IPNS prefetching

[magik6k]

I don't know how tricky this may be, but go-ipfs 0.4.18 has --stream flag for ipfs name resolve which makes it return names as they are discovered. It has some nice properties - names returned later are guaranteed to be 'better' (newer), last name returned before the stream is closed is always what would be returned by normal ipfs name resolve. This makes initial name discovery much, much faster, usually less than 1s from my testing.

When user goes to /ipns/Qm.. path, companion could try to call ipfs name resolve --stream instead going directly to the gateway and prefetching/start displaying stuff in something like a sandboxed iframe (if something like this exists)

[lidel]

Thank you, I agree this could improve UX of IPNS websites.

I imagine we would do this:

• IF URL is for /ipns/.. and webRequest.ResourceType=main_frame (top-level document loaded into a tab)
  • THEN redirect to the special "IPNS loading page" that
  • does ipfs name resolve --stream and displays discovery progress
    • to make it work with HTTP API we need support for --stream in https://github.com/ipfs/js-ipfs-http-client/issues/916
    • js-ipfs will be adding IPNS streaming in Q1 2019 :tada:
  • enables user to decide "current result is good enough" and navigate to that page

[da2x]

This could also be useful for framed content; like an iframe with a video or something.