PayPal browser plugin: Buy stuff on sites that don't take PayPal

by Brad Linder Jun 4th 2008

PayPal provides a quick and easy way to pay for goods on eBay, Half.com, or other sites that accept the service. But what if you want to buy something from a store that doesn't accept PayPal, but don't feel like giving up your credit card information? Last year PayPal launched a service that lets you create a single-use credit card number that is linked to your PayPal account. And the company has also launched a plugin that gives you easy access to the the Secure Card service in your web browser.

You can install the PayPal plugin by logging into your PayPal account and select PayPal Plug-in from the menu on the left. You'll be prompted to download a 5MB file which will install the plugin for both Internet Explorer and Firefox. Note that the plugin is Windows only, and does not seem to play well with Firefox 3 yet.

Once installed, a window should pop up whenever you visit a site asking for your credit card information. You can also generate a card manually through a drop down menu.

If you're using Mac, Linux, or Firefox 3, you can still use the secure card feature by logging into your PayPal account and generating a card number. But the browser plugin makes the process much easier.

Tags: paypal, paypal-plugin, plugin, secure-card

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Monkey said 8:10PM on 6-04-2008

This is also only currently available to US PayPal customers.

lemcog said 10:56PM on 6-04-2008

This has been available for months.

maelow said 10:58PM on 6-04-2008

So yet another way to put the bottom feeder scum at Paypal between the consumer and making a simple purchase.Wow that's just great.

Bill said 10:58PM on 6-04-2008

I've been using the Paypal plug-in for, I believe, at least six months. If I recall, I was offered the opportunity to test it. I use it quite a bit and find it easy to use and accurate.

Lyndon said 7:25AM on 6-05-2008

I remember trying the service when it first came out and I could never get the thing to work.

Emailed customer service and got a generic response and I never bothered with it again.

http://lyndonology.blogspot.com/

Michael said 7:26AM on 6-05-2008

I call it the Hack-O-Matic.
It's just aching to be spoofed and will be.

Mark Dean said 7:26AM on 6-05-2008

Great...

James said 10:33AM on 6-05-2008

I can't help thinking this is fixing a problem in the wrong way ... What *I* would find most useful is the opposite: a plugin to let me use my credit card on sites that take only PayPal, whose history yields a wealth of reasons to stay away from them.

mike jones said 5:44PM on 6-05-2008

This is older than the internet...

Scott said 11:00AM on 6-06-2008

This is pretty cool. Thing I hate about Paypal is the redirection through Double Click. So I created a Greasemonkey script to get around that.
http://www.techlifeweb.com/2007/11/26/fixing-doubleclick-redirection-with-greasemonkey/

Techie ZOne said 11:56AM on 7-17-2008

Pay6pal customer service sucks and so also Paypal.

cavalera said 1:51AM on 7-21-2008

We are an Exchange Service Provider (Market Maker) around the growing market of electronic currencies.

Our services are Simple, Fast & Efficient.
Our aim is to give people easy access to the gold economy and allow our customers to benefit from the new ecommerce revolution that is the future of money.

www.sellerandbuyerforum.com

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