Proposal: Make extension APIs browser neutral

[carlosjeurissen]

Currently several aspects of the webExtension platform reference specific browsers. This should be streamlined across all browsers.

Examples are:

• the main API namespace. Google Chrome uses chrome while Mozilla Firefox, the old Microsoft Edge and Safari also support the browser-neutral browser. A request to also support browser in Google Chrome has been filed here: CrBug 798169
• The chrome_settings_overrides manifest property could be replaced with the neutral browser_settings_overrides
• The chrome_url_overrides manifest property could be replaced with the neutral browser_url_overrides
• The omnibox API, mentioned here Proposal: Make extension APIs browser neutral #113 (comment)
• incognito manifest property

Let me know if I'm missing any of them.

[xeenon]

The omnibox API is another example that should have a browser-neutral name.

[carlosjeurissen]

Added both omnibox and incognito. Seems private is more common in the browser market.

What about devtools_page?

[tophf]

FWIW, chrome was a term for UI internals aka "browser chrome" (coined by Mozilla, probably) and Google used this term as a reverse joke, so I never considered chrome to mean the name of a particular browser.

[dotproto]

Anecdotally, the oldest concrete references I've been able to find for "chrome" in the GUI sense are Jargon File v2.1.1 (1990) and Netscape Navigator's source (Mozilla FTP, GH mirror) (1995-1998?).

[js-choi]

Whether chrome is a browser-neutral term, it would be good for interoperability to harmonize the naming of the chrome/browser object between implementations.

[xeenon]

Safari already supports browser_url_overrides as a synonym along with a browser_specific_settings in the manifest. Same for browser as the namespace JS object.

[abitrolly]

So, chrome API is the namespace that mixes cross-browser API with Chrome API.
browser is the namespace that is used by Firefox, but so far is it not clear if it is cross-browser or Firefox specific (because there is no common test suite).

So what should the namespace be?

Maybe
from manifest.v3 import ...
or
from browserapi/v2 import ...
?

[xeenon]

Safari implements both chrome and browser with promises or callbacks in either namespace. This is compatible with Firefox's browser namespace, so it is cross-browser.

There were some TPAC discussions around this, and I believe the Chrome team was onboard with supporting browser for consistency and testing.

[Rob--W]

I have published the meeting notes where the adoption of browser in Chrome was discussed.

I have also posted a comment on the crbug to cross-link this information in the WECG, at https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=798169#c10

[patrickkettner]

with the merging of #508, Chrome should be able to initiate the work to support the browser namespace