1397805 - a helpful description of an uri-scheme

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: File Handling, enhancement, P3)

Description

[gaby de wilde]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:55.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/55.0
Build ID: 20170816210634

Steps to reproduce:

1) I typed an uri with an unsupported scheme.

2) I clicked a link with an unsupported scheme.


Actual results:

1) I got a google search result (google is my default search engine)

2) I got a page that said: The address wasn’t understood. Firefox doesn’t know how to open this address, because one of the following protocols (aaa) isn’t associated with any program or is not allowed in this context. You might need to install other software to open this address.


Expected results:

There is no need to leave the users in the dark and the developers in the cold.

While 1 and 2 are not entirely useless Firefox should provide better information and it should be the same in both situations.

While this isn't the right terminology: I imagine there should be an exotic keyword like $1://$2 that displays a page with a description of 1) the uri-scheme and/or protocol, 2) how to use it and 3) the website and/or specifications.

For example, an attempt to visit aaa://banana would show a page like:

------
You've tried to open:

aaa://banana

Firefox doesn’t know how to open this address, because the Diameter Base Protocol (aaa) isn’t associated with any program.

There are currently no known programs to use it [submit one]

You can read more about the Diameter Base Protocol here:

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6733

Search $defaultSearchEngineName for "Diameter Base Protocol"

----

When the user tries to open something like:

zero://asdfADSFasdfASDFasdf123412341234/

firefox could first check if:

http://127.0.0.1:43110/asdfADSFasdfASDFasdf123412341234/

Yields any results then either redirect there (probably with a first time prompt) or:

------
You've tried to open:

zero://asdfADSFasdfASDFasdf123412341234/

Firefox doesn’t know how to open this address, because the ZeroNet Protocol (aaa) isn’t associated with any program and there is no server configured on 127.0.0.1:43110 [change ip or port number]

Instructions on how to install ZeroNet can be found here:

https://zeronet.io/

You can read more about the ZeroNet protocol here:

https://zeronet.readthedocs.io/en/latest/help_zeronet/network_protocol/

Search $defaultSearchEngineName for "ZeroNet"
------

Trying to visit:

http://127.0.0.1:43110/asdfADSFasdfASDFasdf123412341234/

Or

http://localhost:43110/asdfADSFasdfASDFasdf123412341234/

Would yield a similar page explaining the port is usually associated with ZeroNet.

Comment 1

[gaby de wilde]

I forgot to mention: The informative error page should be carefully worded to avoid being taken as an endorsement. There could be a specific sentence like "Mozilla does not endorse foo" and if the application/uri-scheme/protocol is not well known the "at your own risk" warning. If there are multiple applications available of which only one is open source it could be endorsed but in general, to avoid preference, a carefully crafted search query on the default engine configured should be preferred.

From the many discussions I read about this issue I gather that intentionally not providing information is a popular choice(!?) Usually the person promoting that idea is under the false impression that uri-schemes that do not work will result in the user figuring things out by himself. IMHO this is about as unreasonable and unhelpful as it is unrealistic and silly. All projects technically requiring an uri-scheme are like ghost towns compared to what they could/should be.

We should be able to use uri-schemes to link to "new" projects like freenet, zeronet, ipfs, yacy etc etc but in creating such descriptive pages we should also ponder the legacy situations like news:. Take gopher for example where part of the excuse for removal was an extension that atm is no longer usable. In that situation (until something better comes along) it might be reasonable to link its error page to floodgap public gopher proxy with an option to "always redirect gopher links here" (if they are not iframes, images or anything else usable for finger printing like moz-icon https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/23424 )

example gopher proxy link:

http://gopher.floodgap.com/gopher/gw?gopher://gopher.floodgap.com:70/0/gopher/tech/rfc1436.txt

I see no argument on the gopher <s>hate pages</s> bug reports for demoting it all the way down to an unknown protocol. I think it is rude and disrespectful? no? To quote from bug 388195, comment 8

"To put it bluntly, today Firefox and other Mozilla derivatives are praised as very good Gopher clients in the Gopher community. Moreover, Firefox is the only widespread, cross-platform, open source graphical therefore easy to use client available today. The Removal of the Gopher protocol would be a big loss for us, and IMHO, Mozilla would also lose something."

I suppose it would also be nice to have some usability requirements before tolerating links to application websites and specs. For example: Simply linking to a bunch of code on github shouldn't be sufficient to merit a link and a spec should look much like a text document and read like a spec. Even a gui to switch the thing on/off could be required.

In ignorance I suppose the "unknown" mime type interface could share some of the love but thats a story for a different bug report :)