Capabilities

A practical tour of what Connect+ does, feature by feature — and where each is configured. For the short "what it is and who it's for", see What is Connect+. For building on the platform, jump to AI plugins or Extensions.

Profiles — everything is isolated

A profile is a complete, separate world. Each one keeps its own:

• cookies and sessions, history, bookmarks, and downloads
• saved passwords and TOTP (2FA) codes
• installed extensions, AI plugins, and themes
• ad/tracker-blocking state
• AI permissions and provider keys

Switching profiles switches the whole context at once — a work profile's data is never a personal profile's business. There is no shared, ambient state that leaks across the boundary; grants you make in one profile mean nothing in another.

The AI sidebar

An assistant that operates the browser directly through a set of tools: read the current page, extract structured data, navigate, click and type, manage tabs, search history and bookmarks, drive downloads, and observe the network requests a page makes (useful for finding a site's underlying API).

• Bring your own provider. Any OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Your API key is stored encrypted on your device and sent only to the provider you chose. You can switch model or provider mid-conversation. MCP tools are supported client-side.
• You hold the permissions. Tools are grouped and switchable per profile. Risky abilities — running a script in a page, capturing the page, reading cookies — are off by default and unlock only per profile, scoped to sites you name, and confirmed at the moment they would run.
• It can never widen its own reach. Web-page text is treated as untrusted input, and the surfaces that change permissions are structurally blocked from every tool the assistant can call. It cannot escalate itself.

Configure it in the sidebar's Permissions panel: provider/key, which tool groups are on, and per-site grants.

AI plugins

Community (or your own) JavaScript adds new tools the assistant can use — call an online service, transform data, automate a page. A plugin is a small folder; the assistant loads its tools on demand and runs them in an isolated worker that can reach only what the plugin declared and you approved (a specific host allowlist for fetch, and only the secrets you filled in). Install from a folder, or with one click from the store. Full authoring walkthrough: Create an AI plugin.

Native extensions

A from-scratch extension platform — the connect.* API. Chrome's API is used only as a design checklist, not a runtime, so there is no chrome.* legacy surface. Extensions get a clean, capability-gated set of namespaces: storage, scripting, network rules / DNR, context menus, toolbar actions, side panels, alarms, idle, messaging/ports, tabs and windows, i18n, commands, and more. Every extension runs in its own session, every capability is enforced at one gate, and packages are signed and re-verified on install. See the Extension developer guide and the Connect vs Chrome map.

Accelerated downloads

A built-in, IDM-class multipart download accelerator — on by default, toggle-able per profile or globally.

• Splits a large download into parts across parallel connections and reassembles a byte-identical file.
• Adapts to the server. It opens connections gently and ramps up while the host keeps pace; if the host caps or rate-limits connections (common on speed-test and CDN hosts), it falls back to a single steady connection instead of failing.
• Resumable across interruptions, with a live IDM-style block view showing each part's progress.

The number of parts follows your max connections setting. Turn acceleration off for a profile, or globally, in settings.

Personalization

• Themes — a full set of light/dark color tokens with an in-app editor; share them through the store.
• Languages — the UI ships in English, French, and Spanish.
• Fonts — system-font support.

Privacy & devices

• Ad and tracker blocking built in (EasyList / uBO filter lists), per profile.
• Synthetic camera and microphone — hand a site a virtual device instead of your real hardware.
• Certificate decisions kept per session / per site, in memory only.
• Sensible defaults that don't leak between profiles.

Everyday essentials

Session restore, full keyboard shortcuts, tab drag-reorder, DevTools (F12), HTTP auth, clear network-error and certificate pages, saved passwords, TOTP 2FA codes, favorites, history, and an omnibox with search.

The security throughline

Everything above rests on capability injection: a component receives a narrow object that is its permissions, rather than being trusted to police itself. The AI can't widen its own reach; plugins get only their declared api; packages are cryptographically signed (Ed25519) and re-verified on install; secrets and passwords are encrypted at rest and never sent to the model; risky abilities are opt-in, scoped, and confirmed.