Firefox & Chrome Browser Extension — Automated tab refreshing on fully customizable intervals
Darrell's ReLoader is a published browser extension — available on both the Firefox Add-ons store and the Chrome Web Store — that automates tab refreshing on user-defined intervals. It was built to solve a specific, practical need: monitoring pages that don't auto-update, dashboards, queues, or any live content where manual refreshing becomes tedious.
The extension is lightweight (21KB), privacy-respecting (zero data collection), and handles edge cases that simpler implementations miss — including safety guards against firing on browser system pages, persistence across restarts, and content-script-based timers that allow intervals as short as 5 seconds without hitting background script throttling limits.
Built entirely with standard WebExtension APIs — no frameworks, no dependencies, no build step. Published on both Firefox and Chrome.
about:, moz-extension://, chrome-extension://)Rather than running the reload timer in the background script, the extension injects timers via content scripts into the active tab. This sidesteps Firefox's background script throttling, which becomes aggressive at short intervals, and allows reliable sub-10-second reloads. The background script handles coordination and state — the content script handles execution.
Firefox extensions can behave unexpectedly or crash when they attempt to run on privileged URLs like about:blank, about:newtab, or moz-extension://. The extension checks the active tab's URL before injecting any content script or attempting a reload, silently no-opping on restricted pages rather than throwing errors.
The extension uses localStorage to persist the user's configured interval and active/inactive state. When the browser restarts or the popup is reopened, the previous settings are restored immediately — the user doesn't need to re-enter their interval each time. This required careful handling of the extension lifecycle, particularly coordinating state between the popup context and the background script context.
The extension passed Mozilla's full review and signing process for Firefox, and separately passed Google's review for the Chrome Web Store — each with their own policy requirements, manifest format (V2 for Firefox, V3 for Chrome), and permission justification process. Both stores have automated and manual security review stages. The result is a cross-browser extension installable by any Firefox or Chrome user directly from their respective store.
Free, open source, and available on both Firefox and Chrome.