4.2 / 5

TLDR Sidebar

One-click summary of any page in a persistent side panel

Useful

Privacy

The Problem

Reading everything takes too long, but skimming misses important details

Current Solutions (Not Great)

Skim manually (miss things), ChatGPT (copy-paste friction, privacy risk), Pocket (saves but doesn't summarize)

Who Needs This

Researchers, students, professionals who read a lot online, news junkies

Long articles, documentation, research papers—you don't always need to read every word. TLDR Sidebar adds a persistent panel to your browser that summarizes any page with one click. But it's smarter than basic summarization: it identifies the key arguments, extracts data points, notes what's missing or biased, and gives you questions to consider. Because the AI runs locally, it works on paywalled content you're logged into, private documents, and anything else in your browser—without sending the content anywhere.

Honest Take

The summarization extension market is crowded (Arc, Safari, countless Chrome extensions), but the local-first privacy angle for sensitive docs is genuinely differentiated. The challenge is that people need to trust local AI quality matches cloud services, and you're competing against free built-in browser features.

Monetization Ideas

Ways to turn this into revenue

Freemium

Free basic, $5-15/mo for pro

One-Time Purchase

$9-49 per license

Subscription

$5-29/month or $49-199/year

Features

Key features that make this app valuable

One-click page summarization
Persistent side panel across tabs
Multiple summary modes (TLDR, key points, critique, ELI5)
Extracts key data, statistics, quotes
Bias and missing information detection
Follow-up questions to consider
Summary history searchable
Export summaries as notes

Build Prompt

Use this prompt with an AI assistant to start building

Build a Chrome extension called 'TLDR Sidebar' using WebInfer. Manifest V3 with side_panel, activeTab, storage permissions. Content script extracts article text using readability-like parsing (remove nav, ads, etc.). Side panel UI: summary display, mode selector (TLDR, Key Points, Critical Analysis, ELI5), history list. On toolbar click or context menu 'Summarize this page', extract text, send to local AI. Use generateObject to return { title: string, tldr: string, keyPoints: string[], dataPoints: [{ stat: string, context: string }], criticalNotes: [{ type: 'bias'|'missing'|'unsupported', note: string }], questionsToConsider: string[], readingTime: string }. Display in side panel with tabs for different views. Store summaries in chrome.storage.local with URL as key. Search across summary history. Export as markdown.

Score Breakdown

Pain