2
1 Comment

I might've built the worst possible chrome extension in history

Don't get me wrong. I think it's pretty useful.

But it's such a narrow-purposed extension.

It works seamlessly. After a while, you might not ever remember you've installed such extension.

User experience wise, it's great! But it's like the worst product to market it.

And because there's no UI, I can't even take a screenshot of the extension. 😅


I built it to solve a problem that I had. But, if you happen to have the same problem and it works for you, it's all worth it.

The problem I had:

When downloading files with the same name, Chrome just appends (1) at the end of the filename and saves it to your download folder.

Then I had to go to my download folder and either try to

  • rename it if it's indeed a different file but with the same name

or

  • delete it if it's a duplicate file

That feels like something can be improved. So, I looked up chrome API and played around it for a few hours, and built this extension.

This extension prompts you the "save as" dialog when you trying to download a file that has the same name in your local download folder.

Now, when you try to download a file with the same name, you can

  • rename it
  • overwrite the existing one
  • or, cancel the download

without having to download the file first.


And it's also open source:
GitHub link

To install from chrome web store:
Chrome web store link

on January 20, 2022