Reliability of org-protocol browser extensions

[Max Nikulin]

On 17/11/2022 14:18, Jean Louis wrote:
> I am using reliable org-protocol extension,

Out of curiosity, can you quickly capture let say 20 tabs (a second per 
tab)? Is the extension able to detect that scheme handler is not 
properly configured at the level of desktop environment?

> that can "store" link and
> "capture", it is programmed by Wojciech Siewierski,
> https://github.com/vifon/org-protocol-for-firefox

I do not think that the tabs.update() method from WebExtensions API
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/tabs/update 
is unambiguously better than launching external handler from a content 
script by assigning URI to window.location
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/location

The latter method is used by https://github.com/sprig/org-capture-extension/

Launching external scheme handler from a web page or from an extension 
is a shoot and forget method. Even if an error is reported to browser 
console, it is inaccessible for JavaScript. It is a grey zone even 
though enough applications relies on custom URI schemes. There are a 
couple of tricks, but they do not always work. Browsers isolates web 
pages and host system to prevent attacks. Protection causes enough 
inconveniences already while I would not call it perfect.

I do not think that changing of extension will help Samuel. Looking into 
the code I do not see real difference in respect to reliability. Either 
there is a problem with desktop-wide protocol handler or browser blocks 
attempts to launch it.