Protocol handler?
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I’m going to register a protocol handler, so links to anywhere on the fedi will be opened in the user’s home instance.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/registerProtocolHandler
Has anyone already done this and if so what was the prefix you used? We might as well all use the same thing. I’m thinking
web+fedi.web+ap, which was proposed by Fedilink authors. To my knowledge, it is the most widely adopted proposalhttps://web.archive.org/web/20250402041648/https://fedilinks.org/
(the main site seems to be offline now)
cc @SoniEx2
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web+ap, which was proposed by Fedilink authors. To my knowledge, it is the most widely adopted proposalhttps://web.archive.org/web/20250402041648/https://fedilinks.org/
(the main site seems to be offline now)
cc @SoniEx2
Are there implementors of web+ap? I’d be interested in adopting.
I assume the fallback behaviour is to just assume https?
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@julian Fedilinks website lists 3 MastoAPI clients, but the list is incomplete. I saw Fedilinks being mentioned in changelogs of other clients too.
There was also an Akkoma PR, it was closed by the author: https://akkoma.dev/AkkomaGang/akkoma/pulls/589. I don't quite understand the reasoning, perhaps @smitten could clarify.
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@julian Fedilinks website lists 3 MastoAPI clients, but the list is incomplete. I saw Fedilinks being mentioned in changelogs of other clients too.
There was also an Akkoma PR, it was closed by the author: https://akkoma.dev/AkkomaGang/akkoma/pulls/589. I don't quite understand the reasoning, perhaps @smitten could clarify.
The PR comments suggest that making the various changes to the backend were too large to justify, and a front-end only approach would be preferred? smitten@key.portend.place
It raises a good point though, where if you serve
web+ap://, it’s not understood by clients that are not aware of this scheme. If there were a way a client could communicate whether there is a protocol handler registered, then the server could tailor its response. -
Glad to see more people having this idea! The problems we ran into were in helping the browser understand the address and know where to forward. Each server implements lookup routes differently, so there's not necessarily a generic path that you can trust is available on https on the person's home server, even if you know their home server origin. So in some ways the feature should be offered by your home server software, maybe offering a website that does the handler registration to its known lookup/redirect address.
But that is limiting in a few ways. It's a lot of extra steps for each person to do (browsers' default UI for registering protocols is not obvious or easy). It doesn't carry over to different devices, and if you have more than one home server in some way, you are back dealing with that not-great browser UI to pick which handler you want.
In general people are more accustomed to registering protocols to apps they have installed, especially phone apps. It's much easier to register them there and you don't have to have approval flow UI, but taking that approach moves this whole served handler route out of the backend again, so we have to start thinking more along the lines of web+ap-compatible servers that handler clients know how to call or bounce to.
@julian@community.nodebb.org @silverpill@mitra.social @SoniEx2@chaos.social @rimu@piefed.social -
Glad to see more people having this idea! The problems we ran into were in helping the browser understand the address and know where to forward. Each server implements lookup routes differently, so there's not necessarily a generic path that you can trust is available on https on the person's home server, even if you know their home server origin. So in some ways the feature should be offered by your home server software, maybe offering a website that does the handler registration to its known lookup/redirect address.
But that is limiting in a few ways. It's a lot of extra steps for each person to do (browsers' default UI for registering protocols is not obvious or easy). It doesn't carry over to different devices, and if you have more than one home server in some way, you are back dealing with that not-great browser UI to pick which handler you want.
In general people are more accustomed to registering protocols to apps they have installed, especially phone apps. It's much easier to register them there and you don't have to have approval flow UI, but taking that approach moves this whole served handler route out of the backend again, so we have to start thinking more along the lines of web+ap-compatible servers that handler clients know how to call or bounce to.
@julian@community.nodebb.org @silverpill@mitra.social @SoniEx2@chaos.social @rimu@piefed.socialAlso I want to highlight this excellent comment by Yumechi about fingerprinting and de-anonymization risks.
https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/fep-07d7-a-custom-url-scheme-and-web-based-protocol-handlers-for-linking-to-activitypub-resources/3588/53
@SoniEx2@chaos.social @silverpill@mitra.social @julian@community.nodebb.org @rimu@piefed.social -
Also I want to highlight this excellent comment by Yumechi about fingerprinting and de-anonymization risks.
https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/fep-07d7-a-custom-url-scheme-and-web-based-protocol-handlers-for-linking-to-activitypub-resources/3588/53
@SoniEx2@chaos.social @silverpill@mitra.social @julian@community.nodebb.org @rimu@piefed.social@smitten_ Do you know what is the status of Fedilinks? Has it been abandoned?
FEP-07d7 was withdrawn, and other proposals have even less support than these two. -
@julian I write about this here: near zero mobile browser support but strong desktop browser support- and I suggest a JavaScript fallback for the others …. https://www.timothychambers.net/2025/06/24/the-seven-deadly-fediverse-ux.html
@tchambers @julian @silverpill I put together a prototype, using web+ap.
Here’s a video demo - https://peertube.wtf/w/r8M4KpS6yLd9H2r2oPAs9M
The workflow is a wee bit clunky, with the browser popping up things more than I'd like, but it works.
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@tchambers @julian @silverpill I put together a prototype, using web+ap.
Here’s a video demo - https://peertube.wtf/w/r8M4KpS6yLd9H2r2oPAs9M
The workflow is a wee bit clunky, with the browser popping up things more than I'd like, but it works.
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@tchambers @julian @silverpill I put together a prototype, using web+ap.
Here’s a video demo - https://peertube.wtf/w/r8M4KpS6yLd9H2r2oPAs9M
The workflow is a wee bit clunky, with the browser popping up things more than I'd like, but it works.
rimu@mastodon.nzoss.nz what happens if a browser that doesn’t understand protocol handlers encounters this scheme?
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@tchambers @julian @silverpill I put together a prototype, using web+ap.
Here’s a video demo - https://peertube.wtf/w/r8M4KpS6yLd9H2r2oPAs9M
The workflow is a wee bit clunky, with the browser popping up things more than I'd like, but it works.
This is so great, I feel like whenever this idea comes up it's just so difficult to explain to people what it would feel like to use. (and why it's helpful!)
You talked about changing the address yourself in the browser bar which is already easier than loading up your home server and going through the step to lookup. For me what excited me about this idea was that people could be displaying the links in pages. You often see it with a socials section at the bottom of someone's blog, they link to their profile on their server when what I want them to link to is their profile with the web+ap protocol.
But this leads to another big UX problem, the links are useless if you don't have a handler registered. There is no fallback mechanism your browser will just ask you what you want to open it with and have an empty list of suggestions. So I think it would need to have a recognizable way to be communicated to the user, a consistent icon for the link and a memorable name because only people who knew they set up a handler would want them.
@rimu@mastodon.nzoss.nz @tchambers@indieweb.social @julian@community.nodebb.org @silverpill@mitra.social -
This is so great, I feel like whenever this idea comes up it's just so difficult to explain to people what it would feel like to use. (and why it's helpful!)
You talked about changing the address yourself in the browser bar which is already easier than loading up your home server and going through the step to lookup. For me what excited me about this idea was that people could be displaying the links in pages. You often see it with a socials section at the bottom of someone's blog, they link to their profile on their server when what I want them to link to is their profile with the web+ap protocol.
But this leads to another big UX problem, the links are useless if you don't have a handler registered. There is no fallback mechanism your browser will just ask you what you want to open it with and have an empty list of suggestions. So I think it would need to have a recognizable way to be communicated to the user, a consistent icon for the link and a memorable name because only people who knew they set up a handler would want them.
@rimu@mastodon.nzoss.nz @tchambers@indieweb.social @julian@community.nodebb.org @silverpill@mitra.socialsmitten_@key.portend.place might I suggest appropriating the ActivityPub logo? For lack of a better option.
There’s the “networked nodes” fediverse logo but it really loses its effect when made small.
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@tchambers @julian @silverpill I put together a prototype, using web+ap.
Here’s a video demo - https://peertube.wtf/w/r8M4KpS6yLd9H2r2oPAs9M
The workflow is a wee bit clunky, with the browser popping up things more than I'd like, but it works.
There are quite a few dialogues, yes… but once the initial setup is done it looks alright.
Curious… because when I open magnet:// links, there’s no confirmation on subsequent links once I’ve done the initial handler assignment. It looks to be something reserved for
web+handlers, which is a little annoying, isn’t it. -
System shared this topic
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I’m going to register a protocol handler, so links to anywhere on the fedi will be opened in the user’s home instance.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/registerProtocolHandler
Has anyone already done this and if so what was the prefix you used? We might as well all use the same thing. I’m thinking
web+fedi.rimu@piefed.social I’ve been using web+acct for the acct URI format.
