Provide a list of things that we want/need changed in the Web Extension Spec

[flyingzumwalt]

related to #35

Given our experience building these web extensions, provide a list of things we want or need changed in the Web Extension spec in order to support IPFS in web browsers more cleanly. We will pass this list to the team who are working on the spec.

Example: Allow Web Extensions to provide protocol handlers.

[lidel]

Things identified during development of firefox add-on rewrite to WebExtension:

• Support PRogrammable, Custom Protocols with control over how Origin is calculated
  (details at Support Custom Protocols in WebExtension ipfs-companion#164, Tackle identifying origins with (or without?) dweb: paths #6 (comment))

  tl;dr: There is an open ticket at Bugzilla about need for better API for persistent/programmable protocol handler:

  • Firefox Bug 1271553 - Add ability to implement programmable custom protocol handler
  • I described the need for ability to control how Origin is handled by custom protocol in Firefox WebExtension: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1271553#c47

• Prevent mixed content warnings for TLS sites embedding IPFS resources (Prevent mixed content warnings for TLS sites embedding ipfs URIs ipfs-companion#75)

• API for reading TXT DNS records to check if any contains dnslink (Recognize IPFS gateways on arbitrary websites notes#92 (comment), Implement DNS query API js-ipfs#904, Support for /api/v0/dns/ ipfs-inactive/js-ipfs-http-client#501)

  Mozilla bug #1343849 means we won't have a native WebExtension API for DNS TXT lookups.

• non-hacky way to respond to requests with data downloaded by js-ipfs (more details in comments to Support for js-ipfs as a replacement for HTTP gateway ipfs-companion#248)

[flyingzumwalt]

need web workers to support webrtc

[dignifiedquire]

need fast, optimized webrtc data channels

[daviddias]

• need WebCrypto in non secure origins too
• need Streaming option for WebCrypto 1 2
• need WebRTC in WebWorkers, ServiceWorkers and WebExtensions 1 2 3 4 5 6
• need another way other than the Origin-Trial token to signal that we accept a request to be captured by a Service Worker

[daviddias]

@lgierth @flyingzumwalt what's the follow up to this thread? Shall we schedule a call?

[ghost]

We should make this into a comprehensive, prioritized list that we can point browser people too. Ideally with a brief description which features each of the items unlocks. There are things which are absolute dealbreakers (e.g. proper protocol handlers), and things which are important but not essential. The list should convey this importance and priorities.

[ghost]

We can then also use this list to track the outreach and progress for each of the items.

[lidel]

FYSA discussion moved to:

• https://github.com/ipfs-shipyard/arewedistributedyet/issues
• https://github.com/mozilla/libdweb/issues
  • Create WebExtensions Experiments to Prototype Missing APIs ipfs-companion#343