[HN Gopher] Microsoft Teams is blocking Firefox Nightly
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Microsoft Teams is blocking Firefox Nightly
Author : faebi
Score : 360 points
Date : 2023-03-05 16:30 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (teams.live.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (teams.live.com)
| altairprime wrote:
| Also Safari iOS, so that won't last very long.
| LeonM wrote:
| Nobody here commenting on the fact that Slack blocks Firefox as
| well for voice/video calls?
|
| I'm not a regular Slack user, but when I tried the voice call
| option earlier this week first I got a notification that they
| were switching to some new style of video conferencing called
| "Huddles", and it gave me an option to choose between "huddles"
| and "classic" video calls, which was confusing to begin with. I
| choose the latter, but I got a compatibility error with my
| browser, advising me to use huddles instead (really, they
| couldn't detect that earlier?). Anyway, when I tried to 'huddle'
| my customer, it simple said my browser (Firefox on Linux) wasn't
| compatible, and that I must install Chrome to use the feature.
|
| This is where I closed Slack and used my phone to make the call.
| slater wrote:
| Slack audio & video calls work fine on my Firefox.
| arp242 wrote:
| It doesn't "block Firefox", it just doesn't work because it
| uses some now-deprecated experimental APIs for it that Firefox
| never implemented. The whole video stuff was kind of a mess for
| a time with different browsers implementing different things.
| This is probably why you shouldn't use experimental APIs, but
| people want features, so...
|
| This was the status last time I used it a few months ago
| anyway; I believe they were planning on fixing it - they will
| have to sooner or later, since Chrome will remove these APIs at
| some point.
| m00dy wrote:
| If any MS Teams developer here,
|
| here is my bug report.
|
| I can't use same sso account on android and on macos at the same
| time. The token gets invalidated for some reason.
| guilhas wrote:
| I was using MSTeams this week in Linux, and it was showing
| everything OK, webcam and audio, but the person on the other side
| was not receiving webcam image, in Windows.
|
| We tried several things, update browsers, Firefox, Chromium,
| Flatpak...
|
| In the end we just made a Jitsi meeting
|
| https://meet.jit.si
|
| https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/join-a-meeti...
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Jitsi is really great yeah. It works in every browser and the
| video is much smoother than teams' is. I think jitsi favors
| framerate over quality and teams does the opposite. I really
| prefer the framerate approach because it makes it feel much
| more natural, like you're really talking to someone instead of
| a postage stamp sized picture on the screen.
| lars_francke wrote:
| Piggybacking here: Does anyone understand the identity management
| of Microsoft? Is there any way for me to see all my "accounts"
| associated with various email addresses and the organizations
| they belong to?
|
| I haven't been able to access most of the Microsoft ecosystem due
| to various errors on MS side and I'd really like to get it fixed.
|
| Some customers are inviting me to their teams and I always have
| to say "sorry, doesn't work"
| tonetheman wrote:
| [dead]
| [deleted]
| jzombie wrote:
| When clicking the link in Chrome on macOS, it goes into an
| infinite URL redirect loop w/ one of the URLs being "unsupported
| browser."
|
| This didn't happen the first time I clicked the link, by the way.
| It occurred on the second.
|
| The first click, I was redirected through a bunch of pages until
| I landed on the sign-in form.
|
| It took a few seconds to arrive there after navigating the
| redirects.
|
| I thought the experience was so janky that I decided to try it
| again, then discovered the redirect loop.
| cronix wrote:
| I'm not using a FF nightly build, but I initially get a screen
| along the lines that my browser isn't supported and a split
| second later it goes away and a login form pops up. There's more
| text but it flashes so quickly I can't really make out the rest.
| pentagrama wrote:
| I wonder if this has something to do that Microsoft is going to
| launch a big update for Teams soon [1].
|
| I thought that the update was most about the desktop version who
| is switching from Electron to Edge Webview2 technology, but maybe
| it affects also the web version.
|
| [1] https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/20/23607037/microsoft-
| teams-...
| cpeterso wrote:
| How many companies test their websites in pre-release versions of
| Chrome or Firefox? Some brave volunteers on the team (even non-
| developers) could dogfood test Chrome or Firefox Beta (or even
| Chrome Dev or Firefox Nightly) as their regular browser for day-
| to-day work. It's not full test coverage of your website, but
| they would identify major breaking issues before your end users
| do. They might find be new browser bugs that Google or Mozilla
| should fix or breaking web API changes that your website needs to
| adapt to.
| calibas wrote:
| I don't buy that this is accidental.
|
| When you write software, you test it on every platform you choose
| to support. If it doesn't work on a supported platform, then you
| take the time to fix it before release.
|
| It's not an "accident" when the software doesn't work on a
| platform you didn't bother to test on. That platform is being
| neglected by policy, not because of some "accident" in the code.
| danpalmer wrote:
| > When you write software, you test it on every platform you
| choose to support.
|
| This depends on your definition of "support". It's very likely
| that Microsoft do not claim to support (as in, put customer
| support resources behind) Firefox Nightly, this would be
| reasonable as it's provided for development utility, not daily
| use.
|
| However, I do somewhat disagree that you test it on every
| platform. If Teams is built as a website, do we expect them to
| test every feature of every release on every browser? Probably
| not, we expect that they do reasonable testing across a
| representative range of browsers, maybe focused on major
| features.
| calibas wrote:
| > If Teams is built as a website, do we expect them to test
| every feature of every release on every browser?
|
| If they've got good unit tests, they may test every feature
| of every Teams release and I assume they test on all the
| browsers/versions that represent the vast majority of the
| market. They don't bother supporting FF Nightly because it's
| not important to them, not because of some "accident" in the
| code.
| kredd wrote:
| You guys test against non-stable versions of every browser
| before release?
| calibas wrote:
| Nope, and that's a matter of policy. I certainly wouldn't
| argue it's an "accident" that a site I create doesn't work
| properly in FF Nightly.
| nubinetwork wrote:
| Uh, teams never worked on Firefox on Linux.
| comfrey wrote:
| Any context, reasoning, or background?
| smoldesu wrote:
| I found this:
| https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/20/23607037/microsoft-teams-...
| dogma1138 wrote:
| Looks like someone made a boo-boo it's simply based on the user
| agent, w/e string matching they do is too strict they aren't
| checking for actual JS/WebASM compatibility or anything like
| that.
|
| Chrome stable with a non standard user agent doesn't work on via
| the windows live url but works through the O365 corporate one,
| same with Safari Mobile without any user agent modification.
|
| This to me looks like stupidity more than malice, their link
| doesn't even recommend Edge but rather Chrome and Safari...
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Devil's advocate: I don't think blocking bleeding-edge browsers
| is necessarily "stupidity." If you're smart enough to
| understand all the caveats of running a bleeding edge software
| program, you're smart enough to change your user agent string.
|
| If you're not, you have no business running nightly, and you're
| probably going to generate a lot of "yOuR sITE is BRokEN!"
| support emails / forum posts / bug reports for other projects,
| and conspiratorial posts screeching on social media.
|
| I see this all the time - people who run dev
| branches/nightlies/alphas and have the QA skills of a turnip
| who have no business doing so...and of course they're noisy as
| hell and waste a lot of people's times.
|
| If you don't know the most basic points of QA and how to file a
| bug report that doesn't waste people's time, stop running
| anything beyond "stable" or betas marked specifically for
| public consumption. You're not "cooler" or more 133t running
| nightly releases.
| usea wrote:
| People can run whatever software they want. They don't need
| your permission, or to know how to file a bug report, or
| whatever other bullshit you've dreamed up. They're also
| allowed to complain when a site is broken in their browser.
|
| If you don't want to see unsophisticated complaints and bug
| reports, then you need to stop looking at them. Perhaps find
| a different profession/hobby where your user-hostile attitude
| actually benefits someone.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| To some extent that is correct, ironically this was likely
| an attempt to reduce user complaints and bug reports. The
| problem is that they didn't went about the the correct way
| there is a better way to implement feature detection than
| to check the user agent: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Learn/Tools_and_tes...
| dcow wrote:
| It's also simply not true that more user-facing bugs happen
| on nightlies. I run nightlies at times and have never found
| them to be less stable in any tangible way that would
| affect site usability and show up in a bug report. On the
| contrary, nightlies are the first to get important bug
| fixes. It's overwhelmingly likely that GP is just a lazy
| audacious dickwad ignoring valid bug reports.
| curtisblaine wrote:
| To be honest, they don't need to find a different
| profession / hobby, as long as their user hostile attitude
| makes them money.
| dcow wrote:
| "The site isn't working on FF nightly or Chrome Canary" is a
| perfectly valid bug report. It's up to the dev if they want
| to investigate and fix or if they want to wait for more
| data/reports to come it.
|
| You think I'm going to source dive your tens of thousands of
| lines of shitty hacked up react just because I'm a nightly
| user? Fuck no. Do your job clown.
| fatneckbeard wrote:
| do people do not remember Dr Dos ?
|
| if a coyote eats your cat, its probably not an accident.
|
| its more likely because it's a coyote and that's what coyotes
| do. it's in their nature.
| vorticalbox wrote:
| As a counter point there is Hanlon's razor
|
| > Never attribute to malice that which is adequately
| explained by stupidity.
| fatneckbeard wrote:
| thats not a counter point, thats just gaslighting. we have
| almost 50 years of microsoft behavior upon which we can
| base our judgements.
| MereInterest wrote:
| Key word: "adequately". A company making an honest mistake
| a few times is adequately explained by stupidity. A company
| making the exact same "mistake" year after year, decade
| after decade, is not.
| yason wrote:
| Microsoft isn't known to be stupid so that mostly leaves
| malice in their case.
| croes wrote:
| If the smart guy mainly is dumb when it suits him, then
| it's malice.
| bubblethink wrote:
| >This to me looks like stupidity more than malice
|
| Any sufficiently stupid technology is indistinguishable from
| malice.
| tanseydavid wrote:
| Well-played! <golf-clap>
| Donckele wrote:
| +1 for stupidity
| nerdponx wrote:
| Stupidity is only ever acceptable when it agrees with
| business objectives. Malice _is_ the sensible default
| assumption when money is on the line.
| prettyStandard wrote:
| "Break it but make it look like a mistake" /s
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| I wouldn't even use sarcasm here. It it is literally an
| actual and important part of the history of Microsoft:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code
| criley2 wrote:
| Money isn't on the line w.r.t. to Firefox Nightly. I don't
| even think real money is on the line w.r.t. to Firefox
| entirely.
|
| We may love it, but Firefox is a big fat nobody in the
| browser space of 2023.
| capitainenemo wrote:
| Well, everyone is a nobody compared to Chrome at this
| point. Google has been extremely effective at taking over
| this space (enormous engineering team implementing new
| standards far faster than others can keep up, marketing
| (including on google landing page), poor/selective
| support for other browsers on the major platforms of the
| web that they wrote, install by default on 90% of the
| world's phones, pay for install by adobe and other
| products long ago).
|
| https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-
| share/desktop/worl... 7% firefox, 10% safari, 11% edge.
|
| By the measure of desktop browsers, Safari and Edge are
| nobodies too, and that is even with Microsoft's browser
| being a chrome skin and preinstalled on Windows.
| hinkley wrote:
| Microsoft has a long and storied history of claiming superior
| business acumen when it suits their narrative, and then
| incompetence when that does.
|
| "We are the smartest developers in the world" I'm told used to
| be something you heard on campus, presumably during the
| recruiting process, and in the board room. But if the Justice
| department comes knocking, they turn into Steve Urkel.
|
| You can't have it both ways, and they "accidentally" break too
| many things that earn them millions of dollars. It's not
| stupidity, it might not be malice, but if not malice then
| thoughtlessness or arrogance.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| Someone created a story "for the new release of teams a
| minimum browser compatibility test is required"
|
| The dev who picked it up got a list of supported user agents
| and decided that they'll simply do a string match and didn't
| think it through as it's easier than implementing feature
| detection https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Learn/Tools_and_tes...
| Cpoll wrote:
| > Microsoft has a long and storied history of claiming
| superior business acumen when it suits their narrative, and
| then incompetence when that does.
|
| Not to say that they don't play dirty, but this isn't
| actually a contradiction. When you hire 100k workers, you're
| going to have the smartest developers in the world _AND_ the
| Urkels.
|
| And odds are the smart developers aren't being put to work on
| the login page.
| hinkley wrote:
| Peer pressure, oversight and processes are supposed to
| prevent a group of people from becoming more than the sum
| of their worst parts. Microsoft has always found a way to
| become the sum of the worst instead of the average or the
| intersection. They only stopped outwardly projecting that
| behavior for a while after the EU dropped sanctions on
| their asses. But that was four rounds of promotions ago so
| that's all forgotten now.
| clcaev wrote:
| > And odds are the smart developers aren't being put to
| work on the login page.
|
| This would be a standard testing procedure, not really
| about developer being smart. Large organizations cannot
| depend upon individual heroics.
| croes wrote:
| First of all, Urkel is actually a genius, so it doesn't
| fit.
|
| Second, if you know you have better and worse programmers
| you either control the work of the latter or you don't ket
| them work at your entry.
|
| Nobody sees the work of your smart programmers if nobody
| could login.
|
| So either MS is a lot dumber than I thought or they just
| don't care because they no most people can't or don't want
| replace MS software.
| nerdponx wrote:
| > Looks like someone made a boo-boo it's simply based on the
| user agent, w/e string matching they do is too strict they
| aren't checking for actual JS/WebASM compatibility or anything
| like that.
|
| Microsoft has repeatedly engaged in malicious anticompetitive
| behavior. Without any additional information, I therefore think
| it's rational to place a high prior probability on this being
| malicious anticompetitive behavior. The data itself might be
| consistent with either an accident or malicious anticompetitive
| behavior. In that case, the prior dictates the posterior.
| scarface74 wrote:
| You saw the part about it not even recommending Edge?
|
| Or "this guy bullied me in the 5th grade in 2000. Therefore
| if he says the sky is blue he must be lying"
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| Well, the guy is still stalking me and using all possible
| dark patterns and weasel language to make me do what he
| wants, and if I don't agree, he will do it anyway by
| abusing the fact that I need to stay secure.
| capableweb wrote:
| This is what I see on Windows 11 + Firefox:
| https://imgur.com/a/aqzU2jr
|
| Seems to be recommending Edge to me, or Chrome.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Okay. So Microsoft is now being anticompetitive by not
| recommending a minor browser. But it is recommending it's
| biggest competitor?
| capableweb wrote:
| I don't think this particular instance might be anti-
| competitive, but I don't know their reasons for blocking
| Firefox Nightly in this case. I'm just jumping into the
| conversation to tell you that "You saw the part about it
| not even recommending Edge" was/is incorrect, as it does
| recommend Edge.
| hinkley wrote:
| You're comparing the behavior of a 10 year old with the
| behavior of grown adults.
|
| The guy who bullied your friend in college is probably
| still a monster today. And here you have a company full of
| people who were older than that (including grad and
| doctorate students).
|
| If he says the sky is blue you look up. It's probably
| cloudy.
| scarface74 wrote:
| I'm about the same age as MS so I'm going to push the
| analogy. I was 26 in 2000. I hope to God I'm not the same
| person at 49 after 6 jobs, one failed marriage (and a 12
| year current successful one), going through the real
| estate crash where I lost my shirt, etc.
|
| I really hope I'm not the same person I was in college in
| 1996
| mulmen wrote:
| Ah yes the "it will be different this time I promise"
| defense.
|
| Microsoft didn't get divorced or have six jobs or even
| study ethics as an undergrad. It's a corporation. Made up
| of the same kind of people at the same points in their
| careers as it has always been.
|
| In other words I get older but Microsoft stays the same
| age.
| scarface74 wrote:
| You really haven't been paying attention to the change in
| strategy over the past _decade_ when Microsoft was
| focused on "Windows everywhere"?
| hinkley wrote:
| Exactly. Once the interview process selects for the same
| sort of people, the wheel turns all on its own.
| hinkley wrote:
| The tree remembers what the axe soon forgets.
|
| If you're in a bar tomorrow and someone is picking a
| fight with you, and they say something that makes you
| realize that this person is someone you tormented,
| gloated over and whose life you tried to destroy.
|
| Do you think they're not entitled to their rage? Do you
| think you should get a pass in life for wrecking other
| people's childhoods without even an apology? Or do you
| maybe have it coming?
|
| By all means, apologize right now and try to defuse the
| situation. But Microsoft has never apologized for
| anything, and their new friends seem to think it's all
| overblown and they weren't cruel, vindictive _liars_ who
| stunted an entire industry by more than ten years. Gates
| was deluded. He thought he was saving the world when he
| wasn't. Balmer was just a thug. At least he was honest
| about it.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Yes, because as a mature adult , I don't still hold
| grudges about something that happened over 25 years ago.
|
| Are you the type of person that still refuses to use
| Google services because they cancelled Google Reader over
| a decade ago?
|
| And just like I had to learn to adapt and change my
| behavior after failure, so did MS when it lost out in
| mobile and was sued.
| parasti wrote:
| "I used to abuse people physically and/or emotionally in
| my early 20s but now I really hope I'm a different
| person" seems like a far fetched world view to conjure,
| to me. Do these people exist?
| scarface74 wrote:
| I've gone back to my 30 year class reunion. No I don't
| still hold grudges against the people who picked on me as
| a short (still short) fat (I got better) kid with a
| computer who couldn't talk to a girl if his life depended
| on it (I'm happily married).
|
| I really don't think about it. We talk. We ask about
| family, etc
| mulmen wrote:
| If you believe in incarceration as rehabilitation then
| they do. But I don't recall Microsoft ever serving time.
| hinkley wrote:
| Something life or your friends should have taught you
| long ago:
|
| If you want to break cycles of abuse in your life, you
| need to realize and accept that you are _not obligated to
| participate in anyone 's redemption story arc but your
| own_.
|
| There's a whole subclass of narcissists who play at being
| victims while controlling everything. Get out. Run. Do
| not look back.
| tanseydavid wrote:
| >> You're comparing the behavior of a 10 year old with
| the behavior of grown adults.
|
| It is not a direct comparison -- it is a metaphor. The
| degree of literal interpretation here is stunning to me.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| More like "this guy has a long history of bullying others
| by pretending that they're out of spec, and now hes' saying
| someone is out of spec; what are the odds that it's an
| honest mistake?"
| scarface74 wrote:
| Why go after Firefox then and not Chrome? Do you also
| think they worry about competition from IBM cloud?
| tanseydavid wrote:
| For me, Chrome goes straight into a redirect loop when I
| follow this link.
| jameshart wrote:
| This represents a basic misunderstanding of how public
| companies work.
|
| Microsoft has been subjected to multiple lawsuits and
| judgements and fines and consent agreements regarding its
| practices in this area. Microsoft has been burned by this
| kind of thing in the past; we probably don't even know half
| of the legal rulings that Microsoft is subject to that this
| potentially violates.
|
| My high prior probability would be that there are actually a
| bunch of lawyers in Microsoft whose job it is to ensure that
| they have training and processes in place precisely to
| _prevent_ this sort of thing happening, not that Microsoft
| has a secret team trying to find ways to sneakily block other
| browsers.
| luckylion wrote:
| Microsoft had blocked Skype web from being accessed by
| Firefox for years. I doubt anyone over there cared about
| it, it did make larger waves a few times.
|
| They no longer do though, or maybe Firefox has stopped
| identifying itself on the features they are testing.
| dcow wrote:
| Then why is it FF nightly only?
| kornhole wrote:
| It is a matter of configuration in their black box. I am
| using Librewolf and cannot login to Teams with that either.
| I have similar problem dropping links in Teams to URL's on
| my own server. MS blocks them, and I always have to tell
| people to copy the URL and paste it into a different
| browser such as Firefox.
| pluc wrote:
| On Android, with FF installed and using a Work profile
| for all the Microsoft bullshit, both Outlook and Teams
| won't let me click on links because "there's no
| compatible browser installed" :D
| nimbius wrote:
| Agreed. All the big players in fact have a vested interest in
| encumbering Firefox releases as this browser still provides
| the ability to use poweful adblocking, which directly affects
| ad revenue.
| imachine1980_ wrote:
| Fururologist here, Librewolf and firefox nigthly is probably
| 0.01 porcentaje of users, is probably lore we don't test this
| we say it doesn't work use something we test it, yes they
| should say is your browser but the avrege client is old man
| who doesn't understand what they download and don't wat to
| use opera from 2000 more than this, is better say use some of
| this
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| Or it's just a bug.
| pluc wrote:
| Never attribute to malice that which is adequately
| explained by stupidity
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
| pas wrote:
| it's even worse than stupidity. it's all done in the name of
| UX. Apple style. please use the "supported" browser.
|
| they did the same with web Skype.
| 6c696e7578 wrote:
| Sounds like Hanlon's razor:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
| croes wrote:
| Only ince or twice maybe.
|
| BTW how can we trust Hanlon? Maybe he tried to cover up is
| own malice.
| capableweb wrote:
| Imagine being a malicious actor in this world of ours, where
| as long as you could make it look like a potential mistake,
| you can get away with whatever, and people on the internet
| will simply say "Sounds like Hanlon's Razor" and you're
| basically in the clear :shrug:
| l_theanine wrote:
| Imagine being someone who made a simple mistake, and people
| on some weird internet forum with no identity verification
| said "Oh, that guy must be malicious!" and you lose your
| job. How would you feel? It's justified, if I understand
| the point you're trying to make, right?
|
| Which is worse?
|
| Edit: Not that I expect much from here, but since there are
| a number of child(ish) replies, I might as well clarify
| this for the replies that I'm not going to individually
| address:
|
| I'm not saying it's not cool to say "Microsoft sucks" or
| anything like that. If that's how you feel, then feel free
| to just say that. It's the internet. What's NOT cool is
| making up an imaginary situation where someone's simple
| error is part of this conspiracy that Microsoft is this
| terrible evil corporation, when there's thousands of
| decent, community-loving people that work there, one of
| whom made this error, more than likely by simple
| carelessness. It's not that big of a deal, it's not a
| showstopper by any means, and will be a simple fix in due
| time, almost undoubtedly.
|
| There are people behind software, but a lot of commenters
| seem to think it's professionally appropriate to just shit
| on things because they're from Microsoft or because they're
| from Apple, or wherever. Just say you don't like Microsoft,
| or that you don't like Apple. It's so antisocial to take
| the stance I keep seeing.
|
| I think the young people call this "parasocial" these days.
| Back in my day, we called it "fanatics", where there's this
| unhealthy obsession and seemingly anthromorphized view of
| corporations and institutions where hundreds or thousands
| of different, varied, diverse groups of people are all
| cohesively accomplishing or building things. It dismisses
| nuance, it rejects common sense understanding of how teams
| of people work, and is reductive and hostile to actually
| intelligent conversations about products and ideas.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| You do realize the "someone" in question is a mega
| corporation worth almost 2 TRILLION dollars with around
| 200K employees? One with a long history of anti-
| competitive behaviour and "mistakes"?
| l_theanine wrote:
| I've worked on contracts alongside MS employees and
| researchers in the past, and I've been pleasantly
| surprised.
|
| Three decades of experience in the field, and
| unfortunately, I don't have quite the brooding disdain
| for Microsoft. Their stock has lined my pockets, their
| employees have treated my respectfully when we've worked
| together, their products do what they're advertised to
| do.
|
| Something tells me you're under 40.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| > Three decades of experience in the field, and
| unfortunately, I don't have quite the brooding disdain
| for Microsoft. Their stock has lined my pockets, their
| employees have treated my respectfully when we've worked
| together, their products do what they're advertised to
| do.
|
| "They've lined my pockets and treated me nice so anything
| they do is all right by me."
|
| > Something tells me you're under 40.
|
| No. But during my three decades of experience, I actually
| grew up.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| self-defined winners claim the system works, news at 11
| l_theanine wrote:
| Bummer, I guess. I got rich and paid for three kids to go
| to Ivy League schools, bought a house a mile and a half
| from the White House, and before too long will leave them
| a seven figure nest egg after my wife and I are dead.
|
| But hey, revel in your internet wit, mighty commenter!
| Your immense mental stature frightens me! ;-)
| Forbo wrote:
| Of course someone who is gaining financially from MS is
| going to take this position.
|
| "It is difficult to get a man to understand something,
| when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
| l_theanine wrote:
| My salary doesn't depend on it, it's just in my
| portfolio. I'm just not an idiot...
|
| I do consulting and bill upwards of 300/hr worked in the
| DC area, with several decades of experience and a network
| built up along the way.
|
| I took this position thirty years ago too, my mind hasn't
| changed except that young people feel like they're clever
| or somehow intellectually valid for copy pasting a quote
| into a web forum.
| tanseydavid wrote:
| Your continued series of replies seem to do nothing to
| bolster your argument about Microsoft.
|
| But at the same you elaborate in great (and unnecessary)
| detail about the level of success you have attained.
|
| BTW: I am hardly young. I am nearly ancient.
| l_theanine wrote:
| I'm not making an argument about Microsoft, but rather
| about the low regard I have for people who make
| inflammatory comments about companies online when there's
| human beings there doing all the work, affected by the
| negativity. It's just childish, and reeks of chronically
| online personalities.
|
| Making a personal remark about me is plenty of reason for
| me to mention my success, since they implied that my
| perspective is somehow fueled entirely by some stock that
| I own. I have actual experience working alongside some MS
| people, and I have held that stock since 2013. So what?
| My opinion just goes out the window? That doesn't make
| much sense to me, I don't know about you...
|
| The reason I associate that with youth is that young
| people often don't have a healthy portfolio or indeed any
| financial hygiene to speak of and seem to think that
| business is a zero sum game. We all benefit from the
| business world pushing things forward if we're holding
| stock in the most powerful companies. I'm hardly a
| supporter of the capitalist system, but I'll be damned if
| it's not going to work in my favor, since I understand
| how things are. My responsibility is to my family first.
| Had there been a revolution when I was younger, I'd have
| been among the first in line to change things, but it
| didn't happen.
|
| I think I'm wasting my time in this thread, though.
| capableweb wrote:
| I don't think anyone is assigning blame to a specific
| individual here, but to the corporation as a whole. A
| corporation that has time and time again been proven and
| acknowledged themselves to engage in anti-competitive
| behavior.
| l_theanine wrote:
| I think it's deliberately obtuse to claim to represent
| such an opinion. The people on "git blame" for this will
| end up being reprimanded in some way, in serious cases.
|
| If we're chalking it up to "Microsoft sucks" then that's
| fine, but it'd be better imo to just say THAT, rather
| than sneak up to the point via this auxiliary issue of
| this user agent string. Someone has to answer for these
| individual fuck-ups, it's intentionally shitty behavior
| to be insinuating that someone did this maliciously under
| the guise of end users assuming innocence, thereby
| obscuring the responsibility for it.
| capableweb wrote:
| > The people on "git blame" for this will end up being
| reprimanded in some way, in serious cases.
|
| Ok, sucks to work at Microsoft then, it is not the fault
| at people outside Microsoft that they have terrible
| management, if that's how things go there.
|
| > Someone has to answer for these individual fuck-ups,
| it's intentionally shitty behavior to be insinuating that
| someone did this maliciously under the guise of end users
| assuming innocence, thereby obscuring the responsibility
| for it.
|
| Yes, management who are the decision makers should
| obviously answer for this, and if the culture is to blame
| some random engineer who happened to program it, the
| engineer is probably better off getting fired from such a
| toxic environment where they have to be some scapegoat
| for managements fuckups.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Most organizations, Microsoft included, employ a
| blameless policy.
|
| It's almost never an individual person's fault, but
| rather that the process failed in stopping a regression
| from going through. If anything should be blamed, it's
| that the process didn't catch this; at the PR, testing,
| or release phases.
|
| If individuals were reprimanded nearly as much as it's
| implied, there wouldn't be a lot of people employed at
| Microsoft or any other big company.
| Karunamon wrote:
| You don't have to invent imaginary scenarios when the one
| before us does quite well on its own. We are not talking
| about an individual, we are talking about a faceless
| megacorp with a storied history of bad faith.
|
| Just being a faceless megacorp is reasonable grounds for
| losing the benefit of the doubt, but one with their
| history? Ascribing anything other than malice first is
| plain and simple naivete.
| 13of40 wrote:
| I'm struggling to see the world from your point of view.
| Do you honestly believe there's a room full of cigar
| smoking robber barons somewhere in Redmond who got
| together and told the devops guy who runs that site to
| break compatibility with some niche browser's interim
| builds, because that's the best way to maximize profits?
| (And somehow these same guys were the ones pulling the
| strings in 1995?)
| MereInterest wrote:
| Align all the incentives, and you don't need to have an
| explicit command. If your product demo is only tested on
| the company's browser, no order is necessary to break
| compatibility, as it will drift away by default. If a
| team is chastised for having misrendered prototypes, but
| not for browser compatibility, then it makes sense for an
| individual to throw in a User Agent check.
|
| It isn't likely that any one individual is pushing for
| incompatibility, but that nobody cares about
| incompatibility. That lack of care about any standards,
| with "it works" and "it works on our
| browser/OS/hardware/etc" treated as synonymous, can be
| part of a company culture.
| antifa wrote:
| Imagine Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown
| for the 99th time then some randos show up to defend Lucy
| saying some really obtuse and ignorant shit like it was
| "a simple mistake".
| pessimizer wrote:
| > and you lose your job.
|
| You're making up stuff to make your case stronger. Also,
| it's totally legitimate to fire people for making
| mistakes, it's not an injustice.
|
| edit: Instead, imagine being fired for making a mistake
| when you were actually told to ignore something by a
| supervisor.
| laserlight wrote:
| I'll never understand Hanlon's razor. I've never seen any
| malice which cannot be explained by stupidity.
| pessimizer wrote:
| There should be consultants who specialize in Hanlon's
| Razor, coming up with ways to make future plans look like
| stupid mistakes. Or maybe more usefully, they could
| discover profitable mistakes based on current conditions
| and events e.g. "Those two labels could be confused with
| each other; is there any way to make money from claiming
| that we confused them?"
| hinkley wrote:
| We've been doing that at least since World War II in
| military intelligence, and they probably stole the idea
| from organized crime.
| Forbo wrote:
| When it comes to megacorporations with a history of
| anticompetitive behavior, I much prefer "Never attribute to
| stupidity that which is adequately explained by greed."
| hinkley wrote:
| Never attribute to incompetence that which can be attributed
| to laziness.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Microsoft has some of the worst developers in big tech. I worked
| with two principal engineers from Microsoft and I swore I would
| never work with anyone from Microsoft again.
| dijit wrote:
| I dislike microsoft irrationally, but I would find it hard to
| paint with such a broad brush.
|
| Typescript & vscode are products microsoft produced and are
| beloved.
|
| you can also find things in Windows that are just "better" than
| what we had in Linux land until very recently, namely
| IOCompletion Ports and the iSCSI stuff.
| tag2103 wrote:
| We are a smaller company, only 10 users. We are in the process of
| fully ditching Microsoft for a full linux stack using Samba for
| AD (for the leprosy known as Quickbooks alone). I've blocked MS
| at the pihole and was expecting people to bring torches and
| pitchforks. The general consensus was we should have done this
| years ago and how did you make my computer so much faster. To
| hell with Microsoft and their tripe.
| c7DJTLrn wrote:
| Nice. I've also blocked Microsoft Teams in the sense that I
| won't work for a company that uses it, or any of the Office
| suite for that matter. Always willing to "unblock" it should
| Microsoft have an epiphany some day and decide to invest in
| building good products.
| inductive_magic wrote:
| I get "hmm, your browser isn't supported" on safari mobile.
| Xerox9213 wrote:
| The link is https://teams.live.com/_#/unsupportedBrowser
|
| I imagine this is what Teams forwards you to when it sees FF
| Nightly as your browser.
| valvar wrote:
| Happens with a lot of websites, unfortunately. Also experienced
| this with Samsung when trying to manage my account for their
| SmartThings app.
| precommunicator wrote:
| Long time ago my bank used to block it, a simple change of User-
| Agent fixed that problem.
| Saris wrote:
| I see they're still doing the usual back-button hijack that every
| microsoft website seems to do as well.
| hellcow wrote:
| Not just nightly. Stable is blocked as well.
|
| Seems we're in the next IE-era.
| hank_z wrote:
| I can use Teams on the stable version without any issues. You
| might have cross-origin cookies disabled, which will stop Teams
| from working. PS. FF:v110.0.1 (64-bit), macOS: 13.2.1.
| hank_z wrote:
| Oops, sorry. I was using the Office 365 Teams
| (teams.microsoft.com), which runs ok on FF. I can confirm the
| Teams for the personal account
| (https://teams.live.com/_#/unsupportedBrowser) is not
| supported in FF.
| askonomm wrote:
| Those cookies are disabled by default in Firefox. Are you
| saying that to successfully use Teams one has to alter their
| browser configuration to make it _less secure_?
| hank_z wrote:
| I believe it's website specific. Office 365 Teams
| (teams.microsoft.com) will request users to grant certain
| permissions when it's visited.
| yokoprime wrote:
| Then there is an error. Teams supports FF stable, they have
| even made efforts to improve support
|
| https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?filter...
| drowsspa wrote:
| I don't know what is "support" for them, but I've never been
| able to make calls in it. Only the chat function works.
| warner25 wrote:
| That's what I was thinking too. I have to keep Chrome
| installed on my Linux machine exclusively to use Teams for
| voice and video calls, since calls have never been possible
| in Firefox and the Linux desktop client is so buggy.
| vetinari wrote:
| Linux desktop client seems to be dead; as of last week,
| trying to download the deb or rpm package results into
| 404.
| lousken wrote:
| both nighly and stable ff is broken - my mother couldn't
| access her meeting in Firefox the other day because Teams
| said "you only have to use Edge or Chrome"
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| This is absolutely true. There are some types of meetings
| (likely the ones which are MS Stream-based -- but as a
| plain user this is impossible to detect) where upon joining
| you will get the dreaded message about incompatible
| browser.
| csncsu wrote:
| The posted link is to the error page.
| https://teams.microsoft.com works in FF stable.
| dr_kretyn wrote:
| Doesn't work on stable 110.0.1 (64-bit).
| KMnO4 wrote:
| Oh wow, I clicked on that link on mobile and was unable to go
| back. Pressing the back button just redirected to the same
| page over and over again. Usually you only see that on
| malicious ad sites.
| dpkirchner wrote:
| Microsoft's largely useless support site does the same
| thing. There's something weird afoot in that organization.
| foepys wrote:
| Microsoft's tech forum pages have been highjacking the back
| button for years now. It's really despicable...
| Gare wrote:
| If you don't know already, long press on the back button
| solves the problem.
| runxel wrote:
| Nope, it doesn't. FF stable on MacOS.
|
| Teams is, was, and will be the absolut worst. They only won,
| because it's bundled into MSO.
| hexo wrote:
| Nope - "We're sorry--we've run into an issue."
| [deleted]
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Microsoft has always lived in the same era.
| aendruk wrote:
| > the next IE-era
|
| the WebKit Wide Web
| bouke wrote:
| Doesn't work in Safari on default settings either, it
| complains about disabling tracking prevention. No thanks.
| Also, Safari's tracking prevention is almost 6 years old by
| now, support it already. So more like Chromium Wide Web.
| aendruk wrote:
| Even this remark assumes familiarity with "ITP", as if it's
| some web standard.
|
| https://webkit.org/blog/7675/intelligent-tracking-
| prevention...
| xattt wrote:
| > Seems we're in the next IE-era
|
| Too bad there is no Register or Inquirer equivalent this time
| around.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| The register is still there but they're really pro-big
| business this time around. Recently there was an piece about
| how happy we should be with all the corporate Linuxes. Bow to
| our benefactors :)
| _joel wrote:
| How's it fingerprinting, can you fake the user-agent or using
| more modern methods?
| rejectfinite wrote:
| I have seen this error before :) A lot here.
|
| live.com is the "personal" Teams, the one pinned in Windows 11.
|
| teams.microsoft.com is the enterprise "real" Teams, the first one
| they released.
|
| They are different, why there is 2 downloads here. But HN loves
| to hate on Teams so... carry on :)
|
| https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/download-app
| voytec wrote:
| Firefox ESR as well.
| prophesi wrote:
| Is it blocking Firefox entirely? At least on an M2 Mac, it shows
| "Your browser isn't supported" running Firefox v110.0.1.
| red_trumpet wrote:
| Works for me on Kubuntu 22.04. Note that the link above
| directly goes to the error page.
| prophesi wrote:
| Yeah, I logged in and it still gave the error page after
| routing to /#go. Same happens on my Fedora machine.
| asddubs wrote:
| so is this the ie11 user agent matching thing?
| yokoprime wrote:
| No, there is something wrong with their browser detection.
| Teams supports Firefox, Chrome and Edge
| https://www.microsoft.com/en-
| us/microsoft-365/roadmap?filter...
| yazzku wrote:
| What if you fake the user agent?
| [deleted]
| squeegeeninja wrote:
| Firefox has been blocked entirely for at least a year now, in
| my experience.
| [deleted]
| yokoprime wrote:
| Why not use stable FF for your business meetings?
| phneutral26 wrote:
| Thats also blocked. But what did you expect from a greedy
| multi-million $ company, that already forces their browser on
| your system. Yust recently there was a post on here that
| pointed out how Microsoft forces Edge on their Windows Users.
| So yeah, what did you expect...
| [deleted]
| superkuh wrote:
| Modern web development has made it so that browsers are
| essentially just a VM for running javascript applications. Each
| megacorp (and mozilla, the odd institution out) browser is now
| it's own OS. It's no surprise that each OS is diverging from the
| others. Especially now that the W3C has been sidelined and the
| megacorp controlled WHATWG is making the calls (in the best case,
| in the worst, or more common case, each browser OS just does it's
| own proprietary thing).
|
| You wouldn't be surprised that Windows or Mac OS can't run a
| linux elf, or vice versas. Same here. This phenomenon is web devs
| getting what they deserve and dragging everyone down with them.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Change your user agent, not your browser.
| plorg wrote:
| My organization (which uses Teams) forcibly migrated all Firefox
| users to Edge a couple of weeks ago and uninstalled FF. They were
| citing incompatibility with some software and I assumed that
| meant the new ERP system being adopted by one of the larger
| departments.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Microsoft is very heavily lobbying organizations to use edge as
| a standard browser right now. They're doing the same to us.
| It's really annoying. They're hell-bent on increasing
| marketshare no matter what.
| fatneckbeard wrote:
| trying to get rid of a nother IM client at my place. everyone
| hates it because the one they are replacing is very simple
| and quick
| jzombie wrote:
| It would be interesting if Google tweaked their Chromium
| licensing so that Edge couldn't use it. Then Microsoft
| wouldn't have a browser at all.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| That's the weird thing about Microsoft expanding
| marketshare.
|
| If they'd actually succeed in capturing the majority of the
| market, there's a big chance Google would throw in the
| towel and then what??
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Then they stop all development. It already happened with
| IE6. Took a decade to decrown it even though for all
| intents and purposes it was a dead browser.
| [deleted]
| josephcsible wrote:
| And they wouldn't even need to stoop so low as to make it
| non-FOSS. Just making it GPLv3+ would probably do it.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Or "we like open source software and 'freedom' as long as
| it is used by the right people in a way that I agree with"
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| [flagged]
| kyle-rb wrote:
| Most of these patent numbers seem to be incorrect; all
| the numbers except for the first one seem to point to
| unrelated patents.
|
| I was curious about the email one, but "7,536,726" points
| to a different Microsoft patent (also expired), and I
| couldn't find a patent with the name "System and method
| for providing remote access to electronic mail".
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| I did wonder about the ethics of pasting a list derived
| from ChatGPT without checking them personally. Thanks for
| doing the legwork on that.
|
| What I'm finding (over the last few minutes of
| experimentation) is that patent references in ChatGPT are
| valid, but tend to have the wrong numbers associated with
| them. If you ask it to summarize the claims in a given
| patent, it will sometimes pull up the wrong patent.
| Interestingly, you can correct it with a suitable prompt
| -- see one example at https://i.imgur.com/EQrhFt8.png --
| at which point it will do the right thing or at least
| come close to it.
|
| Anyway, the point stands: there is only so much Google
| can do to stand up to Microsoft. Royalties in 2013
| reached $2 billion (
| https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-
| earns-2-billion-pe... ) and it's safe to say they didn't
| stop filing bullshit patents in 2013.
| breakingcups wrote:
| Don't you think it's unethical to spread misinformation
| like this without doing your due diligence in checking?
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Yep.
|
| But do you care to address the actual point, which is
| still correct even if a few patent numbers are wrong?
|
| Would it have been better not to mention specific patents
| at all?
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Wow all low-hanging fruit patent-troll type of stuff :(
| The patent system is so broken.
| lights0123 wrote:
| Microsoft could just keep an independent fork--just match
| features at a slower pace. Google can't change the license
| of Blink, their renderer, since it's a fork of KDE's LGPL
| renderer.
| shp0ngle wrote:
| gnu license is working as intended - helping...
| microsoft? I guess
|
| edit: but honestly, Google could go Apple open source
| way, making code changes in huge dumps that are
| impossible to integrate back. But I an not sure it's
| worth the trouble.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| In the last months I have heard everything from MS including
| "Firefox is the #1 source of security bugs in enterprise" and
| the like.
| josephcsible wrote:
| Since that's verifiably false, why hasn't Mozilla filed a
| defamation lawsuit over it?
| rejectfinite wrote:
| Lobbying? Please describe
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Constantly hanging out with the senior management praising
| Edge. As they say "Microsoft is better at talking to your
| boss than you do".
|
| Also their consultants are trained to be shills. Every time
| we have a call with them they will remark about it if we
| use another browser, even though their area of expertise
| has nothing to do with it.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I wonder why they don't just allow both
| magicalhippo wrote:
| > forcibly migrated all Firefox users to Edge
|
| Man, I can understand doing that for regular users who don't
| care, but as a developer?
|
| Just a few weeks ago an integrator for an ERP system our
| customer had bought was trying to show some details in a Teams
| call when his PC suddenly rebooted. He came back and
| apologized, turns out it was a company policy forced reboot. In
| the middle of the day because what are timezones?
|
| If my company tried anything like forcing which browser is
| installed or when my machine reboots, I'd hand in my
| resignation promptly.
| MaxLeiter wrote:
| From a security perspective, I feel like my employer can do
| what they need to. I wouldn't accept 24/7 active monitoring,
| but ensuring programs are up-to-date and trusted seems like
| basic steps in preventing a security incident.
|
| The two programs I've used that auto-update your machine give
| you plenty of a heads-up that you should do it yourself.
| [deleted]
| einpoklum wrote:
| Which organization? At least they can get derided publicly for
| doing this...
| Peanuts99 wrote:
| This is 100% down to the poor manageability of Firefox on
| corporate networks. Edge has all the same ADMX templates plus
| more than Chrome. Corporate management of software is
| important.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| The above link is for home Teams.
|
| Your company should be using teams.microsoft.com ! :)
|
| So your comment makes no sense.
|
| We as IT admins may just want to keep track of Edge updates and
| extensions and not want someone running months old Firefox all
| sneaky like.
| nabilhat wrote:
| This sounds remarkably familiar. A certain ERP I've been
| dealing with sent out dire warnings about installing and
| updating Edge, else something nebulously defined would break.
| This understandably caused a lot of confusion and frustration
| with users (the ERP spammed so many with this warning...) and
| pissed off IT teams. It turns out that the Edge they were
| talking about was the ERP's own software named Edge (amusingly
| named and released long after Edge the browser showed up),
| which they leave for the end user to optionally install, and
| actively refused to clearly document why, where, and how to
| install it.
|
| The fun part is all of this was to update an expired
| certificate.
| number6 wrote:
| At least Edge is now Chrome...
| josephcsible wrote:
| "At least" makes it sound like that's a silver lining, but
| that makes it worse. It's exacerbating the Blink monoculture
| problem.
| tanseydavid wrote:
| Visiting this link in Chrome ends up in a redirect loop.
|
| One the URLs that passes by during the loop indicates:
| "unsupported browser" at the end of the string./
| biehl wrote:
| Works for me with the Office 365 Teams. Is the one on live.com
| different?
| rejectfinite wrote:
| Yes, OP is misinformed and wrong and so are many comments here.
|
| Office 365 Teams works in Firefox.
|
| Source: Me, right now.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| They're in theory built on the same platform, but the live.com
| version is "Teams for Home"
|
| https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/teams-for-ho...
| rozab wrote:
| I have a regular teams call with somebody, and never use it
| outside of this. A few months ago it was blocking both Firefox
| and Chromium user agents on Linux. Rather than mucking about with
| it I just switched to a Windows laptop for this meeting. But last
| week I tried it on Linux Firefox and it works (well, to the
| limited extent that teams works at all)
| tmdh wrote:
| This may be unrelated. Is it legal to ship a Firefox fork as a
| distribution with a Chrome user agent by default?
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| as long as you don't include any of the firefox or mozilla
| branding, because you don't have the rights to those:
| absolutely.
| nerdponx wrote:
| There are also Firefox extensions that let you set a custom
| user agent. It might make you easier to fingerprint (unusual
| combination of user agent and browser features means very
| very high uniqueness), but it will allow you to bypass buggy
| user agent checks if needed.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Although of course an even better solution is to complain
| and get MS to fix their shit. This was almost certainly
| someone not realizing they should feature test instead of
| checking a UA.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Yeah, right!
| [deleted]
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| https://teams.microsoft.com Firefox 110.0.1 on Linux, works
| perfectly
|
| What am I missing?
|
| The link in the submission points to
|
| https://teams.live.com/_#/unsupportedBrowser
|
| but https://teams.live.com/ works without issues
| tredre3 wrote:
| > What am I missing?
|
| It's blocked on Nightly. 110.0.1 is the current stable version,
| not nightly.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| Again, cannot believe so many people are wrong about this.
|
| teams.LIVE.com is the HOME version of TEAMS. - does NOT work
| on ANY FF version.
|
| teams.MICROSOFT.com is the ENTERPRISE version of Teams. -
| WORKS on FF
|
| But hey feel good when devs are wrong about basic shit. I
| have some job security then.
|
| *again downvoted by mad incels
| worksonmine wrote:
| This is not just nightly, even Firefox-esr on Debian didn't
| support screen-sharing at least a few months ago. Had issues
| during client meetings last year and since then I always propose
| google meet instead if I see a teams link in the invitation,
| explaining why.
|
| It's not technical it's lazy devs. The button is disabled
| claiming my browser doesn't support it. Bullshit.
| l0b0 wrote:
| We need a third option in the malice/incompetence spectrum:
| _active neglect._ It 's the safest way for big organisations to
| push users off of platforms they don't like. A combination of one
| or more of the following is going to ensure that the platform
| support is always wonky:
|
| - Under-fund the testing. This can backfire if whistle-blowers
| point out the change.
|
| - Assign bad apples to the platform. This can't really backfire,
| because of the woke "everyone's equally good at everything"
| thing.
|
| - Keep moving the target, similar to the "extend" part of
| embrace-extend-extinguish. "Of course we can't support legacy
| platforms like Firefox, because they don't support this
| incredibly niche 3D tile caching optimisation flag, which only
| Teams and two other products on the globe use."
| behnamoh wrote:
| Controversial opinion:
|
| I used to like Firefox but at some point you have to accept the
| reality: No developer likes to have 2 backlogs, one for Chrome
| and one for FF. IMO It's better to adopt Chromium-based browsers
| and put pressure on Google to avoid letting it become the sole
| decision-maker about the web.
| greendude29 wrote:
| It's not a controversial opinion as much as it is incongruent.
|
| > IMO It's better to adopt Chromium-based browsers and put
| pressure on Google to avoid letting it become the sole
| decision-maker about the web.
|
| But by using chromium/blink-based browsers, you have already
| taken the pressure off Google. You have already given them what
| they want, so you've forfeited your hand.
|
| For anyone out there who values the swiftly fading open-ness of
| the Internet, Firefox or other smaller FLOSS browsers are the
| right tools of choice.
| rvz wrote:
| > For anyone out there who values the swiftly fading open-
| ness of the Internet, Firefox or other smaller FLOSS browsers
| are the right tools of choice.
|
| Mozilla had their chance at this decades ago and Firefox was
| the dominant browser against IE, 16 years ago, until they did
| a deal with Google, fell asleep at the wheel and allowed them
| to overtake and get sabotaged via Chrome's dominance. The
| same Mozilla CEO at the time believed they could live without
| Google's money [0] and now 16 years later, they are still
| heavily reliant on Google and at this point are on life-
| support.
|
| Mozilla already gave Google what they wanted and forfeited
| their so-called 'privacy-focused browser mission' over giving
| the CEO a decades streak of multi-million dollar pay days,
| whilst the 'Mozillians' only got layoffs and all left with
| little to nothing.
|
| Mozilla is now a joke to the 'open-ness of the web'. They
| have nothing to fight with and lost as soon as the took
| Google's money.
|
| [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20120105090543/https://www.co
| mpu...
| wkat4242 wrote:
| The problem IMO is that Mozilla became a corporation for
| Firefox. Their goals are now aligned with the parties
| they're supposed to fight against. Obviously that doesn't
| work.
| howinteresting wrote:
| Chrome became popular by being bundled as shovelware with
| Flash and being marketed on google.com. There is literally
| no way for an open source browser to compete against that.
|
| Mozilla has a lot of mismanagement but that's more of a
| symptom of Firefox being out-marketed in a way that was
| impossible to fight against.
| Matl wrote:
| > IMO It's better to adopt Chromium-based browsers and put
| pressure on Google to avoid letting it become the sole
| decision-maker about the web.
|
| Google doesn't care about us raging on HN, normal people are
| not going to 'put pressure on it' so all you're really doing is
| letting Google to become the sole decision-maker about the web,
| even more so than it already is.
| ghqst wrote:
| how exactly do you plan to put pressure on Google
| palata wrote:
| A good way to put pressure on Google is actually to use
| Firefox.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Yes, because using Firefox doesn't put money in Google's
| coffers.
|
| Oh wait...
| mulmen wrote:
| The way I use Firefox it definitely does not.
| jzombie wrote:
| What about Safari?
|
| From my experience, most WebRTC issues (i.e. Teams) are
| involved around Safari instead of Firefox or Chrome, provided
| the SDP negotiation is sequenced correctly.
| speed_spread wrote:
| That's why everybody should support Firefox, and only Firefox.
| Hey, you wanted controversy.
| super256 wrote:
| I Wonder what features are used here which Firefox doesn't
| support. It is certainly not the serial Interface.
| doodlesdev wrote:
| How the fuck could that happen if their browser engine is the
| only one supported in most websites and their browser has close
| to a monopoly when it comes to market share?
| dijit wrote:
| Respectfully, I don't care that you have two backlogs. Support
| the prevailing web-standards or lose me as a customer.
|
| I'm already sick of how much I have to kowtow to large
| companies because they treat developer time as costly, but user
| time as free.
| jjgreen wrote:
| I think you're looking for "kowtow", however much I enjoy
| "cow-toe"
| curtisblaine wrote:
| That works in reverse though: they can do that to people that
| they're happy to lose as a customer. In case of ff nightly,
| number of users are a rounding error. It's entirely possible
| that cutting them off is worth having a smaller backlog.
| behnamoh wrote:
| > Support the prevailing web-standards or lose me as a
| customer.
|
| Respectfully, a lot of developers don't care about losing a
| small percentage of users. They will get to focus their
| effort on Chrome users and increase the service quality for
| them.
| dijit wrote:
| That's fine. If they can't manage to make a service work
| using appropriate web standards then I don't think I trust
| them with hosting a service, my data, or to create adequate
| products anyway. -- I mean, what other corners are being
| cut?
| curtisblaine wrote:
| It's quite probable that they are not cutting the corners
| that make them money and they're cutting (or might cut)
| everything else. After all, Firefox Nightly's share is a
| rounding error for Teams (and its users probably not
| Team's target anyway)
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Seems like a strange business decision to give up a a
| percentage of the market to the competition like that.
| Karunamon wrote:
| The percentage of the market that holds a strong opinion
| about a nondefault web browser with already minuscule
| (and consistently declining) market share, and will
| actively avoid you for not supporting it, almost
| definitely costs more to cater to then to ignore.
| (Testing time, engine specific bugs and code, etc.)
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| That small percentage will be extremely loyal to
| whichever services will cater to them though. A small
| percentage of users all choosing to use your service can
| still be quite a lot of users if there is no real
| competition in the segment.
| gjpolly wrote:
| I think FF users need these sites more than the sites need
| them. There's little motivation to support a browser with
| relatively few users, and a big motivation to get users to
| switch to their platform.
| dijit wrote:
| I think you're right, but not supporting firefox leads more
| people to use chrome and suddenly we're living the exact
| definition of a vicious cycle.
|
| FWIW I'm not a firefox user myself, but I am _not_ a fan of
| Google hegemony in browser tech.
| palata wrote:
| I guess many people are in your situation. If they used
| Firefox, maybe it would help the "Google hegemony in
| browser tech" problem?
| dijit wrote:
| I use Safari so for now I don't consider myself part of
| the problem.
|
| Though I do launch Chrome to use Teams (because Teams is
| mandated by my org and I am too shrill and opinionated to
| install the desktop client).
| WirelessGigabit wrote:
| It's 2023. Why are we still doing user agent detection? We're
| supposed to do feature detection.
|
| userAgent is deprecated.
|
| https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/u...
| TAKEMYMONEY wrote:
| My guess is that they _aren 't_ using user agent detection, for
| reasons you mentioned.
|
| It's unlikely they QA unstable browsers, but some in this
| thread are reporting the same on FF stable.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| How do you detect whether the user's browser has a _slow_
| implementation of an API without actually freezing the browser
| for 8 seconds?
| vlovich123 wrote:
| 1. Pick the API that's most likely to be the fastest (based
| on marketshare) as the default to use.
|
| 2. Use `setInterval` to start your benchmark routine.
|
| 3. Benchmark function runs the API using a simple loop that
| will return quickly (i.e. within 2ms) using performance.now
| to evaluate.
|
| 4. When you obtain enough samples to indicate an alternate
| path is faster disable the benchmark function
|
| No freezing the browser. Shouldn't take too long to switch to
| an optimized version.
|
| That being said, this is a lot of complexity / hard to
| implement in a robust and fast way so I'm not saying it's a
| better answer.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Yeah or just test the user agent.
| [deleted]
| dogma1138 wrote:
| Because you'll be surprised how many developers aren't familiar
| with these things and how many of them think that they are more
| clever than the herd and do not validate their assumptions.
|
| It wouldn't surprise me if some junior dev picked it up and
| then went to ask a senior dev how can they detect the browser
| version and they got a half assed reply hmm check the user
| agent and went on with that.
|
| 95% of the major bugs and security issues I see on a daily
| basis are due to this.
| nforgerit wrote:
| I'm genuinely interested: How does UA sniffing for, e.g. a
| device class, introduce security issues that wouldn't exist
| w/o it?
| dogma1138 wrote:
| UA isn't the cause of security issues the same thought
| process or lack there off that led to UA being used as a
| proxy for compatibility in this cause is.
|
| But in a more general view reliance on an unreliable and
| user controlled data for decision making is a pretty common
| pitfall in the security world.
| issafram wrote:
| Just look at all the big companies doing it
|
| https://faisalman.github.io/ua-parser-js/
| pentagrama wrote:
| That tool says that I'm on Windows 10 but I'm on 11, so not
| 100% accurate.
| capableweb wrote:
| Does using `window.navigator.userAgent` still work? Does it
| still return the actual user-agent?
|
| Yes, and because it does, people will use it. You (or
| standards) bodies can scream from the top of the mountains that
| it's deprecated, but it won't matter, because if it's there, it
| will be used.
| Szpadel wrote:
| but Microsoft should understand why this is an issue, they
| had to rename their windows from 9 to 10 because applications
| did check based on os name string and just exit after
| detecting it contains "windows 9" as it suppose to match
| windows 95 and windows 98
| capableweb wrote:
| Microsoft is a huge corporation with multiple different
| identities inside of it, like every international super-
| conglomerate. The people who work on the OS are very
| different people who work on the web stuff.
| ivandenysov wrote:
| Where can I read more about this?
| Szpadel wrote:
| I don't think that there was any well written article
| about as it was very plausible rumor. but you can see eg:
| https://searchcode.com/?q=osname.startswith%28%22windows+
| 9%2... to see this issue present in a lot of publicly
| available source code.
| cpeterso wrote:
| Similarly, Mozilla recently had to freeze part of Firefox's
| User-Agent string because some websites mistook Firefox 110
| as IE 11 and blocked access because they no longer
| supported IE 11. The websites misinterpreted "rv:110" in
| Firefox's Use-Agent string as "rv:11".
|
| https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1805967
| [deleted]
| curtisblaine wrote:
| The alternative is breaking backwards compatibility, which
| means breaking the Web. (I'm not necessarily against that)
| Jasper_ wrote:
| There are genuine differences in browsers that need to be
| handled correctly and aren't easily observable or runtime-
| detectable. Multimedia (needed for camera/mic handling) and
| WebRTC still remain a giant landmine that requires UA testing
| 10 years later.
|
| Web advocates can scream from the rooftops as much as they want
| that nobody should do UA testing, and then have basically no
| response when we encounter genuine browser bugs that can't be
| worked around.
| tuwtuwtuwtuw wrote:
| Not always that simple. Where I work I need to provide a list
| of browsers customers can use, list those in the documentation
| and make sure QA test all of them and block any others.
|
| Bugs in the app can lead to big issues and telling the
| customers to use whatever browser suits them and "if it works
| it works" is not good enough. There are still large differences
| between browsers that feature existence is not same as feature
| conptivinility.
|
| Of course customers can tweak user agent and "lie" about their
| browser but then responsibility of issues is shifted to them.
| 3np wrote:
| > block any others.
|
| I get all the rest but not this part. A banner should work
| plenty?
| nforgerit wrote:
| I get the best practice and why relying on the User Agent is
| helplessly flawed, but I've never come across a better way to
| get a sneak peek into the (first) Initial Page Request of a
| customer to your web app. E.g. if you'd wanted to improve the
| page performance and weight of your app, you'll want to keep
| unused js/css to near zero. If you'd rely on feature detection,
| your critical path for "showing the initial screen of the app"
| is bound to "download feature detect, parse it, execute it,
| fetch correct variants of your js/css packages, parse them,
| execute them, show screen". That's not cool, imho.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Changing the UA only changes the behavior of the web server,
| so unless that's some block of untouchable code owned by some
| other team made to 'optimize' page loads for different
| clients, you're not doing yourself any favors by changing it
| in your browser; you should be loading up the client itself
| since you can't simulate the actual engine loading your web
| app differently.
|
| > If you'd rely on feature detection, your critical path for
| "showing the initial screen of the app" is bound to "download
| feature detect, parse it, execute it, fetch correct variants
| of your js/css packages, parse them, execute them, show
| screen". That's not cool, imho.
|
| Even for barebones web apps, your initial html response
| should have either empty data (but otherwise a visible UI) or
| a SSR'd version of the page shown while the JS downloads and
| executes.
| nforgerit wrote:
| 1) If clients spoof their UA, they just get what they asked
| for. Couldn't care less.
|
| 2) With SSR you're actually making a case for sniffing the
| UA for the client's device class. Web apps might need to
| ship vastly different but overlapping code across different
| device classes. I'm not even talking about things that can
| be lazily loaded subsequently, I'm talking about the
| initial screen for given URL.
|
| 3) I'm _not_ going to show the customer any loading spinner
| or just show a white page for 2s. We had that with Java
| Applets, remember?
|
| All in all, I'm not saying we should getting back into
| optimizing web apps for certain os/browsers/versions. What
| I'm saying is there might be good reasons where the mess of
| classifying the device on the (first) Initial Page Request
| is acceptable, given the alternatives.
| judge2020 wrote:
| > 1) If clients spoof their UA, they just get what they
| asked for. Couldn't care less.
|
| I thought you were specifically talking about testing the
| behavior of your website on different client by changing
| your browser's UA. The only legitimate use would be if
| you have a mobile-only stylesheet like older wordpress
| themes (because you said "I've never come across a better
| way to get a sneak peek into the (first) Initial Page
| Request of a customer to your web app")
|
| > 2) With SSR you're actually making a case for sniffing
| the UA for the client's device class. Web apps might need
| to ship vastly different but overlapping code across
| different device classes. I'm not even talking about
| things that can be lazily loaded subsequently, I'm
| talking about the initial screen for given URL.
|
| I'm not sure why this would be the case. For Teams, they
| can just load a purple top bar with the words "Microsoft
| Teams: Loading", right? That's a single responsive
| stylesheet.
|
| > 3) I'm _not_ going to show the customer any loading
| spinner or just show a white page for 2s. We had that
| with Java Applets, remember?
|
| What else are you going to show while the page loads? A
| fake UI with fake data? As soon as the JS starts
| executing and loading data, that data can start to
| populate the screen.
| 3np wrote:
| How do you deal with guaranteeing this approach doesn't
| break users with non-default settings and preferences?
| Dispatch1902 wrote:
| [dead]
| bluedino wrote:
| Whatever software blocker BIGCORP uses has prevented me from
| running non-release FF for quite a while at work
| scarface74 wrote:
| And you don't see why a corporation would do that?
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| I'm one of those people who choose to use FF Nightly. It works
| with Teams unless you want to make a call or share screen - you
| need to change the User Agent then. I'm too lazy to do it so I'm
| using a phone app for calls and complaining to everyone that
| Teams is crap.
|
| And I mean, it is crap by itself. It is badly thought out, it has
| its bad moments even on its native platform, its system of teams
| etc. is confusing and far inferior to the ones used by its
| competitors. Frankly, if it wasn't MS and their dominant market
| position/integration with AD, very few people would make the
| decision to use it for daily work. /rant
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