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Specification https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/workers.html#shared-workers-and-the-sharedworker-interface Summary For a long time, SharedWorker has been disabled on Android due to concerns about its unpredictable process lifecycle. We believed that SharedWorker instances might terminate unexpectedly, without noticing to users or web developers, which we considered unacceptable. However, a recent discussion on GitHub (https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/11205) suggests that the unpredictable nature of SharedWorker's process lifecycle might not be as significant an issue as we once thought. Based on this, we plan to re-enable SharedWorker on Android while simultaneously investigating this behavior to ensure a stable and reliable experience. Blink component Blink>Workers Web Feature ID shared-workers Motivation The long-standing demand for SharedWorker support on Android stems from several needs expressed by web developers: - Resource Sharing and Efficiency: Developers aim to share a single WebSocket or Server-Sent Events (SSE) connection across multiple tabs, thereby conserving resources. - Persistent Resource Management: There's a strong desire to share and persist resources across tabs, particularly for technologies like WASM-based SQLite. - Closing a Feature Gap: It has been noted that other major mobile browsers, including Safari on iOS and Firefox on Android, already support SharedWorker, making Chrome on Android the last major browser to address this gap. Initial public proposal No information provided TAG review No information provided TAG review status Not applicable Origin Trial Name SharedWorker on Android Goals for experimentation The goal is to evaluate the real-world impact of Android's process lifecycle on SharedWorker stability. Unlike on desktop, SharedWorker instances on Android can be terminated unexpectedly by the operating system due to memory pressure. This trial allows us to release the feature to developers who understand this risk and can provide crucial feedback. Specifically, we aim to measure: 1. The frequency of unexpected SharedWorker terminations in real-world scenarios. 2. Whether the current API is sufficient for developers to handle such terminations gracefully. 3. The necessity of potential spec-level countermeasures, as discussed in https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/11205, to bridge this behavioral gap between mobile and desktop platforms and ensure a consistent developer experience. The insights from this experiment will be critical in determining the path to shipping SharedWorker on Android, informing whether it can be enabled by default or if further mitigation work is required. Chromium Trial Name SharedWorkerOnAndroid Origin Trial documentation link https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/SharedWorker WebFeature UseCounter name kSharedWorkerStartOnAndroid Risks Interoperability and Compatibility While Chrome has been the sole major browser not to offer SharedWorker, this change aims to close that gap. However, unlike on desktop, Android's unpredictable process lifecycle presents a unique risk. SharedWorker instances might terminate unexpectedly, for example, when a Chrome app is moved to the background and then foregrounded. This inherent uncertainty in the Android environment is a key risk when running SharedWorker. Gecko: Shipped/Shipping WebKit: Shipped/Shipping Web developers: Positive As you can see in http://crbug.com/40290702, SharedWorker support on Android has been a long-awaited feature by web developers. This demonstrates a clear and sustained demand from the developer community for this capability. Other signals: Ergonomics n/a Activation n/a Security This feature is already shipped on desktop, and no new security risks are introduced with the Android implementation. WebView application risks Does this intent deprecate or change behavior of existing APIs, such that it has potentially high risk for Android WebView-based applications? No information provided Debuggability This feature is already shipped on desktop, and no new debuggability issues should be introduced with the Android implementation. Will this feature be supported on all six Blink platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, ChromeOS, Android, and Android WebView)? No This aims to make SharedWorker supported on Android and Android WebView. SharedWorker has been supported other than them. Is this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests? Yes SharedWorker tests under https://wpt.fyi/results/workers. eg https://wpt.fyi/results/workers/SharedWorker-simple.html Note that since wpt.fyi runs tests on Linux not Android for Chromium. DevTrial instructions https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/SharedWorker/SharedWorker Flag name on about://flags No information provided Finch feature name SharedWorker Rollout plan Will ship enabled for all users Requires code in //chrome? False Tracking bug https://crbug.com/40290702 Measurement https://chromestatus.com/metrics/feature/timeline/popularity/5626 Content.SharedWorker.Host.DestructionSource to understand how SharedWorkers finish (worker.close(), no clients, or worker gone (possibly crash)). Estimated milestones Origin trial desktop first 140 Origin trial desktop last 144 Origin trial extension 1 end milestone 147 Shipping on Android 148 Origin trial Android first 140 Origin trial Android last 144 DevTrial on Android 140 Shipping on WebView 148 Anticipated spec changes Open questions about a feature may be a source of future web compat or interop issues. Please list open issues (eg links to known github issues in the project for the feature specification) whose resolution may introduce web compat/interop risk (eg, changing to naming or structure of the API in a non-backward-compatible way). No information provided Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Status https://chromestatus.com/feature/6265472244514816?gate=5084552061779968 Links to previous Intent discussions Intent to Experiment: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/6879be98.2b0a0220.72055.015d.GAE%40google.com Intent to Extend Experiment 1: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/CAPNB-6VPRn%2BLp%2B61oJOc2e3fnY3F1LaZ2f2g_LTsA%3DXv49FzgQ%40mail.gmail.com This intent message was generated by Chrome Platform Status. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "blink-dev" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/69c49b14.050a0220.2ec94.0888.GAE%40google.com.
