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Xbox Cloud throttles performance if user agent is Linux
- DSingularity 4y agoEmbarrassing.
- ecmascript 4y agoBut... Microsoft loves linux?!?
- pjmlp 4y agoYes, when it runs on top of WSL or Azure VM instances.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- haasted 4y agoThought they only did stuff like this in the bad old days: https://slashdot.org/story/03/02/06/1645229/microsoft-sends-broken-stylesheets-to-opera https://slashdot.org/story/03/02/06/1645229/microsoft-sends-... https://www.theregister.com/2003/02/06/msn_deliberately_breaks_operas_browser/ https://www.theregister.com/2003/02/06/msn_deliberately_brea...
- throw-ru-938 4y agoSee also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code
- dmix 4y agoIs there any benchmarks or comfirmation beyond this one person?
- Neil44 4y agoPeople confirm in the comments on the linked page.
- danpalmer 4y agoI’d guess this is user agent sniffing to determine codecs to use for the video. Linux often doesn’t come with non-free codecs installed, these are often optional extras, even if many people install them.
- alxlaz 4y agoI'm pretty sure there have been better ways to do that for many years now, e.g. the media capabilities API. Hanlon's razor is tricky to apply with Microsoft, they have a bit of an, erm, history with these things.
- Cthulhu_ 4y agoI was going to ask, isn't there some information exchange going on to determine what codecs can be used?
- danpalmer 4y agoOf course. This is a poor implementation however you look at it, but rather than being malicious targeting of Linux users to give them a poor experience, it's probably to do with available codecs.
- Max-q 4y agoIf you read the thread, you will see that it’s not the case. Just change user agent in the Linux browser and it works — with nice resolution.
- alxlaz 4y agoThat's because the person on the original thread has the non-free codecs installed and whatnot. @danpalmer is right to point out that their availability is not something you can rely on. Although this is definitely the wrong way to check it. I'm not sure Microsoft is deliberately making things worse for Linux users, either, but the fact that a better implementation is both possible and straightforward enough suggests that cross-platform performance is not quite the priority that marketing materials make it out to be. We're not talking rocket science here. If this is indeed not specifically about Linux, then either Xbox Cloud's code review practices are at best questionable, or the paradigm that best describes their approach to client-side performance is #yolo.
- eptcyka 4y agoCould it be that they are just trying to push Edge onto people, instead of Windows?
- DonHopkins 4y ago
- flak48 4y agoYou missed the $ in the last sentence
- vagrantJin 4y agoProbably ran out of steam. ...STEAM
- TeddyDD 4y agoI was wondering whenever to continue my subscription. This answers my question.
- unpopularopp 4y agoThe fact that HN eats up random reddit threads with just one random source is so funny considering the always critical comments on other topics. I guess it's just the usual hate towards Big Tech. I wonder how easy to manipulate threads here? Cause it seems it wouldn't take much that effort.
- 0dayz 4y agoI will admit if it's big tech it's hard not to pounce at them
- shmde 4y agoYou act like "Big Tech" was never capable of pulling stunts like this ?
- reitanqild 4y agoI was in your position, asking others to not always expect the worst, to be reasonable with "new Microsoft". They couldn't help themselves, they just had to abuse the trust and now I am back to the point were Microsoft has to earn any trust that I am not forced to give them. Take note whoever thought it was a good idea to squeeze a few cents extra out of us by plastering cheap candy crush ads everywhere in my licensed professional software, change pricing willy nilly and be generally unreliable with stuff like the post above: it does backfire. Other engineers and "evangelists" and what not worked hard for years to create trust and become a preferred choice. I was swayed. I preferred Microsoft to Google for a few months. You tore it down in hours and now I despise both. (Yes, there are usable parts of both. But no long time trust. Always check my back. It works but it is so icky to be in a relationship with someone who so cleary doesn't care.)
- cycomanic 4y agoThe thing I don't get is that people then move from one big player to the next. So the people burnt by MS and Google move to Apple as if they are any better. But I guess "new shiny" always outweighs considerations about security, privacy and freedom.
- easton 4y agoThis is very weird, considering they made a Flatpak version of Edge just so the Steam Deck can use Xbox streaming. Maybe that version has a different UA?
- charcircuit 4y ago>they made a Flatpak version of Edge Microsoft didn't do that. You must be confused.
- paulcarroty 4y agoMicrosoft loves Linux, definitely.
- laumars 4y agoI've noticed this issue with some streaming services too. eg Amazon Prime Video will serve different quality streams for Chrome on macOS than it will for Chrome on Linux.
- jorams 4y agoThis is generally because of DRM. They only support higher definitions on stricter levels of Widevine DRM, which need both software and hardware support.
- alleskleber 4y agoThat's a DRM restriction.
- krzyk 4y agoIt is DRM, and Amazon Prime is particularly bad, it servers 540p or similar - it is basically unwatchable (other streaming services default to 720p, which is OK, with netflix having an unofficial plugin that makes it 1080p). And I was thinking I'll watch The Boys in nice quality on official streaming service, turned out I had to cancel Prime and download 2160p torrent. I'm still puzzling what DRM solves, in most cases it pushes me into torrenting.
- LAC-Tech 4y agoIf 540p is unwatchable for you, you need glasses.
- mb7733 4y agoIsn't it the other way round?
- seanw444 4y agoAgreed. DRM makes me want to spite the company even more. Sadly, we're the minority, so it won't have any affect. Normies continue to have 7 streaming service subscriptions, one for each show, and watch them at an "automatic resolution" of 480p.
- trollied 4y agoSomebody in the reddit comments makes a very good point: > I think this is because of android. Android is based on Linux and identifies as Linux in a browser. android on xcloud is limited to 720p. I don't think this is intentional but just a bug they didn't think through. Obviously it's more fun for people to assume it's been done on purpose & bash MS.
- xxs 4y agoAlternatively, not far long ago - there used to be a page with browser benchmarks - and Microsoft's darling performed the better. Your browsers (say firefox) showed worse - change the user agent and voila - it's the same as Microsoft's edge.
- xorcist 4y agoIt very clearly identifies as "Android" even before it identifies as Linux, so it's not a perfect explanation.
- jolux 4y agoYeah but you’re assuming the programmers who worked on this don’t make dumb mistakes like the rest of us. Especially not since they’re working for one of the only major tech companies where all the devs use Windows and might make bad assumptions based on their environment.
- kaladin-jasnah 4y agoI wonder if many people will even be aware that Android _is_ Linux.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- wolrah 4y ago> Yeah but you’re assuming the programmers who worked on this don’t make dumb mistakes like the rest of us. Yeah but this isn't just a "dumb mistake". It's been widely discussed in the web design world how terrible of an idea it is to use the user agent for basically anything at all for literally decades now. There are web designers working now who were not born when this problem was first discussed. It's not a "oops I didn't know about this recent change" thing, it's a "doing this has been known to be a bad idea for so long there are obsolete books that talk about it". The reason browser user agents are the disaster area they are today is entirely because bad web programmers have been abusing the user agent in ways they shouldn't be for so long.
- AndrianV 4y agoIf the bitrate goes down, too, then people with spotty connections or bad experiences might want to try the other side. I don't know how to test this scientifically, but if I change my user agent on Windows to Linux, will that lower the bitrate and make my sometimes slow experience better?
- mfcl 4y agoWhy did you copy paste one of the comments from the Reddit thread here?
- dxuh 4y agoEveryone that feels like it is outrageous to believe this is evil and there is likely a super reasonable explanation for this should consider that this is not a novel thing. At Netflix and Amazon Prime limit the resolution on Linux to 1080p and 720 respectively. Of course the reason is a different one, but Xbox Cloud would simply get in line with other major video streaming providers. It's natural to assume that it might be true and the reasons are silly, just like they are for every other platform.
- dawnerd 4y agoThey have directions for setting up xcloud on steam deck so I wonder if it’s just an optimization that got messed up. If Microsoft was trying to sabotage Linux there’s far easier ways. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/xbox-cloud-gaming-in-microsoft-edge-with-steam-deck-43dd011b-0ce8-4810-8302-965be6d53296 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/xbox-cloud-gaming-...
- fartcannon 4y agoThis is a pretty common Microsoft move. Let's them pretend to be good guys for basically no effort, while frustrating anyone who isn't using Microsoft stuff. It's to encourage people on the fence to jump ship.