Disable motion sensors by default without patching

[Madis0]

Is your feature request related to privacy?
Yes

Is there a patch available for this feature somewhere?
No

Describe the solution you'd like
Chromium 75 has a new option on Site Settings, called "Motion sensors". I think Bromite should disable it by default and remove any patches that attempt to do a similar thing, in order to simplify the maintainability and UX (users can toggle it) of Bromite.

Describe alternatives you've considered
N/A

[thestinger]

The default can be changed in components/content_settings/core/browser/content_settings_registry.cc:

https://github.com/GrapheneOS/chromium_patches/blob/1c44ecb36b904f7ab4ce3db2dae323d671cfb9e8/0020-disable-sensors-access-site-setting-by-default.patch

[thestinger]

I think it's also intended to be more than just a site setting now, but rather a proper permission that sites are able to request when it's disabled. Existing sites don't know how to request it, but eventually they should learn how to do it and users won't need to ever globally enable it. I haven't looked too closely into it yet, but that's why it's a content setting with support for a per-site value, similar to location, notifications, JavaScript, etc.

[csagan5]

@thestinger would you say that your patch can now replace this one?
https://github.com/bromite/bromite/blob/master/build/patches/Disable-generic-sensor-API-by-default.patch

The one about motion and orientation APIs will be kept instead, as there is no upstream setting for it:
https://github.com/bromite/bromite/blob/master/build/patches/Add-flags-to-disable-device-motion-and-orientation-APIs.patch

[thestinger]

@csagan5 Yes, it covers the generic sensors and extra generic sensors.

[csagan5]

@Madis0 you were probably referring to the device motion and orientation (https://github.com/bromite/bromite/blob/master/build/patches/Add-flags-to-disable-device-motion-and-orientation-APIs.patch) patch, however those cannot yet be controlled even with the new content settings (as far as I understood).

In 75.0.3770.109 (not yet released) the feature patch for generic sensors will be dropped and @thestinger's one for the default on content settings will be adopted instead.

[thestinger]

@csagan5

The motion sensors site setting does disable the Device Orientation API. This can be confirmed with https://timvolodine.github.io/deviceorientation-test/, https://www.audero.it/demo/device-orientation-api-demo.html and other tests.

It's still possible to use the Screen Orientation API to detect changes between portrait and landscape mode and to lock the orientation, but that's a much different feature.

I think it's likely that you don't need these extra flags anymore.