4 ms·

Idk about 12 years but I know about last two years - many companies and workers had to switch to WFH. So that means using some sort of chat&video&audio software

Idk about 12 years but I know about last two years - many companies and workers had to switch to WFH. So that means using some sort of chat&video&audio software/website. What did Firefox do to fix the compatibility e.g. with Teams? That should've been the highest priority. Instead, it took them years to get at least the GPOs right, autoupdate is the same story... so many things in corprote env were or still are PITA to set up in Firefox. So unfortunately no wonder it's Chrom(ium) for every single big company out there. And don't get me wrong, I try to use exclusively Firefox whenver I can, but this is really frustrating to me as sysadmin.

Yoric 5y ago
That's the vicious circle: 1. Google basically controls the web. 2. Whenever a new Web API shows up, browser vendors have to decide between implementing the standard and copying the bugs, exotic behaviors and extensions that are implemented in Chromium. 3. Websites are tested on Chromium, so they start to rely on Chromium's bugs, exotic behaviors and extensions. 4. When a website breaks in Firefox (or Safari), people claim that it's the fault of Firefox devs and switch to Chromium. The early web got tired of this when it was Microsoft at the wheels, but it feels that few people are particularly interested in fighting the good fight these days. Much easier to blame Mozilla.
- 0xCMP 5y ago
  On the other hand, how many of these browsers are actually building or inventing any of these new apis to support things like screensharing, video, audio, and etc so they're not hacks except for chrome?
  - Yoric 5y ago
    Well, given that WebRTC was mostly invented at Mozilla, at least one.
- lousken 5y ago
  I can blame whoever I want, but at the end of the day, the problem that I have to deal with is the user saying - Teams doesn't work. What am I supposed to do with it?
  - mchusma 5y ago
    Honestly (you may not like the answer) I tell users "try a different browser".
    - lousken 5y ago
      exactly, and that's how firefox loses marketshare
- ymolodtsov 5y ago
  Because IE was an outdated stagnating piece of garbage and Chrome is still pretty good.
jeroenhd 5y ago
> What did Firefox do to fix the compatibility e.g. with Teams? I think that's the wrong way around. Why would Firefox need to change their browser for a specific web application? Microsoft chose not to support Firefox, not the other way around. It's still choosing not to support smaller platforms (the Linux application is simply garbage, lacking basic features that have been available on other platforms for months). When I ran into this problem, Teams didn't work because Firefox didn't allow the application to enumerate the audio devices hooked up to my computer, only exposing a "default" one. I don't even understand why that would be a problem, my browser already asked which input and output to use, why would Teams need to care? Jitsi and Google Meet worked fine, so the problem was clearly with Microsoft's developers. They managed to fix the problem eventually, so Microsoft should take 100% of the blame here in my opinion. I don't know about the sysadmin stuff. Honestly, with modern Chrome-clone Edge, I'd expect most business that roll out a browser to now simply stick to the built-in browser.
- corty 5y ago
  I would strongly disagree on the sysadmin stuff. Firefox has always had a very powerful settings system. All the stuff you could set in about:config can also be set via a set of configuration files provided by the sysadmin, the user and the distro, each of which can provide defaults, presets or locked non-changeable settings which are hierarchically enforced. Exactly what you need as a sysadmin, cross-platform, could do everything and the kitchen sink, distributable either via your usual config management or LDAP/HTTP/whatever you can script in a few lines of Javascript if you need. GPOs are just a poor windows admin's substitute, they cannot do half of that, even in IE and Edge. Not to mention Chrome, which lags miles behind there.
  - lousken 5y ago
    I am not denying that firefox has options to customize itself, but if you don't wanna take my word for it - here's the comments on /r/sysadmin when they started supporting GPOs https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/82naw1/mozilla_firefox_finally_getting_gpo_support/ https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/82naw1/mozilla_fi... . Same thing with MS login https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/p1ral4/firefox_91_now_supports_logging_into_microsoft/ https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/p1ral4/firefox_91...
JohnFen 5y ago
> What did Firefox do to fix the compatibility e.g. with Teams? That should've been the highest priority. Why use a browser for Teams at all?
- lousken 5y ago
  If you wanna join a meeting from another company and you dont have teams licence, you can only use browser or mobile app (not sure if this was changed later or not, because by winter every company I manage had bought ms 365 business. Though teams licence is still an extra item in MS365 admin so I'd assume it hasn't changed)
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  The electron version is horrible too and even more wasteful on resources :) Also this way you can use add-ons with it.

Yoric 5y ago

That's the vicious circle: 1. Google basically controls the web. 2. Whenever a new Web API shows up, browser vendors have to decide between implementing the standard and copying the bugs, exotic behaviors and extensions that are implemented in Chromium. 3. Websites are tested on Chromium, so they start to rely on Chromium's bugs, exotic behaviors and extensions. 4. When a website breaks in Firefox (or Safari), people claim that it's the fault of Firefox devs and switch to Chromium. The early web got tired of this when it was Microsoft at the wheels, but it feels that few people are particularly interested in fighting the good fight these days. Much easier to blame Mozilla.

0xCMP 5y ago
On the other hand, how many of these browsers are actually building or inventing any of these new apis to support things like screensharing, video, audio, and etc so they're not hacks except for chrome?
- Yoric 5y ago
  Well, given that WebRTC was mostly invented at Mozilla, at least one.
lousken 5y ago
I can blame whoever I want, but at the end of the day, the problem that I have to deal with is the user saying - Teams doesn't work. What am I supposed to do with it?
- mchusma 5y ago
  Honestly (you may not like the answer) I tell users "try a different browser".
  - lousken 5y ago
    exactly, and that's how firefox loses marketshare
ymolodtsov 5y ago
Because IE was an outdated stagnating piece of garbage and Chrome is still pretty good.

jeroenhd 5y ago

> What did Firefox do to fix the compatibility e.g. with Teams? I think that's the wrong way around. Why would Firefox need to change their browser for a specific web application? Microsoft chose not to support Firefox, not the other way around. It's still choosing not to support smaller platforms (the Linux application is simply garbage, lacking basic features that have been available on other platforms for months). When I ran into this problem, Teams didn't work because Firefox didn't allow the application to enumerate the audio devices hooked up to my computer, only exposing a "default" one. I don't even understand why that would be a problem, my browser already asked which input and output to use, why would Teams need to care? Jitsi and Google Meet worked fine, so the problem was clearly with Microsoft's developers. They managed to fix the problem eventually, so Microsoft should take 100% of the blame here in my opinion. I don't know about the sysadmin stuff. Honestly, with modern Chrome-clone Edge, I'd expect most business that roll out a browser to now simply stick to the built-in browser.

corty 5y ago
I would strongly disagree on the sysadmin stuff. Firefox has always had a very powerful settings system. All the stuff you could set in about:config can also be set via a set of configuration files provided by the sysadmin, the user and the distro, each of which can provide defaults, presets or locked non-changeable settings which are hierarchically enforced. Exactly what you need as a sysadmin, cross-platform, could do everything and the kitchen sink, distributable either via your usual config management or LDAP/HTTP/whatever you can script in a few lines of Javascript if you need. GPOs are just a poor windows admin's substitute, they cannot do half of that, even in IE and Edge. Not to mention Chrome, which lags miles behind there.
- lousken 5y ago
  I am not denying that firefox has options to customize itself, but if you don't wanna take my word for it - here's the comments on /r/sysadmin when they started supporting GPOs https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/82naw1/mozilla_firefox_finally_getting_gpo_support/ https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/82naw1/mozilla_fi... . Same thing with MS login https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/p1ral4/firefox_91_now_supports_logging_into_microsoft/ https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/p1ral4/firefox_91...

JohnFen 5y ago

> What did Firefox do to fix the compatibility e.g. with Teams? That should've been the highest priority. Why use a browser for Teams at all?

lousken 5y ago
If you wanna join a meeting from another company and you dont have teams licence, you can only use browser or mobile app (not sure if this was changed later or not, because by winter every company I manage had bought ms 365 business. Though teams licence is still an extra item in MS365 admin so I'd assume it hasn't changed)
GekkePrutser 5y ago
The electron version is horrible too and even more wasteful on resources :) Also this way you can use add-ons with it.