This is a very simple web browser extension to eliminate Zoom's annoying insistence on you opening every meeting link in their desktop applications. Why install a bloated, buggy, proprietary application when the web client does everything you want?
It's particularly annoying on Linux, because
- it prompts you every time to open the app with xdg-open
- their app is crap; it hard-locks a lot of systems I've tried it on
With this extension, every Zoom meeting link will be redirected to the web client join page for the meeting.
This should be installable from this extension's Mozilla add-ons page .
This works on Blink-based browsers (Chomium/Chrome, Vivaldi, Brave, etc), as they support the declarativeNetRequest API from manifest V3.
This extension is not currently available through the Chrome Web Store, so it's not a one-click install-and-run, unfortunately.
You can install this by turning developer-mode on in Chrome/etc, downloading this repository, and adding this "unpacked extension" to your browser.
Apparently using it with Safari requires you to run it through an automatic web extension converter with Xcode , though I haven't tried it.
It may also work on other non-Blink WebKit browsers, but I haven't tried any.
For Firefox, use the Manifest v2 version above.
See Manifest v3 rant below.
It's not in the Chrome store because in order to publish an extension through the store -- even if you're not charging money for it -- you have to pay an up-front fee to Google, in addition to giving them every personal bit of information about yourself, your life, your friends, your email, and the rights to your first-born child (there's that advertising business again).
If you have problems with this extension, please let me know. Open an issue on the Github project page .
Note: I disapprove of the changes Google introduced in manifest V3. The declarativeNetRequest change seems explicitly designed to break ad- and tracking-blocker extensions like uBlock Origin, AdBlock Plus, Privacy Badger, etc. The fact that those types of extensions impact Google's bottom line -- because it is primarily an advertising company -- I'm sure had no impact on their decision.
See Mozilla's take on this for more information.