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Google are really shitty with their web browser especially on mobile. If you run Firefox you get a stripped down version of Google Search also with no infinite

by Jonnax 9y ago

Google are really shitty with their web browser especially on mobile. If you run Firefox you get a stripped down version of Google Search also with no infinite scrolling for images and low resolution. Use a user agent spoofer like this: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/chrome-ua-on-google-android/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/chrome-ua-on-... And it seems to work fine on Firefox. I'm sure their official excuse is that they only support WebKit based browsers on mobile, like it's the new Internet Explorer with some modern day ActiveX

kuschku 9y ago
Not just that, but major functionality is missing. You can't restrict search just to your native language, or to all languages. You can't set a time frame.
- pmontra 9y ago
  I didn't know that chrome could get that. I thought that the mobile site had limited functionality and requested the desktop site when I needed to set a time range. I checked it with Chrome and it works. Very unfair. However Chrome spoils the user experience by asking too many questions (log in? change language?). Not a good experience, I'll keep asking for the desktop site on those rare occasions.
fyrstenberg 9y ago
I discovered this as well. Not only, they're faking it with the new YouTube design as well. I had to set my user agent to Chrome to get the new dark theme (it may have changed later). I did try different user-agents using AgentX[1] and with Edge UA they said the new look wouldn't work (or in effect something along those lines), so there is not much actual feature check going on. Only setting Chrome would give me all features. Google is doing what Microsoft did 10 years ago - it didn't go so well for Microsoft when people eventually caught on. 1: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/agentx/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/agentx/
- infogulch 9y ago
  These things have led me back to try Firefox again for the first time in years and nightly (57) is extremely snappy, even compared to chrome. I'm very very pleased.
- shmerl 9y ago
  I'm using Youtube dark theme with Firefox just fine. But I had to jump through some hoops in their site settings, though without spoofing the user agent. What doesn't work at all is their Hangounts, because Google are doing something fishy with WebRTC there: Hangouts video and voice calls don’t work in Firefox for now. Google is working to fix this as soon as possible. Until then, use a different supported browser. Not to mention the complete mess they caused to XMPP federation by killing Google Talk.
  - vram22 9y ago
    Leaving aside XMPP federation (though that is a good point), killing Google Talk itself was a bad idea. It was very good and useful, both the text chat and the voice calls feature, and Hangouts, its replacement, sucks heavily.
    - shmerl 9y ago
      I'm using neither, but for me the worst thing were cut off XMPP contacts who were on Google Talk (and later Hangouts). I was reaching them through XMPP federation, and Google really messed things up.
      - ryukafalz 9y ago
        Yeah, it was pretty bad - contacts who were "upgraded" to Hangouts just had me disappear from their contact lists, and on my end it looked like they were constantly in "away" status but they never got my messages. With no announcement of any of this ahead of time. Complete mess.
- talideon 9y ago
  Regarding the dark theme, could that be down to the version of FF? I'm running 55.0.2, and didn't have to do anything except toggle a switch in the settings to get it.
rcMgD2BwE72F 9y ago
I've complained directly to Google dozens of times about this, and emailed many bloggers to talk about such a treatment. I usually heard back "but Firefox has no market share in mobile browser today". Obviously, who would use Firefox when it renders such a simple webpage so badly! Firefox supports ad-blockers, which would certainly bring them a significant share of the browser market if it was treated fairly. Or else, Chrome mobile would have allowed ad blockers a long time ago and we would have an healthy competition.
nostrademons 9y ago
(I used to work on the webserver for Google Search. Left Google several years ago, have no more vested interest in them.) The reason for the browser-sniffing in search is a combination of ease of testing + latency reduction. By supporting a known set of browsers, you can write a test plan for each and shard it out among contractors (or ideally, automate it with a Selenium config). Manual tests run on every release (2/week when I left, maybe more now), and automated tests run on every changelist (thousands/week), so you can see how adding additional browsers to the testing matrix can consume significant resources. Very often cutting-edge features will launch on Chrome only and then if users like them, they'll get ported over to all the other browsers. (Or, just as often, the project is canceled and the feature is unlaunched on Chrome a year later, which IMHO isn't a great habit on Google's part but it is what it is.) If you're manually spoofing your user agent, then Google figures that you know what you're doing and it's "use at your own risk anyway", and that if you get a broken experience, your first thought will be to disable the user-agent spoofing. Additionally, browser-sniffing lets you serve only the JS needed for that particular browser, and not all of the hacks/polyfills/bugfixes/workarounds needed for browsers that the user isn't using. This is probably less of an issue now that things are more standard, but when I started ('09), not needing to serve all of the IE6 workarounds when the user was on Chrome or Firefox saved a lot of latency for users that were on modern browsers.
- forapurpose 9y ago
  > you can see how adding additional browsers to the testing matrix can consume significant resources Google has the resources to test all the browsers it wants to. Perhaps part of the reason that companies with their market power tend to act this way is that serving other browsers becomes a low priority, and why should we help the competition anyway?
  - fuck_google 9y ago
    Why the downvotes? Because its obvious?
- kuschku 9y ago
  > If you're manually spoofing your user agent, then Google figures that you know what you're doing and it's "use at your own risk anyway", and that if you get a broken experience, your first thought will be to disable the user-agent spoofing. Actually, some browsers, including Firefox Mobile, now spoof the user-agent by default on some sites, because of Google's broken systems.
klondike_ 9y ago
As a Firefox mobile user, I actually appreciate the stripped down Google. It loads a lot faster than the bloated regular search page on slow connections, and infinite scrolling is irritating anyways. That doesn't really excuse Google's anticompetitive behavior, though.
freehunter 9y ago
Let's not forget the time they refused to make a YouTube app for Windows Phone and when Microsoft made one, Google forced them to remove it. And then seemingly in retribution for making the app, Google blocked Windows Phone from being able to access Google Maps even though the browser was technically capable of using it. Google's reasoning was (similarly to another comment here) "it's too hard to check functionality in so many browsers" like they're not literally the most powerful Internet company in the world engaging in petty nonsense with a basically non-existing competitor. Remember when Microsoft did the stuff Google does now and the government actually cared enough to do something about it?
- alttab 9y ago
  They seriously did that as you said? What a bunch of self important twats.
  - freehunter 9y ago
    https://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/01/05/calling-shenanigans-on-googles-windows-phone-8-maps-narrative/ https://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/01/05/calling-shenanigan... Google's comment was >The mobile web version of Google Maps is optimized for WebKit browsers such as Chrome and Safari. However, since Internet Explorer is not a WebKit browser, Windows Phone devices are not able to access Google Maps for the mobile web. The problem is, mobile IE uses the same rendering engine as desktop IE10, which works. Firefox works even though it's not Webkit. And if you visited maps.google.co.uk, everything worked perfectly. And it worked before Google blocked it. Between the time Google blocked WP8 from viewing Google Maps and the time they said "oh hey the browser works now", there were no updates to Windows Phone to change browser functionality. In short, Google blocked their competitor from accessing their website, got called out, issued a complete lie of a statement, then rolled back the change. Yes, as a Windows Phone user at the time I was not amused, and that was when I stopped using Google services.
    - robocat 9y ago
      > The problem is, mobile IE uses the same rendering engine as desktop IE10, which works. Windows mobile was a mess last I had to deal with it. As far as I recall, Windows Mobile uses IE11 within an app, or Edge from the browser. Both had either proprietary or buggy touch events. Supporting Windows phone was a nightmare for us (and as it turned out, a complete waste of time). Not defending Google, just saying my facts are different from yours.
sogen 9y ago
Sounds like the return of 90s "best viewed with IE" but for Chrome...
- kuschku 9y ago
  A list of sites affected by this: Google Translate ("You are using an outdated browser, Upgrade now to the safer Chrome with integrated translation!" (on Firefox 57...) Google Inbox (during the launch) YouTube (the new redesign) Allo (atm Chrome-Only) Hangouts (Chrome-Only) Earth (Chrome-Only)
  - sogen 9y ago
    And Google.com has for years shown a pop-up to switch to Chrome
  - itsthejb 9y ago
    Google Docs. Text selection, for one thing, is off on Safari
    - sogen 9y ago
      Just noticed that if you're using Safari the message is different, more subtle
rconti 9y ago
All one has to do is look at the abomination that Google turned Images Search into. Or the Print dialog in Chrome. or...
- dreamcompiler 9y ago
  ...Maps, which used to not suck. I suspect "Vice President Penis Syndrome" is in effect here, where a new VP comes on board and feels the need to piss on a product to make his mark and/or show everybody he's more of a man than his predecessor.
  - rconti 9y ago
    I like that term. I've always felt some new PM was coming in and changing things just to make it look like they were Doing Important Things.
taoufix 9y ago
Thanks a lot for the add-on.
Eridrus 9y ago
Is web browser support even relevant on android when there is a google search app?
outoftacos 9y ago
I abandoned chrome two years ago, I had no idea it had gotten that mad. It's worse than the IE6 days, my god.

by Jonnax 9y ago

kuschku 9y ago

Not just that, but major functionality is missing. You can't restrict search just to your native language, or to all languages. You can't set a time frame.

pmontra 9y ago
I didn't know that chrome could get that. I thought that the mobile site had limited functionality and requested the desktop site when I needed to set a time range. I checked it with Chrome and it works. Very unfair. However Chrome spoils the user experience by asking too many questions (log in? change language?). Not a good experience, I'll keep asking for the desktop site on those rare occasions.

fyrstenberg 9y ago

I discovered this as well. Not only, they're faking it with the new YouTube design as well. I had to set my user agent to Chrome to get the new dark theme (it may have changed later). I did try different user-agents using AgentX[1] and with Edge UA they said the new look wouldn't work (or in effect something along those lines), so there is not much actual feature check going on. Only setting Chrome would give me all features. Google is doing what Microsoft did 10 years ago - it didn't go so well for Microsoft when people eventually caught on. 1: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/agentx/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/agentx/

infogulch 9y ago
These things have led me back to try Firefox again for the first time in years and nightly (57) is extremely snappy, even compared to chrome. I'm very very pleased.
shmerl 9y ago
I'm using Youtube dark theme with Firefox just fine. But I had to jump through some hoops in their site settings, though without spoofing the user agent. What doesn't work at all is their Hangounts, because Google are doing something fishy with WebRTC there: Hangouts video and voice calls don’t work in Firefox for now. Google is working to fix this as soon as possible. Until then, use a different supported browser. Not to mention the complete mess they caused to XMPP federation by killing Google Talk.
- vram22 9y ago
  Leaving aside XMPP federation (though that is a good point), killing Google Talk itself was a bad idea. It was very good and useful, both the text chat and the voice calls feature, and Hangouts, its replacement, sucks heavily.
  - shmerl 9y ago
    I'm using neither, but for me the worst thing were cut off XMPP contacts who were on Google Talk (and later Hangouts). I was reaching them through XMPP federation, and Google really messed things up.
    - ryukafalz 9y ago
      Yeah, it was pretty bad - contacts who were "upgraded" to Hangouts just had me disappear from their contact lists, and on my end it looked like they were constantly in "away" status but they never got my messages. With no announcement of any of this ahead of time. Complete mess.
talideon 9y ago
Regarding the dark theme, could that be down to the version of FF? I'm running 55.0.2, and didn't have to do anything except toggle a switch in the settings to get it.

rcMgD2BwE72F 9y ago

I've complained directly to Google dozens of times about this, and emailed many bloggers to talk about such a treatment. I usually heard back "but Firefox has no market share in mobile browser today". Obviously, who would use Firefox when it renders such a simple webpage so badly! Firefox supports ad-blockers, which would certainly bring them a significant share of the browser market if it was treated fairly. Or else, Chrome mobile would have allowed ad blockers a long time ago and we would have an healthy competition.

nostrademons 9y ago

(I used to work on the webserver for Google Search. Left Google several years ago, have no more vested interest in them.) The reason for the browser-sniffing in search is a combination of ease of testing + latency reduction. By supporting a known set of browsers, you can write a test plan for each and shard it out among contractors (or ideally, automate it with a Selenium config). Manual tests run on every release (2/week when I left, maybe more now), and automated tests run on every changelist (thousands/week), so you can see how adding additional browsers to the testing matrix can consume significant resources. Very often cutting-edge features will launch on Chrome only and then if users like them, they'll get ported over to all the other browsers. (Or, just as often, the project is canceled and the feature is unlaunched on Chrome a year later, which IMHO isn't a great habit on Google's part but it is what it is.) If you're manually spoofing your user agent, then Google figures that you know what you're doing and it's "use at your own risk anyway", and that if you get a broken experience, your first thought will be to disable the user-agent spoofing. Additionally, browser-sniffing lets you serve only the JS needed for that particular browser, and not all of the hacks/polyfills/bugfixes/workarounds needed for browsers that the user isn't using. This is probably less of an issue now that things are more standard, but when I started ('09), not needing to serve all of the IE6 workarounds when the user was on Chrome or Firefox saved a lot of latency for users that were on modern browsers.

forapurpose 9y ago
> you can see how adding additional browsers to the testing matrix can consume significant resources Google has the resources to test all the browsers it wants to. Perhaps part of the reason that companies with their market power tend to act this way is that serving other browsers becomes a low priority, and why should we help the competition anyway?
- fuck_google 9y ago
  Why the downvotes? Because its obvious?
kuschku 9y ago
> If you're manually spoofing your user agent, then Google figures that you know what you're doing and it's "use at your own risk anyway", and that if you get a broken experience, your first thought will be to disable the user-agent spoofing. Actually, some browsers, including Firefox Mobile, now spoof the user-agent by default on some sites, because of Google's broken systems.

klondike_ 9y ago

As a Firefox mobile user, I actually appreciate the stripped down Google. It loads a lot faster than the bloated regular search page on slow connections, and infinite scrolling is irritating anyways. That doesn't really excuse Google's anticompetitive behavior, though.

freehunter 9y ago

Let's not forget the time they refused to make a YouTube app for Windows Phone and when Microsoft made one, Google forced them to remove it. And then seemingly in retribution for making the app, Google blocked Windows Phone from being able to access Google Maps even though the browser was technically capable of using it. Google's reasoning was (similarly to another comment here) "it's too hard to check functionality in so many browsers" like they're not literally the most powerful Internet company in the world engaging in petty nonsense with a basically non-existing competitor. Remember when Microsoft did the stuff Google does now and the government actually cared enough to do something about it?

alttab 9y ago
They seriously did that as you said? What a bunch of self important twats.
- freehunter 9y ago
  https://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/01/05/calling-shenanigans-on-googles-windows-phone-8-maps-narrative/ https://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/01/05/calling-shenanigan... Google's comment was >The mobile web version of Google Maps is optimized for WebKit browsers such as Chrome and Safari. However, since Internet Explorer is not a WebKit browser, Windows Phone devices are not able to access Google Maps for the mobile web. The problem is, mobile IE uses the same rendering engine as desktop IE10, which works. Firefox works even though it's not Webkit. And if you visited maps.google.co.uk, everything worked perfectly. And it worked before Google blocked it. Between the time Google blocked WP8 from viewing Google Maps and the time they said "oh hey the browser works now", there were no updates to Windows Phone to change browser functionality. In short, Google blocked their competitor from accessing their website, got called out, issued a complete lie of a statement, then rolled back the change. Yes, as a Windows Phone user at the time I was not amused, and that was when I stopped using Google services.
  - robocat 9y ago
    > The problem is, mobile IE uses the same rendering engine as desktop IE10, which works. Windows mobile was a mess last I had to deal with it. As far as I recall, Windows Mobile uses IE11 within an app, or Edge from the browser. Both had either proprietary or buggy touch events. Supporting Windows phone was a nightmare for us (and as it turned out, a complete waste of time). Not defending Google, just saying my facts are different from yours.

sogen 9y ago

Sounds like the return of 90s "best viewed with IE" but for Chrome...

kuschku 9y ago
A list of sites affected by this: Google Translate ("You are using an outdated browser, Upgrade now to the safer Chrome with integrated translation!" (on Firefox 57...) Google Inbox (during the launch) YouTube (the new redesign) Allo (atm Chrome-Only) Hangouts (Chrome-Only) Earth (Chrome-Only)
- sogen 9y ago
  And Google.com has for years shown a pop-up to switch to Chrome
- itsthejb 9y ago
  Google Docs. Text selection, for one thing, is off on Safari
  - sogen 9y ago
    Just noticed that if you're using Safari the message is different, more subtle

rconti 9y ago

All one has to do is look at the abomination that Google turned Images Search into. Or the Print dialog in Chrome. or...

dreamcompiler 9y ago
...Maps, which used to not suck. I suspect "Vice President Penis Syndrome" is in effect here, where a new VP comes on board and feels the need to piss on a product to make his mark and/or show everybody he's more of a man than his predecessor.
- rconti 9y ago
  I like that term. I've always felt some new PM was coming in and changing things just to make it look like they were Doing Important Things.

taoufix 9y ago

Thanks a lot for the add-on.

Eridrus 9y ago

Is web browser support even relevant on android when there is a google search app?

outoftacos 9y ago

I abandoned chrome two years ago, I had no idea it had gotten that mad. It's worse than the IE6 days, my god.