Create WebExtensions Experiments to Prototype Missing APIs

Background

WebExtensions are a cross-browser system for developing browser add-ons.

Firefox has a transparent process for triaging requests for new APIs, plus there is a special SDK for creating WebExtensions Experiments .

WebExtensions Experiments allow developers to write experimental WebExtensions APIs for Firefox. They can be used to prototype APIs for landing in Firefox, or for use on Nightly or Developer Edition.

Open Problems in Browser Contexts

• Problem #1: Inability to Inject HTTP Responses by WebExtension
• Problem #2: Inability to Control How Origin Is Calculated
  • FYSA this is a complex problem and there is very little will to change how existing Origin-based perimeter is calculated. Due to this, we decided to focus on re-using current Origin logic by putting CID in the authority component: ipfs://<cidv1b32>/ in the near future
• Problem #3: Inability to Control Address in Location Bar
• WebRTC does not work in Web Worker
• No access TCP/UDP Socket API
• No way to announce node in local network (need for a beacon API, such as Multicast DNS)
• No filesystem API, low performance of IDB

Experiments to Prototype

Work below is up-for-grabs, unless marked as "in progress".

mozilla/libdweb

This repositiory hosts community effort of implementing experimental APIs for Firefox WebExtensions with a goal of enabling dweb protocols in Firefox through an add-ons. The long term goal of this project is to eventually integrate this APIs into WebExtensions ecosystem. – https://github.com/mozilla/libdweb

• Streaming protocol handler (with mime-sniffing and directory listing) (https://github.com/mozilla/libdweb/issues/2)
  • IN PROGRESS: https://github.com/ipfs-shipyard/ipfs-companion/pull/533
• MulticastDNS (https://github.com/mozilla/libdweb/issues/7)
  • IN PROGRESS: https://twitter.com/_alanshaw/status/1027296652594499584, https://github.com/ipfs-shipyard/ipfs-companion/pull/553
• TCP/UDP Sockets (https://github.com/mozilla/libdweb/issues/5, https://github.com/mozilla/libdweb/issues/4)
  • IN PROGRESS https://github.com/ipfs-shipyard/ipfs-companion/pull/553
• Virtual Filesystem API (improved storage backend for js-ipfs-repo) (https://github.com/mozilla/libdweb/issues/13)
• Real Filesystem API (mounting directory picked by user) (https://github.com/mozilla/libdweb/issues/8)

References

• https://github.com/ipfs/team-mgmt/blob/master/meeting-notes/2017/2017-10-02--lab-week-discussions-on-ipfs-in-browser-extension.md
• https://webextensions-experiments.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
• https://github.com/web-ext-experiments/about
• Bugzilla: Bug 1271553 - Add ability to implement programmable custom protocol handler
  • "Problems 2&3" were born in comment 47 (note that it is 1 year old, was written before our browser.protocol PoC in Brave)
  • "Problem 1" – comment 52
• protocol handler prior art
  • browser.protocol.* APIs from brave/muon and electron (background: https://github.com/ipfs-shipyard/ipfs-companion/issues/312#issuecomment-352471005)
    • protocol.registerStringProtocol (electron, brave/muon)
    • protocol.registerBufferProtocol (brave/muon)
    • protocol.registerStreamProtocol (electron)