1269469 - Remove the Downloads API

Status: REOPENED

(Core :: DOM: Core & HTML, defect, P3)

Description

[(no longer active)]

Fabrice, can we do this now?

Comment 1

[[:fabrice] Fabrice Desré]

No, we need to keep this one. We patched it on Pine to be chrome-only though.

Comment 2

[Andrew Sutherland [:asuth] (he/him)]

Does b2g really need it to be a DOM API though?  Chrome-privileged main process code has Downloads.jsm[1] available and for sorta-privileged code in any process there's also the Downloads WebExtensions API[2] available.

The current uses in the kanikani branch continue to be:
- Get notified of new downloads.
- Hear about state changes to those downloads
- Be able to remove/cancel the download.
Both of those APIs provide these mechanisms.

Notably, the b2g/gaia code does not leverage the download database, opting instead to maintain its own DataStore (which maybe is broken now?).  Accordingly, the coupling is arguably already quite limited.

1: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/JavaScript_code_modules/Downloads.jsm
2: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/downloads

Comment 3

[[:fabrice] Fabrice Desré]

We don't want to rely on chrome .jsm or xpcom in gaia, even when served from chrome:// uris.

Using the Downloads WebExtensions api would be great, I didn't know about this one! I'll be fine with going this way once we have WebExtensions available again in b2g (they used to be shipped as apps).