Extending an extension with a native app.
Usecase I've recently come across a specific requirement from a customer who wanted a chrome extension fiddling with the user machine file system. To be more specific, the addon was supposed to allow for the download of a cloud-based compressed file, decompress it and place the result in a specific directory for consumption by another application. As many know, filesystem is sandboxed by chrome for security reasons and it is impossible per design to write files on the user machine outside of the control of the user. I ended-up with a specific architecture outsourcing of the unauthorized job to a native app which bears none of the constraints a chrome extension does. An elegant architecture NativeMessaging Chrome API allows an extension to control - ie launch,communicate with and close - an external application: Native application can be written in any language An instance of the native app is launched when the extension connects to a configured service Native app recei