[Webkit-unassigned] [Bug 7990] Back, Forward buttons cause network access, data loss

[bugzilla-daemon at webkit.org]

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7990


bonaldi+webkit at gmail.com changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
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                 CC|                            |bonaldi+webkit at gmail.com




------- Comment #2 from bonaldi+webkit at gmail.com  2009-05-26 13:52 PDT -------
(In reply to comment #1)
> It's entirely legitimate for going
> back to do network activity. 

It is not *entirely* legitimate, especially as it will lead to a violation of
RFC 2616:

"History mechanisms and caches are different [...] A history mechanism is meant
to show exactly what the user saw at the time when the resource was retrieved.
[...] If the entity is still in storage, a history mechanism SHOULD display it
even if the entity has expired, unless the user has specifically configured the
agent to refresh expired history documents."
-- http://256.com/gray/docs/rfc2616/13.html#13.13

By using the network on back/forward, webkit will no longer be showing "exactly
what the user saw", but rather what the server chooses to serve upon reload. As
the original reporter comments, this can cause a loss of user data, even
outside of his cases, which I consider to be somewhat edge. 

It is possible to see it even on simple cases such as hitting back to return to
a static page after disconnecting/losing the network. Webkit will fail, when
instead it should show the content from the cache, precisely as the user last
saw it.

(In instances where the form resubmission warning would be shown, to comply
with the RFC it would be more appropriate to have a third button to show the
cached content, rather than trapping the user between two unpalatable choices)


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