1412116 - invalid position of webrtc-indicator in Linux (GNOME)

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Site Permissions, defect, P4)

Description

[Andrei Antonov]

Attachment: Screenshot from 2017-10-27 00-05-02.png

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:56.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/56.0
Build ID: 20170928213956

Steps to reproduce:

make video/voice call via Firefox on some site (for example: voice call via Facebook-Messenger)


Actual results:

when voice connection have established, shows webrtc-indicator (overlay element) that has invalid position -- it hides GNOME's button for opening "Notification" area, hides time area.. for what? why this place was to blame?


Expected results:

of cource you can fix this issue by changing overlay-element to another position...

but, sorry guys, but overlay-element -- it it's most stupid idea that I saw. really -- it's most inadequate solution that may be choosen.

another position of overlay -- can smooth out the problem. but not solve completly. there isn't the good place for overlay -- all places would be bad (but not all these bad places are equally bad)

I understand that you introduced it to security/private reason. but WHY IT WAS MADE VIA OVERLAY-IMPLEMENTATION? (may by overlay is good for Microsoft Windows, but exactly is not good for Linux with its various Desktop Environments)

please, make more *modest* indicator, that will not goes out of the borders of the Firefox window.

or just make indicator in "System Status Icons" area of GNOME (not via overlay implementation). it would be great indicator (because active WebRTC -- it is realy the status. and "System Status Icons" just contains various statuses).

Comment 1

[Andrei Antonov]

read this comment too -- https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/disable-webrtc-overlay/reviews/837893/

Comment 2

[Andreas Pehrson [:pehrsons]]

My take on this is that it is an overlay on linux because there's no consistent API for putting such an indicator at an OS level (compare to OSX where it is part of the top bar, or Android where it is a sticky notification).

It is also important that it goes outside the borders of the Firefox application from a privacy perspective. Otherwise a user would be unaware of the ongoing capture while Firefox is in the background.

I think moving the overlay is a fine workaround for when it covers something. I think our official stance on this would be to accept patches for gnome-specific behavior or let distros put such patches on top; but I'll find out.

Comment 3

[Jan-Ivar Bruaroey [:jib] (needinfo? me)]

I agree with comment 2. On OSX this isn't an issue since that OS has an API for adding an icon to the desktop top-bar. Pity linux and Windows don't. This is solved per platform, and I think the best we can do here is take a patch to move the position.

Comment 5

[Jeff Fortin]

> It is also important that it goes outside the borders of the Firefox application

I disagree with that, it should be part of Firefox's UI chrome in my opinion, because Firefox shouldn't/wouldn't allow the mic and camera to simply activate themselves without the user allowing them in a conscious action when entering a webrtc webpage (and if that's not the case, fix that, it's a bug.)

But if you really must, then use standard GNOME/Freedesktop notifications with the "resident" and "persistent" flags so that they remain on the users' screen until manually dismissed. See https://developer.gnome.org/notification-spec/#protocol

Comment 6

[Jan-Ivar Bruaroey [:jib] (needinfo? me)]

(In reply to Jeff Fortin from comment #5)
> Firefox shouldn't/wouldn't allow the mic and camera to simply activate themselves
> without the user allowing them in a conscious action when entering a webrtc webpage

It doesn't. Firefox's permission prompts are per-use by default, giving users full control, including the option to "Remember this decision" to forgo prompts in the future for the site.

In addition, cam and mic capture is blocked from starting in background tabs until the user visits the tab.

But even with those measures in place, it's still easy to forget the camera and/or mic is on when visiting a different tab or window, or when minimizing the browser. That's why the reminder is on the desktop.

Comment 7

[Florian Quèze [:florian]]

A way to make this less annoying would be to remember the position after the user moved it. But I agree with comment 2 too: we would acceot a patch to have on Gnome the behavior we currently have on OS X.