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Re: Web application changes (proposal)

 

On Wednesday 14 July 2010 12:15 AM, krishnan parthasarathi wrote:
The browser based client is being described as a firefox addon in the blueprint. The browser based client needs to be able to decrypt/encrypt data given the key from the client local filesystem and transmit messages to server using the message protocol we design. I think this can be done using Java Script. OTOH, a firefox addon is written only if you want to extend the functionality of the browser to perform extra functions. for eg, playing mp3, displaying pdf files, etc. Do we want to abstract our browser based client app as an extension of firefox's functionality?


No, we do not need to abstract it as a browser extension. If we use Javascript, it will have to be served by a webserver - there is the issue of trusting this code. The difference with using a browser extension is that all the source code is available to the user, and so can be trusted. We can have clients implemented in JS, as a separate server application perhaps even running on a different server machine, etc, and other people can implement them too - exposing a server API just illustrates that all this is possible. I would however suggest that if we write a browser based client, it should be an extension, so that a user can trust it.

--
Aditya.



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