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Show HN: Chrome extension to close Zoom/Notion tabs after launching desktop app (chrome.google.com)

71 points by zeschnell ↗ HN
Hi HN! I use the desktop versions of Zoom, Notion, and Asana, so at the end of the day, I have a ton of Chrome tabs left over from these services launching their apps. I threw together a little extension to clean these tabs up.

Do folks tend to use the browser versions of these apps? Or are there other sites that this extension should support?

50 comments

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dixie_land
I use an extension to do the opposite: redirect me to the web version without having to navigate the dark UI designed to trick me to download the app.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/xoom-redirector/oc...

kibwen
Indeed. Nobody should be using the desktop versions of these apps.
michaelmior
That's a pretty strong statement. I prefer the desktop app for Zoom. It works better for me and has more features. Why shouldn't I use it?
imranq
I'm guessing privacy issues. After it was revealed how much data TikTok collects even after an Apple review, all apps should be treated with some level of personal scrutiny
michaelmior
That's fair. Although I think it's reasonable for some users to decide that the risk vs reward tradeoff is acceptable.
williamvds
Zoom is an Electron app, meaning it effectively bundles Google Chrome, meaning it should work in any modern browser.

My commom thought when I have to use such apps is: why can't I just use this in the browser?

In some cases it's somewhat reasonable, perhaps you need global hotkeys for some reason.

In other cases the rationale it not clear. Worse, some inexplicably remove features from the web app that are available in the bundled Electron app.

I'd much rather leave these apps in my browser sandbox, than give them greater access to my system than they truly need.

michaelmior
I still don't get the same features I get from the app. And that's fine that others prefer not to use it. I'm just a little confused why the parent comment suggests no one should use it.
williamvds
If I had to guess the parent commenter's rationale, they probably want people to boycott usage of such Electron apps. In the hopes that these companies would stop making them and pushing them onto their users.
3np
To skip many of these tabs opening in the first place when they're not originating from inside the browser but other apps (say a link in Slack or Notion): make a small script handle http[s] links for xdg-open; rewrite recognized domains to corresponding protocols (e.g. s#^https://zoom.us/#zoommtg://zoom.us/#) and recurse; otherwise forward to preferred browser as usual.

There's certainly corresponding ways to do that on Windows and MacOS.

mnw21cam
I would definitely appreciate an idiots guide to doing this.
asdff
I deal with them in bash. Zoom meetings are added to my calendar on my mac. I have a function that will use icalbuddy (1) to parse my calendar events and pull up the next upcoming zoom meeting id. Then I have another function that just runs 'open "zoommtg://myorg.zoom.us/join?confno=$1"'. A third "quality of life" function just pipes the output of my upcoming meeting function that contains the upcoming meeting id to my open function so I don't have to type much. Using open with the url reformatted as such will just open zoom to the meeting and not a browser.

1. https://hasseg.org/icalBuddy/

chatmasta
Thanks for this idea. Apparently we have similar pet peeves. [0]

Do you know how to stop the Zoom app from stealing focus when it opens? Often I open it, and while it's loading, I move to a new window (on another monitor), and then when Zoom finally loads, it steals focus from my current window.

It's quite disconcerting and a good reminder it's an app running with elevated privileges. And I swear I found a way to disable it once, but then it started happening again...

[0] ever tried copying a Zoom meeting link from the Outlook web interface? IYKYK

abhinavk
Zoom is OK because of extra functionality but I tend to avoid Electron apps which are just launchers for the webapp. At that point, you are just running a separate Chromium instance for every app. Just create a PWA or shortcut if you want an app window-like look.
tadfisher
Zoom is a Qt app, believe it or not. It's all QML and QtWebEngine (Blink).
mnd999
This ought to be a significant improvement but their UX is such a mess it’s still awful.
johnebgd
Zoom is one app that gets significantly worse with each iteration. The last year has shuffled icons around in the mobile app and now introduced some horrible application launcher into the desktop app for meetings. I know they want to avoid being discarded as people emerge from Covid but this is not the way to do it...
martopix
The desktop app shuffles things around while you're using it. Move to full screen? Everything is now in a different place. Someone starts sharing their screen? Your carefully placed chat and participant windows are now everywhere but. Sharing your own screen? Nope, you can't see the other participants full size, even if you have two screens, you have to have the tiny icons. A disaster.
neilv
More useful to me would be something that reveals the Zoom option to open in Web browser (without me having to know that option is hidden, and clicking around on the buttons to pretend to try to launch the Zoom desktop program, which there is NFW I'm ever going to install).
FabioBertone
That's a nifty extension. I had though of developing it myself, so THANKS.

Apart from the number of people that will tell you of other ways to better handle zoom zombie tabs... yes, a lot of people open zoom links from their Google calendar and collect them through the day.

godmode2019
Why would you Install any of this spyware when you can just use the web version and know everything is sandboxed as good as a browser can offer.
forgotusername6
I suppose because there is a theory that a native application can provide a better video experience than webrtc. I've no idea whether that is true for zoom.
KyeRussell
Because they don’t always do the same things? I’m assuming that as someone with this vocal a view, you seldom actually use the app if you can help it.
jkbr
> are there other sites that this extension should support?

Figma comes to mind. Perhaps the best approach would be to allow the user to define additional auto-close rules manually.

OJFord
And AWS VPN Client. It leaves a tiny plaintext page open saying 'you can now close this tab' or similar, there's absolutely no reason you wouldn't, I don't understand why they don't just include the tiny amount of JS to do it itself.
zeschnell
Thanks, all! Will work on adding these :)
fatfox
That’s actually super useful. Thanks for sharing!
shultays 

  Read all data on all websites
Is this really needed?
a13o
No, the extension could define host_permissions specifically for the supported sites.

If these apps have on prem, or some other technique for customizing the domain, the extension could request optional permissions programmatically in response to engaging with the extension icon.

I think they'd be good additions. <all_urls> permission leads to extra review scrutiny when submitting a build to the Chrome Web Store. And if you get popular enough there will be gentleman callers that want to buy your extension (and your users (to run custom js of unknown motive on all their websites)).

zeschnell
Thanks for this—this is instructive! Definitely going to change this on the next version submission. You’re right; if I want to support additional websites, then I should explicitly add them to host_permissions.
e40
Why I won’t install so many extensions that seem useful.
phinnaeus
Is this open source? Do you have plans to support other sites?
sleepyhead
> Do folks tend to use the browser versions of these apps?

Given that Zoom requires admin rights to install and has had numerous security issues I definitively use the browser version even though they really push their native client.

Nifty extension though.

thiht
Very good idea! I look forward to giving it a try.

Would you consider supporting Firefox, additionally to Chrome? I assume webextensions would make it not too much of a pain?

Also, could you add support for Linear[1], Miro[2] and Around[3] in your extension?

[1]: https://linear.app/

[2]: https://miro.com/

[3]: https://www.around.co/

konfusinomicon
as a mostly dark interface user I tend to use the browser tab that zoom opens as a light source so I don't look like I'm in a dungeon on camera
mmh0000
The feature I would really love to see would be having the actual plug-in be available through the Github releases page.

Not all of us have access to the play store/extension store nor want to jump through Google’s hoops to get it.

zeschnell
Good point--added a GH issue for it [0] & hope to get to this this weekend!

In the meantime (at least for Chrome), you can clone / download the repo, zip it, and then load into Chrome yourself.

[0] https://github.com/zchr/zoomies/issues/7