729777 - (aboutPagesDOMStorage) Eradicate localStorage from about: pages

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Comment 1

[Kyle Huey (Exited; not receiving bugmail, old account, do not use)]

I'm told there may already be bugs for this.

Comment 2

[Justin Dolske [:Dolske]]

I suppose I could be a jerk an INCOMPLETE this for lack of context, but I'll instead ask for some! :) [If for no other reason than people not following IRC on a daily basis will wonder what's up.]

Comment 3

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

localStorage is a Web platform API that will be around for years to come... unless we want to break the Web. Context for this bug would be appreciated.

Comment 4

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

basically the request is to not use localStorage in about pages (about:home and about:newTab), cause it has a cost.

Comment 5

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

I suppose a the suggested replacement is indexedDB, that does all IO on a separate thread.

Comment 6

[Kyle Huey (Exited; not receiving bugmail, old account, do not use)]

(In reply to Marco Bonardo [:mak] from comment #5)
> I suppose a the suggested replacement is indexedDB, that does all IO on a
> separate thread.

Probably.

Comment 7

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

(In reply to Marco Bonardo [:mak] from comment #4)
> basically the request is to not use localStorage in about pages (about:home
> and about:newTab), cause it has a cost.

Sure, doing this reduces a couple of pages that use localStorage.

IMO our efforts would be better spent reducing the performance cost of localStorage for Firefox users who experience that cost every day whether our about: pages use it or not.

Comment 8

[Kyle Huey (Exited; not receiving bugmail, old account, do not use)]

(In reply to Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich) from comment #7)
> (In reply to Marco Bonardo [:mak] from comment #4)
> > basically the request is to not use localStorage in about pages (about:home
> > and about:newTab), cause it has a cost.
> 
> Sure, doing this reduces a couple of pages that use localStorage.
> 
> IMO our efforts would be better spent reducing the performance cost of
> localStorage for Firefox users who experience that cost every day whether
> our about: pages use it or not.

Somebody is going to have to pay the cost of synchronously accessing the disk.  Right now it's the whole browser.  Taras and I have a plan to make it so that only the relevant page pays that cost, but if the pages the browser runs on startup are using localStorage ...

Comment 9

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

(In reply to Kyle Huey [:khuey] ([e-mail]) from comment #8)
> but if the pages the browser
> runs on startup are using localStorage ...

IIRC, the grand plan from UX is to turn on session restore by default at some point.

Comment 10

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

Another option is to mount a project-wide assault on the use of global/local/sessionStorage, because it's broken by design:

* encourage standards bodies to deprecate early
* make the MDN docs scary as hell
* make the MDN docs for IndexedDB awesome as hell
* create a social media armageddon around how bad it is

Comment 11

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

(In reply to Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich) from comment #10)
> * create a social media armageddon around how bad it is

well, we just blogged about how awesome it is, like 2 days ago.

Comment 12

[Florian Bender]

I think this is fixed, with bug 889442 changed to be blocked by this one (that dependency got flipped).

Comment 13

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

(In reply to Florian Bender from comment #12)
> (that dependency got flipped).

for good reasons, I don't consider this fixed until we stop allowing to misuse dom storage.

Comment 14

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

Fixed by dependencies, finally.