Install

Foretaste for Chrome

Right-click a file link, choose Open with Foretaste, and it opens. Chrome is the build everything here has been tested against.

See what it opens

Not on the Chrome Web Store yet. The button above will work the day the listing is published, and this page will say so. Nothing else on this site is waiting on that — the format list and the privacy detail describe the extension as it is built today.

What it does

Opens a file from a link — right-click it and choose Open with Foretaste, or click the marker beside the link.
Lists a ZIP archive without downloading it, and opens one file from inside.
Reads the file on your own machine. Nothing is uploaded, to us or to anyone.
Saves the file to disk — every format, including the ones it cannot open — without needing access to the site.
Asks for no website access when you install it, and one site at a time after that.

What it opens

Documents

.pdf .docx .odt .ott .pptx .odp .otp

Spreadsheets and tables

.xlsx .xls .ods .ots .csv .tsv

Text, code and data

.txt .log .md .markdown .json .jsonl .ndjson .xml .yaml .yml .ini .conf .cfg .env .sql .js .ts .jsx .tsx .css .scss .html .htm .py .java .c .cpp .h .hpp .sh .bash .ps1 .rs .go .php .rb .sqlite .sqlite3 .db .parquet

Pictures and media

.jpg .jpeg .png .gif .webp .avif .bmp .ico .svg .heic .heif .mp3 .wav .m4a .ogg .flac .mp4 .webm .mov .m4v

Books, fonts and subtitles

.epub .ttf .otf .woff .woff2 .srt .vtt .ass .ssa

Calendars and contacts

.ics .ifb .vcf .vcard

What each one actually shows you, and where it stops

What it asks Chrome for, and why

This is the full list. Adding one is a deliberate decision, so the list is short and it stays short.

Permission	Why it is needed
contextMenus	To put "Open with Foretaste" on the right-click menu.
downloads	To save a file to disk. This needs no site access, which is why saving is never blocked, on any format.
storage	To keep your settings, your licence key and the page’s file list on your device.
scripting	To read the addresses of file links, and to put the link markers on the sites you allowed.
optional host access	Requested one site at a time, from a click. None is declared in advance, so there is none to grant when you install it.

Note what is not there: no access to your browsing history, no access to your tabs, and no website access at all until you grant a site yourself.

How this build stands today

The Chrome build is a Manifest V3 extension and it is the one used for every manual test: every format on the format list was checked here, and the measured archive figures on the ZIP page were taken here.

Two honest gaps, the same on every browser. HEIC photos are converted by code that has never been run against a file from a real camera, because no such test file exists here yet. And 7z archives are read by a library that has never been given a real 7z, for the same reason — nothing in this project can write one. RAR was verified against a genuine RAR5 archive.

This is the build every manual test has been run against.

Installing it, once the listing is up

Open the Chrome Web Store listing and choose "Add to Chrome".

Your browser will show you the permission list above before it installs anything.
Go to a page with a file link and open Foretaste's toolbar button.

It will offer to work on that one site. That is the only access it ever gets.
Right-click a file link and choose "Open with Foretaste".

You can also open files in a new tab instead of a panel, from Settings, if that suits you better.