927831 - [geckoview] Support running without special permissions

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(GeckoView :: General, defect, P1)

Description

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

I'd like to embed GeckoView as runtime engine for a local webapp, local meaning that all code and data is in the assets and no Internet connection is necessary to run it.

As such, it makes sense to not request any permissions when the app is being installed. 

(Even if I need internet connection sometimes, I don't need realtime connection updates, so I would want only the internet permission, but not the network and WLAN status update permissions. I like apps that asks only for the absolute minimal set of permissions.)

Please support that that the app is not granted any one or any of the permissions. The relevant Android API calls would probably fail with an exception, so please make sure that these errors are handled in a way that does not make the browser fail, but only the part that inherently depends on the permission fails. E.g. the internet access should not fail just because Gecko isn't allow to get WLAN status updates.

----

This is just a request. I haven't had a chance to test whether this is already the case or not. If it is, please close this as FIXED, assigned to whoever did the good deed.

Comment 1

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Mass change of bugs in the "Embedding: GRE Core" component in preparation for archiving it. I believe that these are no longer relevant; but if they are, they should be reopened and moved into a component relevant to the code in question.

Comment 2

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

Reopening and moving to Core::Embedding: APIs, where we'll continue to triage and track GeckoView issues.

Comment 4

[Kevin Brosnan [Ex-Mozilla]]

P1 from duped bug.

Comment 7

[James Willcox (:snorp) ([e-mail]) (he/him)]

Attachment: Bug 927831 - Remove sensitive permissions from GeckoView

The hosting app will need to request things like camera or microphone
access if it wants to use web features that rely on those. This is true
for the Android WebView as well, so we're doing the expected thing here.

Review commit: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/241730/diff/#index_header
See other reviews: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/241730/

Comment 8

[(inactive) Jim Chen [:jchen] [:darchons]]

Comment on attachment 8973266 [details]
Bug 927831 - Remove sensitive permissions from GeckoView

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/241730/#review247592

We should document these removed permissions somewhere so consumers know what permissions they need to add.

Comment 9

[James Willcox (:snorp) ([e-mail]) (he/him)]

Comment on attachment 8973266 [details]
Bug 927831 - Remove sensitive permissions from GeckoView

Review request updated; see interdiff: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/241730/diff/1-2/

Comment 10

[James Willcox (:snorp) ([e-mail]) (he/him)]

Comment on attachment 8973266 [details]
Bug 927831 - Remove sensitive permissions from GeckoView

Can you take another look, please? I added package-level documentation which includes some discussion on the permissions.

Comment 11

[James Willcox (:snorp) ([e-mail]) (he/him)]

Comment on attachment 8973266 [details]
Bug 927831 - Remove sensitive permissions from GeckoView

Review request updated; see interdiff: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/241730/diff/2-3/

Comment 12

[(inactive) Jim Chen [:jchen] [:darchons]]

Comment on attachment 8973266 [details]
Bug 927831 - Remove sensitive permissions from GeckoView

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/241730/#review247660

Looks okay!

Comment 13

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/268f3dfc9dee
Remove sensitive permissions from GeckoView r=jchen

Comment 14

[Narcis Beleuzu [:NarcisB]]

Backed out for GeckoView failures.

Push: https://treeherder.mozilla.org/#/jobs?repo=mozilla-inbound&revision=268f3dfc9deed6a1c862649f200fe6b0198480ae
Backout: https://treeherder.mozilla.org/#/jobs?repo=mozilla-inbound&revision=f1b4d3c9b9a19461556dbb358fe895ba0f2f6811
Log link: https://treeherder.mozilla.org/logviewer.html#?job_id=177045964&repo=mozilla-inbound&lineNumber=1590

Comment 15

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/31ad29175009
Remove sensitive permissions from GeckoView r=jchen

Comment 16

[Eliza Balazs [:ebalazs_]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/31ad29175009