696283 - User is prompted to grant permission for geolocation API access too often

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core :: DOM: Geolocation, enhancement)

Description

[Brian Smith (:briansmith, :bsmith, use NEEDINFO?)]

+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #682455 +++

(In reply to Ian Melven :imelven from Bug 682455 comment 9)
> Firefox (on desktop and Fennec) prompts much more
> than the other desktop/mobile browsers i looked at when doing a survey of
> geolocation permissions across different platforms - other browsers prompt
> once and then do NOT prompt again if a geolocation API is called (sometimes
> even across reloading the page for some browsers) - in my testing, Firefox
> prompted on every call to a geolocation API.

IMO, granting the permission should grant access for some period of time (1+ hours?) for the same page, and when the permission has been granted, there should be an geolocation indicator near the security indicators that can be used to ungrant the permission.

Note that this bug is about asking for geolocation permission too often, and bug 682455 is about not asking for it enough.

Comment 3

[:garvan]

Not that granting for a window of time isn't a good idea, but it isn't specific to the geo permission prompt.

I think this is won't fix unless we aren't following de-facto browser standards here.
(The spec for what is expected of a geo request 'allow' https://www.w3.org/TR/geolocation-API/ wouldn't specify this level of detail).