EmbaBrain capture

Capture the current page as readable markdown.

EmbaBrain capture turns any web page into clean, readable markdown with one click — and stays out of your way. ============================================ WHY IS THIS EXTENSION DIFFERENT FROM OTHER WEBPAGE-TO-MARKDOWN EXTENSIONS? ============================================ Three things set EmbaBrain capture apart from the typical webpage-to-markdown tool: (1) FULLY LOCAL. Some page-to-markdown tools send the page content to their own server for processing, which enables platform-specific extraction at the cost of sending your reading off-device. EmbaBrain capture takes the other path: everything happens in your browser. No network calls, no telemetry, no account, no upsell. The page content never leaves your machine. This matters if your work involves reading prospect, competitor, or otherwise sensitive pages. (2) TUNED FOR THE HARD PAGES. Generic "page to markdown" extensions work well on blog posts and news articles but fall apart on profile pages and modern single-page apps — sidebars, video players, recommendation widgets, and promoted content all end up in the output. EmbaBrain capture ships with curated cleanup rules for those harder sites so a capture comes out as readable prose, not a jumble of UI chrome. For article-style pages, it uses Mozilla Readability (the engine behind Firefox's Reader View) to isolate the main content. (3) EXTENDABLE WITHOUT CODE. Every cleanup rule is editable in the Options page, and you can add your own rules for any site you visit often. A built-in "How to write rules" walkthrough teaches you the basics — no CSS-selector experience required. Other extensions let you tweak settings; this one lets you tune the extraction behaviour per-site without writing JavaScript. Plus the small things: free with no paid tier, no signup, open source under Mozilla Public License 2.0, source mirrored to a public GitHub repository so you can verify exactly what runs in your browser. ============================================ WHAT IT'S FOR ============================================ • Saving articles and blog posts in a clean, searchable format • Capturing professional bios from profile-style pages • Grabbing meeting recap pages, conference write-ups, podcast pages • Building research files from public web sources If you work in business development, recruiting, sales, or research, this gives you a fast path from "browser tab" to "structured markdown note" without copy-paste gymnastics. ============================================ HOW EXTRACTION WORKS ============================================ For most pages, the extension uses Mozilla Readability — the same engine behind Firefox's Reader View — to identify the main content of the page and strip away navigation, sidebars, ads, and other chrome. The result is converted to markdown by the well-established Turndown library. For sites that ship with cleanup rules, the extension uses a different path: it captures the full page DOM, then applies that site's cleanup rules to remove its specific chrome — top app bars, sidebars, feed widgets, video players, promoted content. The result is much fuller than Readability would produce on a profile-style page, with the same low-noise quality. The capture includes YAML frontmatter recording the source URL, the capture timestamp, and which extraction mode produced the file. This metadata makes the output ready for downstream tools that consume markdown with frontmatter. ============================================ CUSTOMIZE FOR ANY SITE ============================================ Every cleanup rule is editable by you. Open the Options page (Manage rules link in the popup, or chrome://extensions → Extension options) to: • See and edit the rules that ship with the extension • Add your own rules for any site you visit often • Delete rules you don't want • Export your rules as JSON for backup or sharing • Import rules from a JSON file The Options page includes a "How to write rules" help section with worked examples. You don't need to know CSS selectors going in — the help walks you through finding them by right-clicking on a noisy page element and choosing Inspect. Rules are removal-only by design. They cannot add content, click buttons, scroll the page, or do anything other than remove specific elements or sections you don't want in your captures. This keeps the extension predictable and safe. ============================================ PERMISSIONS — WHY EACH IS NEEDED ============================================ • activeTab: read the content of the page you're currently viewing, but only when you click the extension icon. Without this we can't capture anything. • scripting: inject the Readability and Turndown libraries into the current page so the conversion can happen. Runs only after you click Extract. • storage: save your customization rules locally on your device. The extension does not request access to all sites (no <all_urls> permission). It only reads pages you explicitly click the icon on. ============================================ WHAT IT DOES NOT DO ============================================ This extension is intentionally narrow. It does NOT: • Send any data to a server. Everything stays on your device. • Run in the background. It activates only when you click the icon. • Scroll the page or click anything for you. Lazy-loading sites require you to scroll down and expand "Show more" sections yourself before clicking Extract. • Bypass login walls or anti-bot protections. It captures only what you can already see in your own logged-in browser session. • Read the password manager, payment fields, or any other sensitive browser data. activeTab + scripting are narrowly scoped to the current visible page on click. ============================================ PRIVACY ============================================ Zero data collection. Zero network calls. The extension reads page content only when you explicitly click Extract, and only of the page you are currently viewing. Your customization rules are stored locally in your browser's storage and never transmitted anywhere. Full privacy policy: https://github.com/EmbaBrain/embabrain-extension/blob/main/PRIVACY.md ============================================ PART OF EMBABRAIN ============================================ EmbaBrain capture is the companion tool for EmbaBrain (https://embabrain.com) — an AI-powered business development brain for technical founders, startup teams, and BD professionals. EmbaBrain's vault stores your company's knowledge: contacts, conversations, pipeline, notes. The AI reads from the vault to help you draft outreach, update the pipeline, and remember context across conversations. This extension is how you feed the vault: read a useful page, click the brain icon, paste the markdown into your EmbaBrain vault. You don't need an EmbaBrain account to use this extension; it works fully on its own. Learn more at https://embabrain.com. ============================================ LIMITATIONS TO KNOW ============================================ • Profile pages and modern single-page apps: scroll to the bottom and click any "Show more" buttons before extracting, or you'll only capture the visible sections. Many modern sites load content lazily as you scroll, and this extension only sees what's actually loaded. • Articles using heavy JavaScript-only rendering may produce thin output. Use the "Verbose" mode toggle in the popup to bypass Readability and capture the full rendered DOM. ============================================ OPEN STANDARDS ============================================ The output is plain markdown with optional YAML frontmatter — open, portable, ready to drop into Obsidian, Notion, your favourite text editor, or any markdown-aware tool. No vendor lock-in. ============================================ SUPPORT ============================================ Found a bug or want a site supported by default? Contact support@embabrain.com.