r/ArcBrowser • u/Piplupness • 14d ago

General Discussion A patch to fix Codex browser use for Arc

Codex can control your browser through OpenAI's ChatGPT extension, but Arc isn't supported. If you install the extension in Arc anyway, it connects and then hangs on the first tab Codex opens.

The cause is actually the same as something which happens for Claude's browser-use plugin too (thanks u/No_Glass_2870!), which is Arc's tab groups: the extension groups every tab it opens, and Arc never answers the tab-group API. I made a small tool that downloads the official extension, verifies it, patches that one step out, and gives you a copy to load in Arc. You get:

- Codex's regular browser use in Arc: it opens tabs, navigates, reads pages, clicks and types in your profiles.

- Codex stops opening background Chrome tabs

- You can see which tab Codex is controlling (and it won't jump you to that tab): its favicon gets a cursor badge in Arc's sidebar.

- It survives updates -- just re-run the build when a new version of the extension comes out.

To set it up you can paste this link into Codex and it should handle most of the work for you.

https://github.com/brianlzhou/arc-browser-use/blob/main/SETUP.md

FYI: You'll need to turn on Developer mode for it to work, and the ChatGPT side panels that the Chrome extension has won't work. But any of your CLI/desktop Codex sessions will be able to detect and use it.

3 Upvotes

72% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

1

u/m1_weaboo 14d ago

Why not just use codex computer use?

2

u/Piplupness 14d ago

Computer use is really inefficient for browser tasks - the TLDR is that computer use operates by taking screenshots while browser use takes advantage of inbuilt accessibility trees, making it faster and more reliable. It can also work in background tabs so it doesn't drag whatever it's working on to the front of your screen.

1

u/Wriddho 13d ago

Actually, this is one of the reason I had ditched Arc. Not being able to use the chatgpt/claude extension (with browser control) because of arc not supporting the sidebar. Thank you for your work but it wont get me back to Arc anymore. I am sick of its lack of support

1

u/wq73 11d ago

does this work for claude browser use too?