahalda?hl=en-US

Bottom line
HTML to PDF Converter: Upload & Paste Code — page / file / code → PDF. Runs locally, no watermark.

Five minutes instead of hunting for a converter that doesn’t suck. #programming #python #css #c# #chrome #extension

I Built 3 Chrome Extensions in 1 Month — Here’s What Happened

Yahor Besarab — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 12:24:33 +0000

I built these projects for myself. Each extension was born from my own frustration: websites that constantly mess up HTML-to-PDF conversion, and summarizers that either don’t work or produce gibberish. So I decided to take matters into my own hands — and it actually worked!

Picture this: you’re working on a report and need to save a webpage as PDF. Seems simple, right? But if you look closer, online converters are packed with ads, terrible conversion quality, and a million other issues. Or you find an interesting article that takes 10 minutes to read, but you don’t have that time — you need the key takeaways in 30 seconds. That’s when I decided to build my own solution — better, more convenient, and without compromises.

Honestly, I wasn’t chasing a ton of features. My goal was simple — create three tools that cover 90% of my daily browser tasks. Here’s what I came up with.

Extension #1: AI Summarizer — Stop Endless Scrolling
This plugin was born first because I was drowning in text. Every day I open dozens of articles, news pieces, and reports, but there’s simply no time for deep reading.

How does AI Summarizer work? Just open any long article, click the extension icon — and within 5–7 seconds you get a concise summary with 5–7 key takeaways. No fluff, no AI hallucinations, just the essentials. I now spend 15 minutes a day on professional blogs instead of an hour. And I don’t miss anything important. It works with YouTube videos too.

Key feature: You can adjust the summary length (short, medium, detailed) and the output language. Everything works locally and fast.

Get it here: AI Summarizer: Summarize YouTube Videos, Webpages & PDFs

Extension #2: HTML to PDF — Conversion Without the Headache
My second problem was the nightmare of saving webpages. I used to rely on online converters, but every time it was an ordeal: close 5 pop-up ads, pray the styles don’t break, and end up with a PDF you can’t send to a client.

With my extension, it’s different. One click — and the page saves as a clean PDF with perfect layout: images, tables, fonts, and spacing — everything stays in place. No extra steps, and no data sent to third-party servers. It even works on complex single-page applications (SPA), where other converters often fail.

Key feature: Convert raw HTML code to PDF. Also works with any HTML files.

Get it here: HTML to PDF Converter: One Click Webpage Saver

Extension #3: Lovable Project Downloader — Prompt Organizer for AI Workers
The third problem was unexpected. I actively use Lovable for development, but quickly realized I was losing my own prompts. I kept rewriting the same queries, forgetting good formulations, and my library turned into a mess.

So I built an extension that acts as a personal prompt manager. Here’s how it works:

Prompt Library. All your queries stored in one place. Search by keywords to instantly find what you need. No more lost texts in notes or files.
Prompt Queue. Add prompts to a queue and send them to Lovable sequentially. Perfect when you’re working on a large project and need to execute several steps one after another.
One-Click Optimization. New Optimize feature — click the button and the extension automatically improves your prompt: makes it more structured, specific, and understandable for AI. The results are noticeably better than writing from scratch.
Export & Management. Export your projects as ZIP files.
Key feature: The extension syncs with Lovable in real-time, so you don’t need to copy prompts manually — everything inserts automatically with one click.

Get it here: Lovable Project Downloader: AI Prompt Optimizer & Auto-Queue

Final Thoughts
In one month, I built three extensions that I now can’t imagine working without. These aren’t “gadgets for the sake of gadgets” — they’re real solutions to real problems that annoyed me for years.

The result: I spend 3–4 times less time on routine tasks, I’ve stopped getting distracted by ads and external sites, and most importantly — my tools now look and work exactly how I always wanted. Sometimes you just have to take matters into your own hands!