I’m trying to write an extension that adds a button to the toolbar that, when clicked, opens the about:downloads page in a new tab. This should, in my opinion, be an eminently trivial task, but as far as I can figure, it is simply not possible with the WebExtensions API.
I had hoped to use browser.tabs.create(“about:downloads”) to open the download manager, but “about:downloads” is a privileged URL and therefore, apparently, cannot be opened by the API. Is there any alternative to tabs.create() that is capable of opening privileged pages?
If not, then I’ll consider raising a bug, because I do not really see the security issue with merely allowing an extension to open a privileged URL. I’m not interested in gaining control over a privileged page – just in opening it (which is something that a user can do…).
Cheers,
Stephen