I have a question about the general use of web extensions.
I was told that web extensions are for enhancing the browsing experience only and any other use of them would be a misuse.
Is there any reason why a web extension couldn’t or shouldn’t be used to package a desktop application instead of using Electron or a progressive web application?
For example, I have a large (50,000 lines of code) javascript program that I run in a local html page as a tool in which a user can build study modules. It uses indexedDB and backs it up to the client disk.
I was experimenting with opening an empty html file from the local disk and loading the javascript file based on the match as a content script. It seems to work fine. The only reason the local html file is needed is that the program allows for the integration of local files–such as audio, video, PDFs, images–into the study modules, and using the content script within a local html page makes it easy to use a relative path and have the same origin. If these files were not needed, then the program could potentially run in an extension page only and be opened through a browser button.
There is a games and entertainment category listed in the MDN Web Doc about “What is an extension?”, but nothing like tools or work applications is mentioned.
Since the web extension APIs, in this case at least, provide sufficient added functionality, the web extension could run this program like a desktop application without packaging the same JS, HTML, CSS files along with a Chrome browser and node.js. And that seems to be a better option for the user.
Is it “wrong” to use a web extension for this purpose? If submitted, and assuming it met all other requirements, would this type of web extension be approved and published or rejected?
Thank you.