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by duxup 2793 days ago
Related question, What would you use a Postman Chrome Extension... for?

Rather than say just... use Postman?

I'm not disagreeing with the use, just wondering how they use it compared to Postman itself. I'm a n00b web dev, I just want to know how others work and why.

7 comments

> Related question, What would you use a Postman Chrome Extension... for?

Postman started off as a Chrome Extension (ran in a chrome tab), and then became a Chrome App. The standalone apps for desktops came later. A lot of people use the chrome extension because it's convenient.

Source: I worked at Postman until about a year ago.

Native Postman is garbage in that it doesn't even support authenticated corp proxies.
I think I knew that once, but only started playing with Postman after it was a standalone application.
I believe the extension can be used in conjunction with the app to let the app use the cookies in your browser session, but to be honest, I've only seen others do it, and it was back in the day when Postman was just a "Chrome App" and not a detached application. Maybe that functionality exists in the new Postman app without the chrome extension.
I can't speak to Postman specifically, because I barely use it enough for it to make a difference. But in a more general sense, I tend to prefer <thing> in a browser over <thing> but in its own window. It means one fewer program filling my taskbar.
I can see that, but for me it's more:

- Dork with code/ routes in one window and/or dorking around with the front end code.

- Postman (the stand alone program) in another window to check what the return from the server really is or what the API is doing now.

So I've got it on it's on dedicated space (not all the time but often enough).

I very rarely have only a single browser window, and I'm not coding in a browser anyway, so that's not actually a huge factor in the decision. I agree with using windows to easily switch between tweak and test.
A friend of mine works for a large bank and isn't allowed to install desktop applications but has chrome installed so can 'sneak in' certain apps through browser extensions.

Eg. whatsapp, 1password

The Chrome Extension has the 'interceptor' feature which listens to ALL network requests made in the browser on a particular page and pipes it to the Postman App. This was very neat for me to debug my requests.

However, the standalone app doesn't have that feature (yet). So I will continue to use the Chrome Extension version until they have that feature available in the Standalone app.

For some idiotic reason the native version of Postman does not support authentication against corp proxies. As a result, when using it at work, behind a corp proxy that requires authentication, the native postman doesn't work!

The only version that works is the Chrome App Postman, which simply uses the Chrome network stack, which obviously works behind the proxy.

Boooo to Postman.

"What would you use a Postman Chrome Extension... for"

If I'm not mistaken, it started as a browser extension.