19 ms·

They do deliberately slow their sites on Firefox, as has been discussed in many past hn articles. YouTube for example. Pardon my lack of references, you should

They do deliberately slow their sites on Firefox, as has been discussed in many past hn articles. YouTube for example. Pardon my lack of references, you should confirm for yourself with a hn search in case I am mistaken

three_seagrass 6y ago
IIRC that's because YT switched to polymer, and since Mozilla doesn't support the new shadow dom APIs yet, YT serves it with the older version.
- drdeca 6y ago
  My understanding is that the "deliberate slowing" reported, was such that if you have firefox send a chrome user agent, that one gets faster (and functional) results. Is that consistent with the "it is because FF doesn't support new thing yet" explanation?
  - three_seagrass 6y ago
    No because again, IIRC, sending a chrome user agent to YT in FF breaks a lot of the functionality.
    - drdeca 6y ago
      Ah, “the parts that work are faster but a lot of it is broken” does seem like it suggests the benign explanation
    - ric2b 6y ago
      Does it? What stops working, since I haven't noticed anything?
- thejsa 6y ago
  I believe it was that YT was using the legacy v0 shadow DOM API that only Chrom[e|ium] supported, with a slow polyfill for other browsers, rather than the much better supported v1 API that all other major browser makers agreed to implement.
cmoscoso 6y ago
Oh, is that why it takes forever to load google search on firefox? how is that allowed? I'm speechless.
- kick 6y ago
  That's...not why, and it doesn't. Try clearing your cache, or loading a profile without any addons.
- ci5er 6y ago
  > how is that allowed? It is not the case. But who would have the legitimate right to stop it? Do we want government dictating product features?
  - cmoscoso 6y ago
    How is that a feature??
alasdair_ 6y ago
In addition to this, their use of reCaptcha makes using a non-chrome browser a significantly worse experience on several sites.
- Czarcasm 6y ago
  This is my biggest issue. I tried using Firefox exclusively for a period of time but experienced a 10x increase in the number of reCaptcha manual verifications I had to complete. Going to the same sites on Chrome has no reCaptcha. For me, this is blatant anti-competitive practice and should be punished.
  - Tiksi 6y ago
    I've used both firefox (dev edition) and chrome pretty evenly for a long time (work stuff in chrome, personal in ff), and I haven't noticed any more reCaptchas in firefox than I get in chrome. If you just started using firefox, I could see the extra captchas being due to having "too clean" of a browser, or a different browser that was never used before tripping some sort of anti malware or suspicious login system. All just speculation, but I haven't noticed the same issue.
    - eyegor 6y ago
      This is exactly it. Modern recaptcha is "reputation" based. So if it fingerprint matches you against a known profile, you never see the captcha. One could argue that a residential ip block combined with a common browser should be sufficient to filter most bot traffic, but it's not exactly in googles interest to worry about non-chrome user experience.
    - Czarcasm 6y ago
      Well TIL. This gives me hope. I will put some time back into FF and see if there is an eventual drop in reCaptcha.
  - toofy 6y ago
    As a regular user of multiple browsers, I haven’t noticed this. Could you show a few examples? I’m not doubting your experience at all, I’m just curious to see if there may be a common thread.
dfabulich 6y ago
The YouTube example was a bug from 2018. https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/25/17611444/how-to-speed-up-youtube-microsoft-edge-safari-firefox https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/25/17611444/how-to-speed-up-... It's since been fixed.
- gentleman11 6y ago
  YouTube for me this week, only on Firefox, incidentally only fully loads 1/3 tries. Could be another bug
- 013a 6y ago
  Of course it was a bug. It could only be a bug. Would they really admit if it was intentional? Would they admit that their internal testing around Firefox is not as robust as Chrome? "Oh, whoopsie, no one here uses Firefox so we didn't notice it."

three_seagrass 6y ago

IIRC that's because YT switched to polymer, and since Mozilla doesn't support the new shadow dom APIs yet, YT serves it with the older version.

drdeca 6y ago
My understanding is that the "deliberate slowing" reported, was such that if you have firefox send a chrome user agent, that one gets faster (and functional) results. Is that consistent with the "it is because FF doesn't support new thing yet" explanation?
- three_seagrass 6y ago
  No because again, IIRC, sending a chrome user agent to YT in FF breaks a lot of the functionality.
  - drdeca 6y ago
    Ah, “the parts that work are faster but a lot of it is broken” does seem like it suggests the benign explanation
  - ric2b 6y ago
    Does it? What stops working, since I haven't noticed anything?
thejsa 6y ago
I believe it was that YT was using the legacy v0 shadow DOM API that only Chrom[e|ium] supported, with a slow polyfill for other browsers, rather than the much better supported v1 API that all other major browser makers agreed to implement.

cmoscoso 6y ago

Oh, is that why it takes forever to load google search on firefox? how is that allowed? I'm speechless.

kick 6y ago
That's...not why, and it doesn't. Try clearing your cache, or loading a profile without any addons.
ci5er 6y ago
> how is that allowed? It is not the case. But who would have the legitimate right to stop it? Do we want government dictating product features?
- cmoscoso 6y ago
  How is that a feature??

alasdair_ 6y ago

In addition to this, their use of reCaptcha makes using a non-chrome browser a significantly worse experience on several sites.

Czarcasm 6y ago
This is my biggest issue. I tried using Firefox exclusively for a period of time but experienced a 10x increase in the number of reCaptcha manual verifications I had to complete. Going to the same sites on Chrome has no reCaptcha. For me, this is blatant anti-competitive practice and should be punished.
- Tiksi 6y ago
  I've used both firefox (dev edition) and chrome pretty evenly for a long time (work stuff in chrome, personal in ff), and I haven't noticed any more reCaptchas in firefox than I get in chrome. If you just started using firefox, I could see the extra captchas being due to having "too clean" of a browser, or a different browser that was never used before tripping some sort of anti malware or suspicious login system. All just speculation, but I haven't noticed the same issue.
  - eyegor 6y ago
    This is exactly it. Modern recaptcha is "reputation" based. So if it fingerprint matches you against a known profile, you never see the captcha. One could argue that a residential ip block combined with a common browser should be sufficient to filter most bot traffic, but it's not exactly in googles interest to worry about non-chrome user experience.
  - Czarcasm 6y ago
    Well TIL. This gives me hope. I will put some time back into FF and see if there is an eventual drop in reCaptcha.
- toofy 6y ago
  As a regular user of multiple browsers, I haven’t noticed this. Could you show a few examples? I’m not doubting your experience at all, I’m just curious to see if there may be a common thread.

dfabulich 6y ago

The YouTube example was a bug from 2018. https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/25/17611444/how-to-speed-up-youtube-microsoft-edge-safari-firefox https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/25/17611444/how-to-speed-up-... It's since been fixed.

gentleman11 6y ago
YouTube for me this week, only on Firefox, incidentally only fully loads 1/3 tries. Could be another bug
013a 6y ago
Of course it was a bug. It could only be a bug. Would they really admit if it was intentional? Would they admit that their internal testing around Firefox is not as robust as Chrome? "Oh, whoopsie, no one here uses Firefox so we didn't notice it."