Hey Tanvi!
On Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 8:27 PM, Tanvi Vyas <tanvi@mozilla.com> wrote:
> * Option 1 - Fallback and try the HTTP version; the mixed content blocker
> will be invoked and the content will be blocked if it is blockable with an
> option for the user to override the blocking (shield shows up in Firefox
> and Chrome) or loaded if it is optionally blockable with a degraded
> security UI.
> * Option 2 - No attempt to access the HTTP version and no mixed content UI.
>
> Option 2 will result in a user experience that is worse than the current
> experience with mixed content blocking. Also, with Option 2, sites may be
> less likely to set the CSP directive because it could potentially break
> their site. Hence, I like Option 1 where we fallback to the HTTP version.
> But this could cause performance issues since in the fallback case we are
> doing two resource loads instead of one.
>
The strawman I posted is option #2; resources are upgraded, and if the
upgrade fails to target a viable resource, you'll end up with a network
error, just as you would if you typed the upgraded URL manually.
The intention is that only sites for which this behavior provides a net
gain will opt-into it. So, while I agree that there's some risk, it can be
a calculated one which sites can choose to opt-into.
> We could also have Option 3 - only fallback for optionally blockable
> subresources, since many users don't click the shield and override
> protection anyway and hence end up with a similar user experience.
>
This is probably worth experimenting with today, especially in combination
with HSTS. I worry that it's likely to have negative performance impact on
sites, as it would no longer be opt-in, meaning that sites that wouldn't
support upgrade for particular resources would be generating unexpected
requests that they weren't prepared to handle.
-mike
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Mike West <mkwst@google.com>, @mikewest
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