Unify our external app blocker with Firefox's

Firefox tries to prompt the user before opening external apps, but often fails. This is why we created the Torbutton external-app-blocker.js component. Can we unify this approach with the existing Firefox prefs for network.protocol-handler.warn-external.*?

added component::applications/tor browser owner::tbb-team priority::medium resolution::fixed severity::normal sponsor::U status::closed tbb-torbutton-conversion type::defect labels

Trac:
Sponsor: N/A to SponsorU

Trac:
Cc: N/A to mcs, brade
Reviewer: N/A to N/A
Severity: N/A to Normal

Trac:

Mockup of integrated download dialog

Kathy and I have been looking at this ticket and #19273 (moved). Our current leaning is to integrate the Tor-specific warning text into Firefox's dialog (using a XUL overlay). We will also need to make some small changes to the core browser code to ensure that all actions default to "Always ask" for external files and protocols. Here is a mockup:

What do other people think of this approach?

It might be too late to block launching applications at this point. See: comment:74:ticket:9901.

Replying to gk:

It might be too late to block launching applications at this point. See: comment:74:ticket:9901.

Thanks for that pointer. Since it is difficult to prove that external applications will not be launched without prompting (especially given the complexity of the external app handling code), Kathy and I plan to preserve the existing, Tor-specific dialog. Patches will be posted in #19273 (moved).

Trac:
Cc: mcs, brade to mcs, brade, arthuredelstein

mcs/brade: Do you think this is done or is this a ticket for a patch that fixes network.protocol-handler.warn-external.*?

Trac:
Status: new to needs_information

Replying to gk:

mcs/brade: Do you think this is done or is this a ticket for a patch that fixes network.protocol-handler.warn-external.*?

Since we decided to keep our safe approach of using a Tor-specific prompt, I think this ticket can be closed (unless you think we will revisit that decision in the future).

I think someone should fix https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=440892 (maybe be simply removing the network.protocol-handler.warn-external.* prefererences, since Firefox has not supported them for a long time). But that is a Mozilla issue, really.

Closing this then as fixed by #19273 (moved).

Trac:
Status: needs_information to closed
Resolution: N/A to fixed

closed

moved to tpo/applications/tor-browser#16623 (closed)