How to Get Website Downtime Alerts in Chrome, for Free

If you build or run a website, you probably spend your day in a browser. That makes Chrome a good place for a downtime alert: it shows up on the screen you are already looking at, not in an inbox you check an hour later. The AlertsDown Chrome extension turns a confirmed outage into a desktop notification, keeps the live status of your monitors in the toolbar, and is included on every plan, the free plan too.

This guide explains how to set it up in a few minutes, what you see when something breaks, and how to combine it with a second channel so an outage still reaches you when your laptop is closed.

What you need

• A free AlertsDown account with at least one monitor. If you do not have one yet, create a free account and add the website, API, or MCP server you want to watch.
• Google Chrome on your computer.

You do not need a paid plan, a phone number, or a verification code. Chrome extension alerts are part of Free Builders, alongside email, and of every paid plan.

Set it up in four steps

1. Install the extension. Open the AlertsDown listing on the Chrome Web Store, click Add to Chrome, then pin the AlertsDown icon to your toolbar so its status badge is always visible.
2. Sign in. Click the icon and choose Continue with Google, or sign in with your AlertsDown email and password. Signing in connects the extension to your account's built-in Chrome Extension contact automatically, so there is nothing to type or confirm.
3. Select it on your monitors. In your dashboard, open each monitor that should alert you in the browser and tick Chrome Extension in its contacts, just like you would for email or SMS. Leave it unticked on monitors that do not need a desktop alert.
4. Send a test. In My Contacts, use Send Browser Test on the Chrome Extension contact. A desktop notification should appear within about a minute. If it does not, check that Chrome is allowed to show notifications in your operating system settings.

From now on, the next incident on a selected monitor raises a notification in every Chrome browser signed in to the extension.

What you see when a site goes down

When AlertsDown confirms that a monitor with the Chrome Extension contact is down, Chrome shows a desktop notification with the monitor name and its URL. Click it to open that monitor in your dashboard, where the logs show the status code or error behind the alert.

When the monitor recovers, the recovery notice replaces the down notice instead of stacking on top of it. Your screen shows the current state, not a pile of old alerts. SSL certificate problems raise their own notification, and MCP server monitors use the same channel.

The toolbar icon also does useful work between incidents:

• A red badge counts the monitors that are down right now.
• The popup lists every monitor that sends alerts to the extension, with its current status and shortcuts to the dashboard or to add a monitor.
• If you have not selected the extension on any monitor yet, the popup tells you, so a quiet badge never hides a setup gap.

Make it fit the way you work

Open Settings in the popup to adjust the extension on that computer:

• Desktop alerts turns notifications on or off for this browser only. It is handy on a shared or presentation machine. Alerts skipped while muted are not replayed later.
• Play alert sound adds a short chime, bell, or pulse to new downtime and SSL alerts. Sound is off by default, and recoveries and tests stay silent.
• A preview button shows a real desktop notification, so you can check how alerts look before the next incident.

You can sign in on more than one computer. One alert covers every Chrome browser signed in to your account, and it counts once toward your plan's monthly notification allowance, like any other channel. If your sign-in expires, the extension shows a single notification and a message in the popup, so you know to sign in again rather than assuming everything is fine.

Know its limits, and add a backup channel

A browser notification can only reach you while Chrome is running. If your laptop is asleep, or you closed Chrome for the evening, the alert waits until the next time the extension checks in, which may be too late for a real outage.

So treat the extension as your fast, at-your-desk channel and pair it with one that reaches you anywhere:

• Chrome extension: a desktop notification in every signed-in Chrome. Every plan, including Free.
• Email: your inbox, with a written record of each incident. Every plan, including Free.
• Signal: your phone, end-to-end encrypted. Every paid plan.
• SMS: any phone, with no data connection needed. Every paid plan.
• WhatsApp: the messaging app your team already has open. Saas and Founding Builders.

On the free plan, ticking both Chrome Extension and Email on your important monitors gives you an instant desktop alert during the day and a written record you will see later. On a paid plan, adding Signal or SMS covers nights and weekends. Compare channels and limits on the pricing page.

Private by design

The extension stores only your session token, your account email, and your latest monitor statuses in Chrome's local storage on that computer. Nothing is synced to other browsers, and your password is never stored. It does not read your browsing history or the pages you visit, has no analytics, and talks only to the AlertsDown API. Signing out removes the stored token and monitor data. The privacy policy has a dedicated Chrome extension section with the details.

Start with your most important site

Pick the website your customers would notice first, add it as a monitor if you have not already, install the AlertsDown Chrome extension, and tick Chrome Extension on that monitor. It takes a few minutes and costs nothing. For a full overview of the channel, visit the Chrome extension alerts page.