In a Google Chrome extension, I want to process a custom string in the

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Asked: May 30, 20262026-05-30T06:43:41+00:00 2026-05-30T06:43:41+00:00

In a Google Chrome extension, I want to process a custom string in the

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In a Google Chrome extension, I want to process a custom string in the same or a similar way to how the Omnibox works.

I think this is easiest to demonstrate with some examples:

http://example.org  => We should open the website
example.org         => We should also open the website
example.co.uk/test  => We should also open the website
example             => We should open the default search engine for that term
wp Test             => Given that 'wp' is a shortcut for Wikipedia, we should  
                       open the wiki page for 'Test'

Basically what I want to achieve by this is to never have to use the Omnibox again and instead use the VIM-inspired keyboard-only navigation provided by vimium with the additional benefit of allowing me to navigate to custom pages.

There are now actually two question to it:

To what degree does the Chrome API or nasty workarounds allow me to avoid and replicate the logic needed to parse the input? Can I take advantage of, e.g., an existing list of top-level domains or available URL schemes? Is there even a way to let Chrome do all the work? After all, this stuff needs to be somewhere inside Chrome already, as the Omnibox uses the same algorithm.
If I am unlucky and I have to implement the logic by myself, how can I get necessary information like the configured default search engine or the available shortcuts and their associated URL format strings?

To clarify: I am not interested in implementations of the parsing algorithm itself. If the necessary information is available, implementing the algorithm shouldn’t be too hard, after all.