As a indie developer, I’m thinking of starting development of Chrome Extension. In this article, I’ve written Pros and Cons of Chrome Extension for indie developer in order to explain the reason why I thought so.

The reason why I've wanted to start developing a Chrome Extension.

I'm introducing some advantages of Chrome Extension. For indie developers, Chrome Extension can be the best option to develop among many choices such as iOS App, Web site, Library for developer. After considering what I should develop, Chrome Extension came into my mind.

There are six strong reasons why I think that Chrome Extension is good choice:

1. Development Language is JavaScript that is a common and open language.
2. There is a market place to distribute the product.
3. iOS costs for developing and publishing a product, but Chrome Extension needs only $5 as registration fee.And it's only one time.
4. Chrome extension does not need server-side programs. It means you don't need cloud infra cost too.
5. Because Chrome Extension is a helper of browsers and other web services, we can make it with fewer functions than creating a new web site or new App. It's important for indie developers not having enough time to develop.
6. Chrome Extension can extend functions of existing web services like Twitter,Youtube. so,I think there is an opportunity that many of existed service user may use it.

Considerations about developing Chrome Extension

1. Are there similar Extensions already in the Store?
2. Problems from website design update

First, there are already many extensions in the market because it's been about 10 years since the Chrome Extension was released in 2010. Even if you come up with a good new idea, in most cases, you would be disappointed to find similar extensions in the market.

Second, if your extension modifies other websites, When the UI design of the website is updated, would cause some problems in your extension. Developers need to fix it immediately when they find it due to user complaints.

Resources - How to develop Chrome Extension.

Official documents and many video tutorials are provided. We should take care that it's not old information in order to avoid learning knowledge based on old versions of API. I recommend you to learn using materials updated within one year.

I've studied the following official document and a Udemy course.

• Chrome developer documentation

  • developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions

• Learn Google Chrome Extension development using modern web frameworks. JavaScript,React, TypeScript, Webpack and more!

  • benesse.udemy.com/course/chrome-extension

Next Article

Next article, I'm planning to explain architecture of Chrome Extension.

• Architecture of Chrome Extension