Vimeo Chrome Extension Should not Exist

Vimeo Record is a bad chrome extension. Vimeo web app is great for recording short videos, but you should not use their extension because it could kill your productivity.

Video Review

Vimeo is Great, their chrome extension is not

First off, let me say that I use vimeo's web app almost every day. However, Not many people know that they can record short videos from this page: https://vimeo.com/record/start-recording Without having to install the extension. That is what I do all the time. Although I am a chrome extension developer, I try to use as little browser plugins as possible. This tweet comes to mind:

Beginner's mistake

Here is a line from their manifest.json Even to a beginner chrome extension developer it is obvious what's wrong. The extension will be executing this 1.4MB JavaScript file on EVERY page load. On my high-end pc this results in a 50ms blocking delay: On a slower computer or a laptop it causes a 600ms delay: And it takes 10MB of memory on EVERY PAGE. Which is A LOT

Without Vimeo Record:

With Vimeo Record:

How can this be improved?

According to Google's Best Practice Advice: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/webstore/best_practices/ This should not be allowed. Vimeo Record should use chrome.scripting API to inject this content script only when a user clicks the browser action. Or not inject anything at all, and just open a new tab, because I don't see the extension adding any value to the product at all.

Why are they asking us to install it?

On the very page where vimeo provides this feature they are asking users to install the extension. Why?

Moving to Manifest Version 3

The version of the extension which was discussed in this blog post is based on Manifest Version 2. Let's hope this bug will be fixed in their future updates that are MV3-based.