Tomer Cohen :tomer Reporter
	Description • 16 years ago

Currently, when the user points the browser to protocol such as mailto:, the browser is able to use the system protocol handler (and than launch the user chosen mail application). Since Firefox 3.0, we are able to use a web URLs as protocols (such as Gmail, Yahoo mail and Mibbit).

When the browser is pointed to unknown network protocol handler, the following message appears - "Firefox doesn't know how to open this address, because the protocol (ed2k) isn't associated with any program."; 

In the example above, I've typed "ed2k://" in the location bar. This protocol is in use by applications such as eMule and MLDonkey. I think that eMule installs a Firefox extension during eMule installation, but if we install Firefox after we have eMule installed, we might need to reinstall eMule just to fix this situation. 

I suggest to replace that popup message with a friendlier message, and show the user list of addons from AMO that might be helpful for his task. For P2P file sharing with the edonkey 2000 protocol, we already have some addons, which might be what the user is looking for - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search?q=ed2k&cat=all


In order to solve this issue, we will need a metadata in AMO so extension authors will be able to indicate which protocols the extension is capable for, and design a new error message screen similar to the other error pages. (see attachment)

Extensions can be either full applications, such as FireFTP or just packaged network handler. The location for the fallback page might be controlled by preference such as browser.

Other protocols that might be able to enjoy this feature:
aim: (AOL instant messenger protocol)
mailto: (Other mail providers, this will allow them to publicize their services)
skype:
smb:, ssh:, sftp:, telnet: and similar.
sip: (Web sip client? I'll drink for that!)