Chrome extension · v0.6.9
Your tutor, on the page
you're already reading.
Highlight a paragraph on Canvas, Khan Academy, YouTube or a Google Doc. Ask about it in a side panel, without losing your place. Same account, same tutor.
Not on the Chrome Web Store yet — you install it from the file above. Five steps, about a minute, and Chrome will ask you to switch on Developer mode. Needs Chrome 116 or newer.
Highlight. Ask. Keep reading.
The button appears beside your selection. The panel opens next to the page, not over it.
Real screenshots, captured from the extension running in Chrome
Highlight anything, ask about it
Select text on Canvas, Khan Academy, YouTube or a Google Doc and an “Ask CANtutor” button appears beside it. Anywhere else, right-click your selection — or turn the button on for that one site from the panel.
Or take the whole page
Nothing highlighted? “Use this whole page” pulls the readable text off the page in front of you — no navigation, no cookie banners — and hands it to the tutor.
It's a conversation, not one question
Ask a follow-up and the tutor remembers what you just asked. The panel keeps the thread, formats the answer properly — headings, lists, bold, code — and every reply has a copy button. “New chat” ends it on our side too, not just on your screen.
Turn it into a Study Pack
Notes, flashcards and a quiz from whatever you are reading, built in the panel and saved to your CANtutor account — where you can open them again from any device.
Let it see your screen
For a PDF in Chrome's viewer, a diagram, or maths a page draws as a picture — anything there is no text to read. Chrome asks you to pick a screen, a window or a tab, and only that is sent. One picture, then it stops; it is not a screen share.
Read a Google Doc properly
Docs draws its text onto a canvas, so no extension can read it off the page. CANtutor pulls the document itself with your own Google session — and asks permission first, for Google Docs only.
There's a keyboard shortcut. Alt + Shift + C opens the panel and brings your selection with it. Rebind it at chrome://extensions/shortcuts.
Installing it
Five steps, about a minute. Chrome calls it “loading an unpacked extension” — the normal way to run one that isn't on the store yet.
- 1
Download the file
It is about 100 KB. Unzip it — you should end up with a folder containing manifest.json, not a folder containing another folder.
- 2
Open chrome://extensions
Paste that into Chrome's address bar. Chrome will not let a page link you there.
- 3
Turn on Developer mode
The toggle is in the top-right corner of that page.
- 4
Click “Load unpacked” and choose the folder
Pick the unzipped folder itself — the one with manifest.json directly inside it.
- 5
Pin it, then sign in at cantutor.ai
Click the puzzle-piece icon in Chrome's toolbar and pin CANtutor. The extension uses the session you already have on cantutor.ai — there is no second account and no key to paste.
Chrome labels it “unpacked” and may nag you at startup. That describes how it was installed, not the extension.
Built for the courses top universities and colleges actually teach.
What it can't do
Before you install it, not after.
PDFs in Chrome's own viewer can't be read
Chrome's PDF viewer is itself an extension drawing into a plugin frame, and no other extension can see inside it. The panel says so and gives you a box to paste into instead.
Chrome only
The side panel API this is built on is Chrome's. Firefox and Safari have different ones with different lifecycles, so this build does not run there.
Self-hosted Canvas needs one click
Canvas runs on thousands of university domains and no extension can list them all. Right-click works there immediately; “Show the highlight button on this site” in the panel makes it permanent for your school's domain.
It needs a CANtutor session
Sign in at cantutor.ai once, in a normal tab. The extension has no account of its own — signing out of the site signs the extension out in the same instant.
What leaves your browser
Only what you send: the passage you highlighted, the page title and address, and your question. No analytics, no third-party script, no telemetry. Highlights live in memory and die with the tab. Read the extension's privacy policy.
You need an account first.
It rides your normal cantutor.ai session. No second login, no key to paste.