Note: This post is part of a series about Web-to-App Communication techniques.Last updated: June 3, 2026 Just over eight years ago, I wrote my last blog post about App Protocols, a class of URI schemes that typically1 open another program on your computer instead of returning data to the web browser. A valid scheme name isContinue reading “Web-to-App Communication: App Protocols”
Category Archives: web
Browser Architecture: Web-to-App Communication Overview
This is an introduction/summary post which will link to individual articles about browser mechanisms for communicating directly between web content and native apps on the local computer (and vice-versa). This series aims to provide, for each mechanism, information about: Application Protocols Read my Blog post. tl;dr: Apps can register url protocol schemes (e.g. myapp://mydata). Browsers willContinue reading “Browser Architecture: Web-to-App Communication Overview”
Spying on HTTPS
When I launched Chrome on Thursday, I saw something unexpected: While most users probably would have no idea what to make of this, I happened to know what it means– Chrome is warning me that the system configuration has instructed it to leak the secret keys it uses to encrypt and decrypt HTTPS traffic toContinue reading “Spying on HTTPS”
Livin’ on the Edge: Dude Where’s My Fix?!?
Yesterday, we covered the mechanisms that modern browsers can use to rapidly update their release channels. Today, let’s look at how to figure out when an eagerly awaited fix will become available in the Canary channels. By way of example, consider crbug.com/977805, a nasty beast that caused some extensions to randomly be disabled and marked corrupt: ByContinue reading “Livin’ on the Edge: Dude Where’s My Fix?!?”
Updating Browsers Quickly: Flags, Respins, and Components
By this point, most browser enthusiasts know that Chrome has a rapid release cycle, releasing a new stable version of the browser approximately every six 4 weeks (2022 Update: now every four weeks). The Edge team adopted that rapid release cadence for our new browser, and we’re already releasing new Edge Dev Channel builds everyContinue reading “Updating Browsers Quickly: Flags, Respins, and Components”