Re: [whatwg/fetch] Consider restricting 103 Early Hints to HTTP/2 or later (Issue #1698)

To add to that, I think this bug may be based on a slightly mixed up premise. None of the reasons about early hints over HTTP/1.1 are related to browsers. Even if some browsers only pay attention to early hints over HTTP/2, doesn't mean it's unsafe to send them over HTTP/1.1. It's still a 1xx response code, which, as far as I know browsers all correctly skip over. It may be pointless if unused, but it's still safe to send when the other end is a browser HTTP/1.1 stack.

The problem is there are a *lot* of HTTP/1.1 clients out there, not just browsers. There are also a lot of HTTP/1.1 intermediaries, including deployments where those intermediaries may be in front of browsers, so even a browser's UA string may not be enough. Broken HTTP/1.1 clients may not necessarily correctly skip over 1xx responses, which would then cause a problem. Thus, RFC 8297 recommends against sending it over HTTP/1.1. But the Chrome or Safari behavior cited in the bug is not a reason for it.

Conversely, the RFC 8297 recommendation isn't a reason for browsers to ignore early hints over HTTP/1.1. I don't think it's worth putting a whole lot of effort into it (servers can't safely deploy it for other reasons anyway), but it's also perfectly find to process them.

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