NetAIcad: Your AI Study Buddy for Cisco Quizzes

Alright, let's be real for a second. Netacad quizzes can be tough. You're learning about networking, subnetting, routing protocols, and then you hit a quiz question that has you staring at the screen wondering if you actually understood anything.

NetAIcad is a browser extension that brings AI into the mix to help you out. Click a button, and it'll suggest which answer might be correct. Simple as that.

How This Thing Came to Be

So one morning I woke up to a text from a friend. Dude was panicking. He had a quiz deadline in 3 hours and needed to complete like ALL the modules. We're talking 30-40 MCQs per module. There was no way he was going to read through everything and answer all of that in time.

That's when it hit me - AI models are pretty smart these days. What if I could just... automate this? Feed the questions to an AI, get the answers, highlight them on the page. Quick and dirty solution for an emergency situation.

So I built it.

But then I realized something. Most students can't afford to pay for API subscriptions. OpenAI costs money. Not everyone has a credit card lying around. So I went back and added support for openRouter models (3rd Party Service providing limited free tokens).

I actually have two versions now - one with just GPT and Gemini (the simple one), and another that connects to a third-party service with access to multiple models. More options, different capabilities, whatever works for the situation.

The version you're looking at here is the simpler two-model setup. Clean, straightforward, gets the job done.

How It Works

The extension adds two buttons to your Netacad quiz pages:

• A blue one for GPT (OpenAI)
• A purple one for Gemini (Google)

When you're stuck on a question, just click one of them. The extension:

1. Reads the question and all the answer options
2. Sends it to the AI of your choice
3. Highlights the suggested answer in green

That's the whole flow. No copy-pasting, no switching tabs, no typing prompts manually.

What Makes It Cool

Dual AI Support

You can use OpenAI's GPT-4o Mini or Google's Gemini 2.5 Flash. The nice thing about Gemini is it has a free tier, so you don't have to spend money to try it out.

Set up one API key, set up both, your call. The extension works with whatever you give it.

Handles Different Question Types

• Regular multiple choice? Works.
• "Choose two" or "Select three" questions? It figures that out from the question text and highlights multiple answers.
• Questions with code snippets? It extracts the code and sends that along too.

Visual Feedback

When the AI picks an answer, you'll see:

• A green highlight with a subtle glow
• A little "AI Suggested" badge
• The button briefly shows a success message

It's not subtle, which is honestly nice - you won't miss it.

Installation

Since NetAIcad isn't on the Chrome Web Store yet, you'll need to install it manually via Developer Mode.

Step 1: Download the Extension

1. Go to the NetAIcad GitHub repository
2. Click the green "Code" button
3. Select "Download ZIP" or clone it with:

   git clone https://github.com/zaidkx37/NetAIcad.git

4. Extract the ZIP file if you downloaded it

Step 2: Install in Your Browser

For Chrome:

1. Open Chrome and go to chrome://extensions
2. Enable Developer Mode (toggle in the top-right corner)
3. Click "Load unpacked"
4. Select the extracted NetAIcad folder

For Firefox:

1. Go to about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox
2. Click "Load Temporary Add-on"
3. Navigate to the NetAIcad folder and select the manifest.json file

Step 3: Get Your API Keys

You'll need at least one:

• OpenAI: Get one from platform.openai.com
• Google Gemini: Get one from AI Studio (has a free tier!)

Step 4: Configure the Extension

Click the extension icon in your toolbar, paste in your API key(s), and hit save. You're ready to go!

A Few Things to Keep in Mind

The AI isn't always right. It's pretty good, especially for straightforward questions, but it can mess up on tricky ones or questions that require very specific knowledge from the course material. Use it as a study tool, not a replacement for actually learning.

You still need to understand the concepts. If you just blindly click and submit without thinking about why that answer might be correct, you're not really learning anything. And when the real exam comes around... well, the AI won't be there to help.

This is for studying, not cheating. Use it to check your understanding, figure out where you went wrong, or get unstuck when you're genuinely confused. The goal is to learn, not to game the system.

The Nerdy Details

For those who care about the technical stuff:

• Pure JavaScript, no dependencies
• Uses Manifest V3 for Chrome compatibility
• Navigates through Netacad's Shadow DOM (which is actually kind of a pain to work with)
• API keys stored locally in your browser via Chrome's sync storage
• Temperature set to 0 for deterministic responses

The extension only runs on netacad.com pages and only sends data to the AI API you choose. No tracking, no analytics, no weird stuff happening in the background.

Is It For You?

If you're grinding through Netacad courses and want something to help you study more efficiently, give it a shot. It's free to install, and if you use Gemini's free tier, you don't even need to spend any money.

Just remember: it's a tool to help you learn, not a magic button that makes you a network engineer. The understanding has to come from you.

Built by Muhammad Zaid | Version 1.0