4 ms·

Maybe it's just expensive to support

by ruleabidinguser 10y ago

mintplant 10y ago
It's running in a web browser. The OS doesn't make much of a difference.
- kevingadd 10y ago
  Patent-encumbered media codecs are available in most Windows and Mac browsers thanks to the OS shipping codecs. On Linux? On Windows you have a battle-tested Direct3D 9/11 backend for WebGL (ANGLE) used by Chrome and Firefox, while on other platforms you're subject to the whims of the GL implementation (and on Linux there are multiple drivers to choose from in some cases). Direct3D graphics are also thread-safe in a way that is not consistently true for OpenGL (just ask a driver developer) which means that certain operations could block the UI thread (or in the case of Chrome, GPU process) that can be performed asynchronously on Windows, resulting in a difference in application behavior. On Windows there is one common software audio stack (they dropped hardware audio acceleration ages ago because it was a compatibility nightmare). On Linux in some circumstances there are multiple audio stacks which can produce differences in user experience and behavior. Recently Firefox has switched over to pulseaudio, which has caused some grief. Windows and Mac and Linux all have different networking stacks that can result in behavioral differences between OSes if you're using WebSockets or WebRTC. The GamePad API is also subject to OS differences depending on whether your gamepad has drivers and which underlying system API the browser uses. This even varies between browsers on the same machine.
  - mcbits 10y ago
    I don't think changing the user agent string affects which codecs or device drivers are available on the client. If changing the user agent string "solves" the problem, then the problem is most likely with the site - especially if the same problem and solution exist between different browsers. They are probably assuming some capability is absent instead of testing and gracefully degrading. I wonder what happens in Windows 10 with a user agent mimicking a Linux environment. Does the site slow down? If so, the support bot can't brush it off since it's a supported operating system.

Maybe it's just expensive to support

mintplant 10y ago

It's running in a web browser. The OS doesn't make much of a difference.

kevingadd 10y ago
Patent-encumbered media codecs are available in most Windows and Mac browsers thanks to the OS shipping codecs. On Linux? On Windows you have a battle-tested Direct3D 9/11 backend for WebGL (ANGLE) used by Chrome and Firefox, while on other platforms you're subject to the whims of the GL implementation (and on Linux there are multiple drivers to choose from in some cases). Direct3D graphics are also thread-safe in a way that is not consistently true for OpenGL (just ask a driver developer) which means that certain operations could block the UI thread (or in the case of Chrome, GPU process) that can be performed asynchronously on Windows, resulting in a difference in application behavior. On Windows there is one common software audio stack (they dropped hardware audio acceleration ages ago because it was a compatibility nightmare). On Linux in some circumstances there are multiple audio stacks which can produce differences in user experience and behavior. Recently Firefox has switched over to pulseaudio, which has caused some grief. Windows and Mac and Linux all have different networking stacks that can result in behavioral differences between OSes if you're using WebSockets or WebRTC. The GamePad API is also subject to OS differences depending on whether your gamepad has drivers and which underlying system API the browser uses. This even varies between browsers on the same machine.
- mcbits 10y ago
  I don't think changing the user agent string affects which codecs or device drivers are available on the client. If changing the user agent string "solves" the problem, then the problem is most likely with the site - especially if the same problem and solution exist between different browsers. They are probably assuming some capability is absent instead of testing and gracefully degrading. I wonder what happens in Windows 10 with a user agent mimicking a Linux environment. Does the site slow down? If so, the support bot can't brush it off since it's a supported operating system.