Allow opting out of ads and tracking protection for extensions' sake

clearnoodle256

Unlike Orion desktop, currently there doesn't appear to be any way to opt out of intelligent tracking protection or cross-site tracking protection on Orion mobile, whether in general or for specific sites. Extensions often need to make cross-site requests and this is highly likely the cause for my extension failing on the new Orion version (it was working as of version 1.3.8).

Having more control over the tracking protection settings can at least allow a smoother transition for extensions into stricter settings.

Users will continue to be able to use their extensions. They can decide when and where it's appropriate to turn tracking protection on or off.

Vlad

clearnoodle256 ITP is built into WebKit and did not change between two Orion releases. So there is something else preventing your extension from working. Any more details?

clearnoodle256

I'm guessing the cross-site tracking protection also blocked cross-site requests from extensions. My extension translates pages from a specific website. It makes requests to my application server for the translations. From my application server, I can see successful requests made from the extension popup menu for things like sign in and user account info, but no translation requests at all from any webpage the extension is on.

Vlad

clearnoodle256 We did not change anything there. What changed were the content blocker rules (which are not cross-site).

clearnoodle256

The translation requests are not reaching the app server even when I set Ads and Tracking Protection on Basic and disable Content Blocker altogether though. This is using Orion 1.3.10 (8).

clearnoodle256

Thanks to the recently added support for web inspector with Orion mobile, I was able to confirm that most requests aren't blocked by the content blocker. I still have trouble with authentication from the extension on Orion mobile though, and it's very difficult to debug since the extension options screen automatically close during authentication, so I can't see what's going on even with the web inspector.

Vlad

clearnoodle256 Can you define what exactly is the ask?

clearnoodle256

Vlad ultimately it would be really nice if you guys can support the chrome.Identify API. Right now I'm going through my own app to authenticate users instead of directly to the auth provider google. I had something working for orion desktop, but not orion mobile.

It's very difficult to debug the auth process on mobile despite the web inspector support, because unlike on orion desktop, the popup and options screens where users sign in get automatically closed when a new tab is launched for the auth process, so the web inspector can't register anything. If the options screen can persist like on orion desktop, I'll at least have something to work with.