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It's not just marketing. It's also Google websites that only work with Chrome. For example, Hangout. I can no longer use Hangout using Firefox. Or I think Gma

It's not just marketing. It's also Google websites that only work with Chrome. For example, Hangout. I can no longer use Hangout using Firefox. Or I think Gmail Inbox, which also came out only working on Chrome initially. It's the sum of all these things that look very much like "best viewed with internet explorer" type stuff. I don't ever want to go back to such a world.

cakeface 9y ago
Yes! It's really frustrating that Hangout / Meet don't work on Firefox. This isn't just Google's fault I think. Firefox changed how plugins work and I think that broke Google's Hangout implementation. Also I can only use my U2F security key for Google when on Chrome. Firefox doesn't support it.
- nachtigall 9y ago
  > Firefox changed how plugins work and I think that broke Google's Hangout implementation. IIRC, there was s public notice by Firefox about the API change more than a year in advance. Google does not have the resources for implementation? Firefox support is just low prio for Google. I think it's a deliberate (non)-action because instead of switching away from Hangout, people rather start using Chrome... So not-browser-compat seems to help Google :-/ (see also my other comment)
  - cpeterso 9y ago
    Google Hangouts switched from the NPAPI plugin to WebRTC in Chrome back in 2014 [1], but still used plugins (NPAPI or ActiveX) for other browsers. Hangouts depends on non-standard WebRTC functionality in Chrome [2]. Google has had three years to adapt to other browsers' standard WebRTC stacks, but it was apparently not a priority for the company as long as the legacy Hangouts plugins still worked in other browsers. Mozilla announced in 2015 [3] that it would remove NPAPI plugin support in 2017, so Google had plenty of notice that the Hangouts plugin would stop working in Firefox. Google's new "Hangouts Meet" service is supposed to work with standard WebRTC in Firefox and Edge, but Hangouts Meet is still in beta and its system requirements page still only lists Chrome. [1] https://plus.google.com/103171586947853434456/posts/39TCW3PcLye https://plus.google.com/103171586947853434456/posts/39TCW3Pc... [2] https://webrtchacks.com/hangout-analysis-philipp-hancke/ https://webrtchacks.com/hangout-analysis-philipp-hancke/ [3] https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2015/10/08/npapi-plugins-in-firefox/ https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2015/10/08/npapi-plu...
    - cakeface 9y ago
      I have Meet enabled on my GSuite account at work. It most definitely does not work in Firefox. If you go a Meet link you get "Meet doesn't work on your browser yet To join the video meeting, you can install the current version of Google Chrome" It's certainly unfortunate that Google hasn't updated their software but Firefox didn't need to remove NPAPI. They chose to do that and when they did they broke software for lots of companies, not just Google. That's a trade off and decision that Firefox made and I'm suffering for it. They had their reasons for making that decision but that decision had costs and downsides for me.
- bzbarsky 9y ago
  There is no actual standard for U2F on the web yet, for what it's worth. Chrome implemented and shipped something, and ever since have been talking about how it's terrible and needs to be replaced with a sane API instead. That's being worked on.
  - cakeface 9y ago
    U2F is a standard for the web. The Universal 2 Factor standard is published by the FIDO Alliance and it's documented and clear and implementable. The javascript APIs needed are covered. You can get it here https://fidoalliance.org/download/ https://fidoalliance.org/download/ Maybe you mean that there isn't a W3C standard and that's true as far as I can tell. I don't think that should be a blocker to Firefox adoption but maybe there is a reason it is.
    - bzbarsky 9y ago
      > and it's documented and clear and implementable As someone who has actually looked at implementing it... no, it's not, by the standards of modern web specs. That's part of the problem with it. The other problem is that its creators ignored a whole bunch of best practices for web API design... Anyway, the FIDO thing (or an approximation of it, which was the best they could do given the quality of the spec) is what Chrome shipped and what they've been trying to backpedal from since. If you want the gory details as far as Firefox is concerned, see https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/mozilla.dev.platform/u2f%7Csort:relevance/mozilla.dev.platform/IVGEJnQW3Uo/Eu5tvyLmCgAJ https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/mozilla.dev.platf... for the discussion about whether to implement FIDO U2F in Firefox. Note that it's about 6 pages of posts, at least the way google groups shows it to me... The posts from Ryan Sleevi (representing Chrome) are particularly interesting.
nachtigall 9y ago
Yes, cross-browser support seems to be a low prio for Google nowadays. And the bad thing is that it does not hurt them but helps them to succeed. I wished that instead of switching to Chrome, people would instead move away from Google Services like Hangout (Skype, WhatsApp, https://meet.jit.si/ https://meet.jit.si/) or Gmail (posteo, mailbox.org) whenever they see a "This works even better in Chrome" notice…
ams6110 9y ago
I don't know anyone who use Hangout anymore so that doesn't bother me. Basic gMail, Docs, Sheets work pretty well in Firefox. They feel faster in Chrome (actually I use Chromium) but are not perfect. Right now I'm having a problem where deleting a document in Drive causes an "Aww, Snap" crash. Overall I think it's a tossup. Google makes sure their stuff works decently in Chrome, Edge, Safari, and Firefox (probably in that order).
laken 9y ago
YouTube's new preview on thumbnail hover doesn't work on Firefox as well.
- kentor 9y ago
  Graceful degradation working though.
cpeterso 9y ago
Google Inbox initially did not support Firefox because "Firefox was too slow" [1]. Inbox hit a performance problem with Firefox's Array slice() implementation, but Google didn't report the problem to Mozilla. Chrome's slice() was fast, in part because it was not handling some corner cases correctly. Once Mozilla engineers were made aware of the performance problem, they fixed it in one day [2]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8495498 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8495498 [2] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1087963 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1087963
NewEntryHN 9y ago
There was a time when web developers went to great length to make their site compatible with every browser. Now they just make it work on Chrome.
dschep 9y ago
> For example, Hangout. I can no longer use Hangout using Firefox. Is that different from Hangouts[0]? That's worked and continues to work in Firefox AFAICT. [0] https://hangouts.google.com/ https://hangouts.google.com/
- Macha 9y ago
  Video calls tell you to install chrome

cakeface 9y ago

Yes! It's really frustrating that Hangout / Meet don't work on Firefox. This isn't just Google's fault I think. Firefox changed how plugins work and I think that broke Google's Hangout implementation. Also I can only use my U2F security key for Google when on Chrome. Firefox doesn't support it.

nachtigall 9y ago
> Firefox changed how plugins work and I think that broke Google's Hangout implementation. IIRC, there was s public notice by Firefox about the API change more than a year in advance. Google does not have the resources for implementation? Firefox support is just low prio for Google. I think it's a deliberate (non)-action because instead of switching away from Hangout, people rather start using Chrome... So not-browser-compat seems to help Google :-/ (see also my other comment)
- cpeterso 9y ago
  Google Hangouts switched from the NPAPI plugin to WebRTC in Chrome back in 2014 [1], but still used plugins (NPAPI or ActiveX) for other browsers. Hangouts depends on non-standard WebRTC functionality in Chrome [2]. Google has had three years to adapt to other browsers' standard WebRTC stacks, but it was apparently not a priority for the company as long as the legacy Hangouts plugins still worked in other browsers. Mozilla announced in 2015 [3] that it would remove NPAPI plugin support in 2017, so Google had plenty of notice that the Hangouts plugin would stop working in Firefox. Google's new "Hangouts Meet" service is supposed to work with standard WebRTC in Firefox and Edge, but Hangouts Meet is still in beta and its system requirements page still only lists Chrome. [1] https://plus.google.com/103171586947853434456/posts/39TCW3PcLye https://plus.google.com/103171586947853434456/posts/39TCW3Pc... [2] https://webrtchacks.com/hangout-analysis-philipp-hancke/ https://webrtchacks.com/hangout-analysis-philipp-hancke/ [3] https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2015/10/08/npapi-plugins-in-firefox/ https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2015/10/08/npapi-plu...
  - cakeface 9y ago
    I have Meet enabled on my GSuite account at work. It most definitely does not work in Firefox. If you go a Meet link you get "Meet doesn't work on your browser yet To join the video meeting, you can install the current version of Google Chrome" It's certainly unfortunate that Google hasn't updated their software but Firefox didn't need to remove NPAPI. They chose to do that and when they did they broke software for lots of companies, not just Google. That's a trade off and decision that Firefox made and I'm suffering for it. They had their reasons for making that decision but that decision had costs and downsides for me.
bzbarsky 9y ago
There is no actual standard for U2F on the web yet, for what it's worth. Chrome implemented and shipped something, and ever since have been talking about how it's terrible and needs to be replaced with a sane API instead. That's being worked on.
- cakeface 9y ago
  U2F is a standard for the web. The Universal 2 Factor standard is published by the FIDO Alliance and it's documented and clear and implementable. The javascript APIs needed are covered. You can get it here https://fidoalliance.org/download/ https://fidoalliance.org/download/ Maybe you mean that there isn't a W3C standard and that's true as far as I can tell. I don't think that should be a blocker to Firefox adoption but maybe there is a reason it is.
  - bzbarsky 9y ago
    > and it's documented and clear and implementable As someone who has actually looked at implementing it... no, it's not, by the standards of modern web specs. That's part of the problem with it. The other problem is that its creators ignored a whole bunch of best practices for web API design... Anyway, the FIDO thing (or an approximation of it, which was the best they could do given the quality of the spec) is what Chrome shipped and what they've been trying to backpedal from since. If you want the gory details as far as Firefox is concerned, see https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/mozilla.dev.platform/u2f%7Csort:relevance/mozilla.dev.platform/IVGEJnQW3Uo/Eu5tvyLmCgAJ https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/mozilla.dev.platf... for the discussion about whether to implement FIDO U2F in Firefox. Note that it's about 6 pages of posts, at least the way google groups shows it to me... The posts from Ryan Sleevi (representing Chrome) are particularly interesting.

nachtigall 9y ago

Yes, cross-browser support seems to be a low prio for Google nowadays. And the bad thing is that it does not hurt them but helps them to succeed. I wished that instead of switching to Chrome, people would instead move away from Google Services like Hangout (Skype, WhatsApp, https://meet.jit.si/ https://meet.jit.si/) or Gmail (posteo, mailbox.org) whenever they see a "This works even better in Chrome" notice…

ams6110 9y ago

I don't know anyone who use Hangout anymore so that doesn't bother me. Basic gMail, Docs, Sheets work pretty well in Firefox. They feel faster in Chrome (actually I use Chromium) but are not perfect. Right now I'm having a problem where deleting a document in Drive causes an "Aww, Snap" crash. Overall I think it's a tossup. Google makes sure their stuff works decently in Chrome, Edge, Safari, and Firefox (probably in that order).

laken 9y ago

YouTube's new preview on thumbnail hover doesn't work on Firefox as well.

kentor 9y ago
Graceful degradation working though.

cpeterso 9y ago

Google Inbox initially did not support Firefox because "Firefox was too slow" [1]. Inbox hit a performance problem with Firefox's Array slice() implementation, but Google didn't report the problem to Mozilla. Chrome's slice() was fast, in part because it was not handling some corner cases correctly. Once Mozilla engineers were made aware of the performance problem, they fixed it in one day [2]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8495498 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8495498 [2] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1087963 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1087963

NewEntryHN 9y ago

There was a time when web developers went to great length to make their site compatible with every browser. Now they just make it work on Chrome.

dschep 9y ago

> For example, Hangout. I can no longer use Hangout using Firefox. Is that different from Hangouts[0]? That's worked and continues to work in Firefox AFAICT. [0] https://hangouts.google.com/ https://hangouts.google.com/

Macha 9y ago
Video calls tell you to install chrome