Firefox/Projects/Herdict

Summary

Explore integrating the functionality of Herdict with Firefox's network error page.

Also see Atul's Pitch for a quick 2.5 minute overview of what this is about (requires Firefox >=3.5).

Current Status

boriss wrote a blog post featuring her mock-ups on 1/4/2010.

On 12/23/2009, atul and boriss had a meeting with Herdict team members Laura Miyakawa and Jeffrey Licht to discuss mock-ups boriss had created.

Previously, on 12/4/2009, atul and boriss had an initial meeting with Herdict team members Laura Miyakawa and Jeffrey Licht to explore Firefox integration.

Next Steps

• Labs will begin investigating creating a prototype extension based on boriss' mock-ups.
  • Jeffrey needs to provide atul with documentation on the Herdict API.
• Labs will begin discussing how to deal with potential infrastructure challenges in supporting Herdict.
  • atul will contact the Weave team.
  • atul may blog about the technical challenges, as well as the possibility of making Herdict servers more distributed, by allowing community members to set up Herdict "nodes".
  • boriss will contact the Test Pilot team to discuss the possibility of tracking how often users encounter Firefox "404" pages, in order to get estimates on potential server load.

Related Bugs

bug 552992 - Create an addon prototyping Herdict-Firefox integration

Team

• Project Lead: atul
• Firefox contact: boriss
• faaborg

Designs

See boriss' blog post from 1/4/2010 for mock-ups.

Goals/Use Cases

• Explore adding Herdict's functionality to the Firefox network error page.

Non Goals

• Adding the Herdict "sheep" icon to the Navigation Toolbar, or other dashboard-like functionality. For such use cases, the full-featured Herdict Firefox Add-on can be used.

Related Blog Posts

• Better SSL Error Screens - Zachary Weinberg's take on how SSL certificate error screens can be made more helpful through the application of Herdict data. Feb 16, 2010.

• Herdict-Firefox Integration and Better HTML Presentations - Atul's blog post announcing the Herdict pitch video. Feb 10, 2010.

• Herdict: The Verdict of the Herd - Atul's blog post about Herdict from August 2008

• Herdict and its Tasty, Anonymized, Aggregated Data - Post by boriss on Jan 4, 2010

Other Materials

• Herdict Server API (PDF)
• Atul's Pitch