With an immediate first glance, the title (or the need) sounds a bit stupid. The simple answer you would say is open Chrome and copy-paste the link of the webpage you have opened in Firefox. Absolutely possible, but to me that’s bit of a productivity killer especially when I might need to open more than a single page from Firefox to Chrome.

This not-so-unusual need came about because I usually work with both Firefox and Chrome. There are apps, especially the Google apps, which work better in Chrome than they do in Firefox and some webpages too.  Then, I am still undecided on which browser handles multiple open tabs better – Firefox or Chrome? My judgment and experience so far points to Chrome. So, sometimes when I see Firefox going sluggish on me, I shift my open tabs to Chrome.

You and I can maintain our productivity because there are Firefox add-ons that can do the trick. Here are three…

Chrome View [No Longer Available]

When you install Chrome View in Firefox, it auto-detects the path of your Chrome installation. You can also manually go into the add-on’s Options and insert it yourself, then test it out. Chrome View also works by giving you the control to open the current tab in Chrome with a right-click on the webpage. Chrome View is a simple single purpose add-on as you can see from the screenshot above. You can switch your open webpages to Chrome one-by-one and close them in Firefox when you see things slowing down in the latter browser.

Open With

This add-on another important reason for their very existence – the need for cross-browser testing of webpages by designers. If you need to open and test a webpage across browsers then Open With is a simple Firefox add-on for the job. You can open any webpage that’s open in Firefox in any of the browsers you have installed.

The add-on options give you the configuration options for setting the order of the browsers and also how you would like the features to be added to you menus and tab bars for opening the current page in Chrome.

Open In Chrome [No Longer Available]

Something tells me that if you are not a web designer, this is the add-on you are going to plonk for. Simply because Open in Chrome takes just one or all your open tabs in Firefox and opens them in Chrome. This seems to be the best way to migrate all your Firefox tabs to Chrome and reinvigorate the browser when it slows down because of too many tabs. Again, the trust is placed in the fact that Chrome is better at handling multiple tabs than Firefox.

You can configure the add-ons settings and the hotkeys you would like to use to complete the switch.

Now, How Do We Open A Webpage From Chrome To Firefox?

I couldn’t find a Chrome extension that behaves similarly to the three outlined above. The simplest method seems to be to keep both Firefox and Chrome open and drag the link from the address bar of one to the open tab of another. One solution did come to mind i.e. using an AutoHotKey script to automate the process but it is not as simple or neat as a browser based solution. If you know of a Chrome extension that saves me from doing even this, do mention it in the comments.

End Note: Strangely, the best solution is integrated by default in a browser we often choose to ignore. Opera has the feature to open a webpage in any of your installed browsers. (Right Click – Open With…)

If you work with both browsers, do you usually switch from one to the other for handling different apps or for any other reason? Do you see the value of these three add-ons or would you like to keep things manual and simple? Tell us.