browser2kodi
browser2kodi is a browser extension that plays what you are looking at on Kodi, for Firefox, Chrome and the browsers built on them. It does what send2kodi does with a URL, from the browser, and talks to Kodi directly: nothing has to be installed on your computer.
- Right-click a picture, video, song or link, then Send to Kodi (play now) or Queue on Kodi.
- Click the toolbar button to send the page you are on, e.g. a YouTube video.
How it works
Everything goes through Kodi's JSON-RPC API, the same way as send2kodi:
| You send | Kodi plays it with |
|---|---|
| A YouTube video | the YouTube add-on, at the time in the link if it has one; or SendToKodi, if set in the options |
| A link to a video, song or picture (by extension, or by what the page shows it as) | Kodi itself, without any add-on |
| Any other page | the SendToKodi add-on, which resolves it with yt-dlp on the Kodi side |
| A picture without a file extension | Kodi's picture viewer, through the wsrv.nl image proxy |
Kodi goes by the extension of a path: given a picture without one,
like the thumbnails of an image search, its viewer hands it to the video
player, which flashes it and stops. send2kodi serves such pictures
itself under a .jpg name; an extension cannot serve
anything, so the proxy does it. It only sees the picture's address, and
can be turned off.
A notification and a badge on the toolbar button say how it went:
… sending, ✓ playing, ! failed
(hover for why). The badge is there for desktops without
notifications.
Installation
- Firefox, LibreWolf, Waterfox, Zen, Floorp (Firefox
140 or later): from addons.mozilla.org, or the
.xpiof the latest release. - Chrome, Chromium, Brave, Vivaldi, Edge, Opera,
Helium: unzip the
-chrome.zipof the latest release, turn on Developer mode inchrome://extensionsand Load unpacked thebrowser2kodifolder.
Then, in the options page that opens, enter the Kodi box's address, save, and let the extension talk to it: it asks for permission to that one address only. In Kodi, enable Settings → Services → Control → Allow remote control via HTTP. The YouTube add-on and SendToKodi are optional, for YouTube and other video sites.
Options
| Option | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Address, port, user, password | Kodi's web server; port 8080 and user kodi
by default |
| YouTube | Play through the YouTube add-on (faster) or SendToKodi |
| Pictures | Send pictures without a file extension through wsrv.nl |
| Right-click menu | Both items, or just one, which then goes straight in the menu instead of a submenu |
Limitations
- Pictures embedded in the page (the first rows of Google Images) have no address to send: open the picture and send the large one.
- Things behind a login do not play, since Kodi fetches them without the browser's cookies.
- Files on your computer cannot be sent: that is what send2kodi is for.
- On YouTube, right-click a video twice (Shift+right-click in Firefox) to get the browser's menu, or use the toolbar button.
- Firefox for Android and Safari are not supported.
Development
extension/ is the extension for every browser, and can
be loaded as it is: Load Temporary Add-on… in
about:debugging on Firefox, Load unpacked on
Chrome. node build.js writes dist/chrome and
dist/firefox, each without the other browser's manifest
keys.
$ node --test
runs the extension in Node against fakes of the browser and Kodi, in
under a second; CI runs it on every push. Pushing a v tag
with the version in the manifest submits it to addons.mozilla.org and
makes a GitHub release with the Chrome zip and the signed
.xpi.
See also
- Kodi, setting Kodi up for this and its sibling tools
- Source code (MIT)
- send2kodi, the same from the command line, local files included
- wl2kodi, to mirror the whole screen instead
- Tools and applications