Proposal: Trigger navigation dependent APIs on JavaScript Navigation

[erosman]

Preamble

Many websites nowadays navigate with JavaScript (e.g. Github) which is basically changing content, URL & history; without triggering a navigation.

There are a number of WebExtension APIs that depend on the navigation to function and they won't be triggered with the JavaScript navigation. e.g.

• scripting
• content_scripts

There is Navigation: navigate event supported by Chrome, Edge, & Opera; but it is not suitable for this purpose.

Proposal

Implement a method (standard or subject to a flag) to trigger navigation dependent WebExtension APIs on JavaScript Navigation (i,e, URL change)

[tophf]

webNavigation already has events that trigger on JS navigation: onHistoryStateUpdated and onReferenceFragmentUpdated.

[erosman]

The request is mostly concerned with registered content such as scripting and content_scripts.
I will rephrase the request accordingly.

[xeenon]

Once a script is injected it can be surprising to have it injected again — likely breaking things in the process.

In my opinion, the content scripts need to listen for in-page DOM events that are available to know when script-based navigation occurs and act accordingly. If it needs more things injected then, it can message the background for it to do an executeScript, etc in response.

This does not seem like a problem the extension platform needs to solve.

[erosman]

Once a script is injected it can be surprising to have it injected again

JavaScript navigation would mean a new page in the same tab, hidden from webNavigation by the page owner (for some purpose). Therefore, it is not injecting into the same page.

The practice has become more popular each year and I suspect there might be a time that it might become quite widespread.