Everyone has thought “this site would be so much better if…”
The ads are in the way. That column is useless. The text is too small. It makes me retype the same field every time. It only shows one subtitle language. I want this sorted differently. I want one more button.
Web pages belong to other people, so normally you drop it. Except that once a page is rendered, it’s HTML and JavaScript sitting on your machine. Most of those complaints are a few lines of code away from being fixed.
The open question was always where to put that code and how to run it.
MacSide AI’s answer is unusual. You write it in a note.
The whole mechanism
You need two things: MacSide AI, and the MacSide – Browser Connector extension from the Chrome Web Store.
After that, paste code into a note and allow the site you want it on. Open the page and it runs.
Editing happens in the same place — open the note, change a value, reload the page. There’s no separate script manager to learn.
Start with something that works: dual subtitles
Faster than theory: install one working script. We give the code away in full on this blog.
What it does: reads the native subtitle track, re-renders it cleanly along the bottom, and stacks a second language above it — including stitching fragmented cues back together and tidying punctuation.
Paste that into a note and videos start showing two subtitle languages. You didn’t find an extension or subscribe to a service. You pasted text into a notepad.
That’s the concrete version of “code in a note runs on a page.”
What else it can do
Subtitles are one example. Being able to touch the DOM means you can change most of what a page shows and does.
Change the appearance
- Hide distractions — sidebars, recommendation rails, banners
- Pin body text to a font size, line height, and max width you like
- Force a dark treatment onto a site that doesn’t offer one
- Hide the columns of a table you never read
- Recolor the one number that actually matters
Add information
- Show a converted currency figure beside every price
- Show times in your own timezone next to the site’s
- Reveal a translation when you hover a word
- Add an estimated reading time to articles
Remove steps
- Autofill the form fields you type identically every time
- Collapse a “next, next, next” flow into a single button
- Restore your usual search filters in one click
- Open the tab you always click, on page load
Extract things
- Dump the items of a list page out as plain text
- Reformat a table into something you can actually paste
- Copy the current page’s title and URL in a fixed format
- Make unselectable text selectable
Video and audio
- Set playback speed at finer increments than the site offers
- Lock subtitle size and position where you want them
- Add a button that rewinds exactly the number of seconds you want
Internal admin panels and SaaS tools are where this pays off hardest. You can fix the one thing that bothers you daily in the tool you open daily. Instead of filing a feature request and waiting two quarters, you write ten lines and fix it today.
How it differs from Tampermonkey
Tampermonkey and Violentmonkey are the established user script managers, with enormous ecosystems. This isn’t an attempt to displace them.
The difference is where the script lives.
In Tampermonkey, scripts are stored inside the extension and edited in its own editor — entirely inside the browser.
With Browser Connector, the script lives in a note on your Mac, next to your other notes, in the same editor. Execution routes through MacSide AI, so quitting the app stops the browser-side scripts too.
That has practical consequences.
Stopping is obvious. Quit the app and everything stops. You’re less likely to end up wondering which extension is touching a page.
Writing and keeping happen in one place. The script, your notes about it, and the URL you learned it from all sit in the same document. Six months later, that matters more than it sounds.
Sharing is just text. The subtitle code on this blog is copy and paste. There’s no install step at all.
Tampermonkey is the better choice in clear cases too: when you want existing scripts from Greasy Fork, auto-updating, or support beyond Chrome.
Using it safely
Running your own code on web pages is a powerful capability, so the boundaries are worth stating.
Only code in your own notes runs. Nothing is fetched and executed automatically.
Sites must be allowed individually. It doesn’t run everywhere by default.
Quitting MacSide AI stops it. No persistent script quietly running after you’ve forgotten about it.
Beyond that: read code before you paste it. That’s true of user scripts generally, not just this one. Code that can touch a page’s DOM can, in principle, touch what’s on that page — all the more so on a service you’re logged into.
Who this suits
- Anyone with one specific annoyance in a tool they open every day
- Anyone who writes a little JavaScript (starting from copy-paste is fine)
- Anyone who wants pages adjusted without collecting more extensions
- Language learners who want two subtitle tracks on video
- Anyone who wants scripts and their documentation stored together
If you don’t program at all, you’ll mostly be pasting scripts other people wrote — but things like dual subtitles work fully that way, which is a reasonable entry point.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to know how to code?
Not to use scripts we publish. The dual-subtitle code works by copy-paste.
Which browser does it support?
Chrome, via the MacSide – Browser Connector extension.
Where are scripts stored?
In notes on your own Mac. Nothing needs to go to the cloud.
Does it run on every site?
Only on sites you’ve allowed.
How do I stop it?
Quit MacSide AI and the browser-side scripts stop. To stop just one, disable that note.
Can I run it alongside Tampermonkey?
Yes, they’re independent — though having both modify the same page can produce surprising results.
Stop accepting “that’s just how it is”
Small annoyances in web tools almost always go unfixed. Not worth reporting, and reporting wouldn’t guarantee a fix. So you adapt.
But those annoyances recur daily. Even one minute a day is four hours a year — and because you’ve adapted, you don’t notice it happening.
All Browser Connector does is let you fix that minute yourself. Write code in a note. Open the page. It’s fixed.
Start by pasting the dual-subtitle script. Once “text in a note changed how a web page behaves” clicks, you can point it at your own annoyances.