[solardev]

Well, in my case, I'm always in Chrome anyway, so having it as a browser popup is super convenient for being able to start/pause the timer in 2 clicks.

If it was an app, I'd probably never use it because it would take too much time to unlock my phone, find the app, wait for the app to launch, go to the timer, and then hit pause. It's a lot of friction for something I'll typically do 3-4 times a day, starting and stopping the timer to work on other things or just to take a break.

[kimelnick]

And if we would speak about desktop app - how does that fill? Some app that living in your tray area?

[solardev]

Just for time tracking? That seems overkill to me, in terms of having to manage the app downloads, installs, and updates across multiple machines. And I'd worry about security concerns. The Chrome extension is tied to your user profile and auto-synced across browser instances when you log in, and is just a tiny bit of JS that's sandboxed and subject to Chrome's robust permission model. I'd choose that over a desktop app any day for something as simple as a time tracker. This is the one I use, and I think it's not even an official Harvest app but a third-party thing that hooks into their API: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/harvest-time-tracke... (edit: My bad, it DOES seem like an official app)

On the other hand, if you were thinking of building the full web app into a native experience, then yeah, a desktop app would be better than an extension. But I still probably wouldn't use it over the regular website, especially if it were just an Electron/Webview wrapper anyway. In my experience the desktop apps/PWAs tend to be clunky and limit the UI in some significant way (such as not being able to easily right-click, or see the URL bar, or use uBlock, or easily silence notifications or prevent on-launch updates, etc).

My work currently uses Basecamp and I tried their desktop app once or twice, but it was so bad I went back to the website.

[kimelnick]

got it! Thank your for the details. Will consider chrome extensions for sure. May I somehow connect you later when I'll start playing around with it? Wanna hear feedback from an experienced harvest extension user

[solardev]

Sure, just emailed you.

PS at the website, under the "I've got more questions" accordion, the "Drop a line at email..." text isn't selectable or clickable.

[kimelnick]

Thanks! Let's keep in touch!