1803061 - Feature Request: A visible "Offline Mode" indicator, and a DOM function to invoke this

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: General, enhancement)

Description

[blitmap]

Steps to reproduce:

(this is a feature request - N/A)

Actual results:

(this is a feature request - N/A)

Expected results:

Web applications that can function offline and after loading will become more common. I was reading a Ycombinator posting earlier about how we use apps like Cyberchef and others to transform/dissect/pretty-print things like JSON or do url encoding/decoding/etc and it's such a risk that folks casually paste in sensitive data. When I find an app to do the transformation I need, I usually cut the network connection to guarantee it's not 'phoning home', but that doesn't prevent it from re-syncing when I go back online, or keeping session/cookie data.

1. I'm asking for an indicator in the address bar (like the HTTPS badge) that a webpage is functioning "Offline". This should be visually different from a loss of connectivity.

2. A toolbar toggle for a user to forcibly take a page offline.

3. I'd like 2-3 functions (or a API/object to collect these) to be added.
   a. toggleOffline() - this would allow a web page to ask that the browser block all further web requests, abort any in progress, and visually indicate to the user that the page is now offline. It would even prompt the user to Accept offline mode. "This web page would like to take itself offline/online? Yes / No" It would have a checkbox to preserve cookie data or to erase this before going back online to the same domain later.
   b. takeOfflinePermanently() - this would do essentially the same as the above, but the user could not accept/decline this. It would entirely be in the control of the web page that after a call to this function, no further network requests will happen. The web page is "asking" the browser to enforce this. The user would still check whether they want to preserve session data for the next time the page loaded while online.

I'm envisioning a future where many office suite applications are served over IPFS and function in offline mode, in a "web 3.0" runtime. Too dreamy?

This request is to form out an offline mode that is a "first-class citizen" and will be recognizable to users in a way they can trust/expect it to protect their data.

Comment 1

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'DevTools::Netmonitor' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please correct in case you think the bot is wrong.

Comment 2

[Nicolas Chevobbe [:nchevobbe]]

You're asking for different things and it should probably be better to open distinct bugs for each one
3 should be discussed at the spec level

Comment 3

[Negritas Sergiu, Desktop QA]

Hello! Thank you for submitting this issue I will mark it as NEW in order for our developers to get involved and take it into consideration for further releases.

Have a nice day!

Comment 4

[Sam Foster [:sfoster] (he/him)]

Firefox Connect may be a better place to propose a feature request like this. Can you post your idea there?

Comment 5

[Sam Foster [:sfoster] (he/him)]

:jon, if an idea like this has been proposed on Connect, can you let us know so we can close this bug?

Comment 6

[Jon S]

(In reply to Sam Foster [:sfoster] (he/him) from comment #5)

:jon, if an idea like this has been proposed on Connect, can you let us know so we can close this bug?

I'm not finding this idea on Connect. If it gets added, I'll let you know.

Comment 7

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

Redirect a needinfo that is pending on an inactive user to the triage owner.
:mossop, since the bug has recent activity, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Comment 8

[Dave Townsend [:mossop] (PTO until July 20)]

As mentioned the scope of the request here is too large for a single bug and this is something that is likely better suited to discussion in Firefox Connect.