NBS, PNA, Mv3 and related

[Libor Polčák]

Hello all and especially Giorgio,

I have again looked at the Local Network Access (aka private network access) 
https://wicg.github.io/local-network-access/ and its status in the browsers we 
support.

Chrome/Chromium-based:
https://developer.chrome.com/blog/private-network-access-update/

It seems to me that since September 2021 (Chrome 94) HTTP pages cannot access 
private network resources (unless they participate in the deprecation trial). 
To this date all HTTPS pages can access private network resources. Google plans 
to restrict HTTPS sites but that is not yet deployed and no specific dates are 
set 
(https://developer.chrome.com/blog/private-network-access-update/#plans-for-the-future).

An older blog post indicates that Chrome supported first steps towards full 
LNA/PNA support 
(https://developer.chrome.com/blog/private-network-access-preflight/). The post 
mentions a rollback in Chrome 98 but I no longer can find details. As the post 
actually links to the updated blog post above, it seems that this post does not 
bring any new information on LNA/PNA status/plans.

Do I interpret these posts correctly?

As the Manifest v3 extension will (likely) not be able to integrate NBS that 
aims to mitigate the same issue, I am concerned that the users would actually 
lose the protection as it does not seem that Chromium-based browsers are going 
to block access to private network resources from HTTPS sites.



Firefox:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1481298
https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/143
https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/blob/main/activities.json#L1114 
("mozPosition": "positive")

I interpret these as Mozilla is positive to implement LNA in the future, they 
may have experimented with the feature. But it is uncertain when the feature 
will actually land in Firefox.

Please let me know if I miss something or interpret the information incorrectly.

Thanks

Libor