Closed Bug 776477 Opened 11 years ago Closed 6 years ago

[meta] about:newtab should be unprivileged

Categories

(Firefox :: New Tab Page, defect)

defect
Not set
normal

Tracking

()

RESOLVED FIXED
Tracking Status
e10s later ---
firefox55 --- wontfix
firefox56 --- fixed

People

(Reporter: ttaubert, Unassigned)

References

(Blocks 1 open bug)

Details

(Keywords: meta, Whiteboard: [tracking])

The new tab page should be unprivileged as that would be better for a couple of security reasons and we could allow javascript: links and bookmarklets on the page.

We can easily register the page with the JSM as we do now and let the JSM handle all privileged code for us. Communicating via messages we can receive links, pin/unpin sites, etc. I took a quick stab at it and there are two problems:

1) It currently is a XUL page because of better RTL handling - bug 455553 comment #96. Since we disabled remote XUL it's disabled for unprivileged pages.

2) We'll need a content script to communicate between the message managers. I'm not sure how the communication between the content script and the unprivileged page itself works.
Blocks: 728313
Blocks: 776167
Assignee: nobody → andres
Depends on: 783478
(In reply to Tim Taubert [:ttaubert] from comment #0)
> 1) It currently is a XUL page because of better RTL handling - bug 455553
> comment #96. Since we disabled remote XUL it's disabled for unprivileged
> pages.

Looks like we need to turn about:newtab into an HTML page (see bug 783478 comment #5) in order to make it unprivileged.
(In reply to Tim Taubert [:ttaubert] from comment #1)
> Looks like we need to turn about:newtab into an HTML page (see bug 783478
> comment #5) in order to make it unprivileged.

Not necessarily true - see bug 783478 comment 9.
Assignee: andres → nobody
I hate to bump this, I know you are very busy Tim.

I've attached a patch in a bug blocked by this, with the hope of fixing a limitation with the current "new tab page"-implementation.

Is this still possible to fix?
Flags: needinfo?(ttaubert)
It is definitely possible to fix this but it will require a non-trivial amount of work. It's not currently on our roadmap but I'll gladly take and review patches. This might be a little trickier than just re-writing a XUL page to be written in HTML, so be warned.
Flags: needinfo?(ttaubert)
Blocks: 901586
Blocks: fxe10s
Whiteboard: [triage]
Whiteboard: [triage]
Whiteboard: p=0
Depends on: 972406
Mass tracking-e10s flag change. Filter bugmail on "2be0fcce-e36a-4e2c-aa80-0e3d33eb5406".
tracking-e10s: --- → +
No longer blocks: fxdesktopbacklog
Flags: firefox-backlog+
Depends on: 996914
Flags: firefox-backlog+
Whiteboard: p=0 → [tracking]
Mass-move to Firefox::New Tab Page.

Filter on new-tab-page-component.
Component: Tabbed Browser → New Tab Page
Flags: firefox-backlog+
Depends on: 1021653
Depends on: 1021654
Depends on: 1021667
Keywords: meta
Summary: [New Tab Page] about:newtab should be unprivileged → [meta] about:newtab should be unprivileged
Is this work prioritized somehow?
With content services making about:newtab more useful, it becomes stranger and stranger that users can't use the back button to get back to it.
Flags: firefox-backlog+
Depends on: 1167601
How is this prioritized now that e10s is about to ship more widely ?
(In reply to Guillaume C. [:ge3k0s] from comment #8)
> How is this prioritized now that e10s is about to ship more widely ?

I think the question of about:newtab being unprivileged is orthogonal to e10s.
Care to close this as fixed/wontfix with the work in bug 776167? Or dupe to the Activity Stream work which is making about:newtab unprivileged?
Flags: needinfo?(gijskruitbosch+bugs)
(In reply to Jared Wein [:jaws] (please needinfo? me) from comment #10)
> Care to close this as fixed/wontfix with the work in bug 776167? Or dupe to
> the Activity Stream work which is making about:newtab unprivileged?

This was bug 1021667. Given this is a meta bug and that bug is in the dep tree, I think we can just close this out. Ursula, can you confirm you're still intending to ship to all users in 56? Is there a timeframe for removing old-about-newtab?
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 6 years ago
Flags: needinfo?(gijskruitbosch+bugs) → needinfo?(usarracini)
Resolution: --- → FIXED
We'll be shipping preff'ed off to all users in 56, and then using a shield study we'll preff activity stream on to a percentage of users in 56. We'll be preff'ed on for all users in 57. I agree, close this out, since it won't be happening for old about:newtab anymore.

So far we don't have a set time frame for removing old about:newtab, but it will definitely be post-57 at the earliest. Until then though, I don't actually see any more work being done on old about:newtab so we can definitely close this one out.

As a side note, bug 1385306 will finalize making activity stream unprivileged.

Thanks Gijs!
Flags: needinfo?(usarracini)
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