In Chrome 13, we added some new capabilities to content scripts and proxy management.

First, you can now make cross-origin XMLHttpRequest calls with the privileges of the extension directly from your content script. You will no longer need to relay these requests through a background page; this should simplify your code. In some cases, it may even eliminate your need to use a background page. Here’s a sample extension which demonstrates the old way a content script could make a cross domain request. As you can see, the extension required a background page to route the cross-origin calls through a chrome.extension.onRequest listener. Using the new content script cross-origin capabilities, we were able to successfully rewrite the extension to completely eliminate the background page requirement. This reduces the memory required to run the extension, and reduces code complexity as well. This also means that Greasemonkey scripts that use GM_xmlhttpRequest - such as the classic Book Burro - will now work in Chrome.

Second, we improved how match patterns work. Until this release you could specify a matches array for your content script - the URLs over which it should operate. In Chrome 13 you can now also specify an exclude_matches array, where you can indicate the pages in which your content scripts should not work. This should allow more precise targeting of your content script.

Finally, we added support for the @run-at command for imported Greasemonkey scripts, so you can control when your script is loaded in the same way you’ve been able to do for content scripts. Running scripts at different points in a page's lifecycle can enable additional functionality. For example, we've written a script which runs at "document-start" and lists all of the HTTP resources included in the current page.

In addition to these improvements to scripts, we’ve been working hard to allow extensions to manage Chrome’s proxy settings using different configuration options. With the Proxy Extension API, you can now configure proxy settings by choosing from several options including auto detection, the host OS’s system default, PAC scripts or fixed ProxyRules.

These new configuration options allow for more fine grained proxy controls, which we invite you to try out. There are already several 3rd party extensions available in the Chrome Web Store that showcase the API and its new capabilities, including Proxy Anywhere and Proxy SwitchyPlus. 

Let us know what you think of these new features and what else you might like to see us do by joining the discussion at chromium-extensions@chromium.org.