766057 - Use IndexedDB to store data between re-starts instead of preferences or permission manager

Status: NEW

(Core :: General, defect)

Description

[Mounir Lamouri (:mounir)]

It seems like when we want to store data to be re-used later and make sure it is persistent between different starts, we are using preferences. Preferences is clearly odd for that usage because we do not want to store a preference and the user isn't expected to change the value manually.

IMO, we should probably use IndexedDB for those use cases. This is a persistent storage that isn't expected to be seen and modified by the user.

To make this happen we should:
1. have an rough idea of which preferences are actually data being stored;
2. create a helper allowing easy reading and writing of those values from JS and C++ ideally;
3. change the callers;

Comment 1

[Abhishek Potnis [:avp]]

Hi Mounir,
I am interested in working on this bug. Could you please guide me on getting started with this bug. I am having the mozilla-central folder containing the source code of firefox. Will I be needing some other source code for Core ? I am working on bugs for firefox but have never worked
on bugs for core. Please help me on getting started with this bug.

Thanks.

Comment 2

[Marco Castelluccio [:marco]]

Abhishek you just need the Firefox source code.

Comment 3

[David Teller [:Yoric] - still alive but not very active]

This change makes sense semantically. Performance-wise, this is harder to predict, as both Preferences and IndexedDB have non-trivial costs. It would be interesting to be able to measure the cost/benefit of this change.