Browser extensions / addons : assign custom protocol

Question

Is it possible to assign a custom protocol to a browser extension;

For example: custom://bla

I do not want web-custom://bla or anything of the like because there is also a desktop application that these links need to be compatible with. (We do not want to have two different URLs on our site, one for desktop users and one for extension users).

Answer 1

This answer is a good approximation of what can be achieved in a Chrome extension.

You can just write a content script that intercepts clicks on those links. This is an especially attractive idea if the custom protocol is confined to your site, as host permissions will be well-defined.