Add a command to the "webExtension" module to retrieve a list of all the installed webextensions

[whimboo]

Clients might want to know which webextensions are installed in the browser. Therefore it would be good to have a command in that module that would retrieve such a list.

Given that some browsers have already pre-installed webextensions as eg. system addons installed, we should think about if those should be returned by default, or would require an extra parameter.

@OrKoN does Chrome have pre-installed webextensions by default as well as Firefox when running under automation?

[OrKoN]

I think Chrome has some system extensions (e.g., a PDF viewer) but they are not observable to the user and count as the browser functionality AFAIK

[whimboo]

I think Chrome has some system extensions (e.g., a PDF viewer) but they are not observable to the user and count as the browser functionality AFAIK

Thanks. So we probably should only return those web extensions as installed by the user and ignore system ones (which we could later enable as well via an additional parameter).

This feature would help us to better clean-up the browser in web-platform tests for WebDriver BiDi so that no installed web extension is actually leaked.

Also it is actually a feature as requested by the Mozilla's web-ext project, which helps web extension authors to test their extensions in Firefox. See mozilla/web-ext#3351 as reference.

[css-meeting-bot]

The Browser Testing and Tools Working Group just discussed Add a command to the "webExtension" module to retrieve a list of all the installed webextensions.

The full IRC log of that discussion

<AutomatedTester> Topic: Add a command to the "webExtension" module to retrieve a list of all the installed webextensions
<AutomatedTester> github: https://github.com//issues/898
<AutomatedTester> whimboo: since we the extension install/uninstall. THe webext team wants to start using this.
<AutomatedTester> ... they have suggested that we add a new command to get list of exts
<AutomatedTester> ... it would be good to get this commands to improve the testability
<AutomatedTester> ... should we return the lists of all the addons or just the users addons?
<AutomatedTester> ... later we can add a list prefix to get the vendor addons
<AutomatedTester> ... [mentions browser specific issues for firefox]
<AutomatedTester> q?
<orkon> q+
<AutomatedTester> rob: I assume addons to not working the same across different browsers. If the addons are installed
<AutomatedTester> orkon: puppeteer has the ability and webdriver bidi has the ability to install/uninstall
<whimboo> q+
<AutomatedTester> ... I think this sounds good to us, we think that restricted to things that are only installed during the webdriver session but that's due to privacy concerns
<AutomatedTester> ack next
<AutomatedTester> ack next
<AutomatedTester> whimboo: regarding the properties that can be an issue but we need to find fimiliar properties and return that. we need to make sure we don't have clashes between our implemtations
<orkon> q+
<AutomatedTester> .. I am not sure if we want to add this for classic or just leave it for bidi
<AutomatedTester> ... as it can help clean up tests correctly
<AutomatedTester> ack next
<Rob> re: "find similar properties" sure, but I suppose that e.g., Chrome and Edge use different IDs which should be the unique identifier, even if the extension itself is the same across vendors, because we have different "stores"
<AutomatedTester> orkon: we don't need to add this to classic at the moment unless there is a strong need for it for classic
<sadym> q+
<orkon> q+
<orkon> q-
<orkon> q+
<orkon> q-
<Rob> Re: "we think that restricted to things that are only installed during the webdriver session but that's due to privacy concerns" - Agree
<sadym> q-
<orkon> q+
<AutomatedTester> orkon: I think that returning a list of addons that were installed during the session. let's use noncontroversial properties and build off that
<AutomatedTester> q?
<AutomatedTester> ack next