4 ms·

> Using open-source Chromium instead of Chrome did not cause crashes, so we couldn’t see what Chrome code was failing either. They don't address why they didn'

by neilv 3y ago

> Using open-source Chromium instead of Chrome did not cause crashes, so we couldn’t see what Chrome code was failing either. They don't address why they didn't just run Chromium. Or Firefox. (This is potentially better than the 'solution' they much later ended up with, in which they probably only relieved a symptom of an underlying problem that can exhibit again, and in the meantime is a zero-day exploit waiting to happen. At least, with a different browser, there's a chance that the vulnerability doesn't actually exist, when it's known to exist in their Chrome configuration.)

Etheryte 3y ago
What makes this doubly frustrating is that they also didn't report the bug to Chrome. It's super easy to do, plus they're very responsive if you have a repro case which in this case they do. I think I'm now up to three or four Chrome bugs reported that their team has subsequently fixed.
- ncann 3y ago
  They said it wasn't reproducible anymore though. So if they make a bug report now and say "this used to cause a crash in an old version of Chrome while also having an old version of another software installed, but is no longer reproducible in latest builds", most people would probably just ignore it.
  - masto 3y ago
    It was reproducible at the time they found it, and trivially so: install Grammarly, drag this GIF into Chrome, and it crashes. I understood everything up to the point where they just changed the GIF and moved on without ever telling the Chrome or Grammarly folks about it.
gwbas1c 3y ago
> They don't address why they didn't just run Chromium. Or Firefox. The article implies that Gusto's employees can whatever browser they want. And, honestly, telling your employees to run a browser that only techies have heard of sounds like a really dumb idea.
- neilv 3y ago
  > The article implies that Gusto's employees can whatever browser they want. For users of their security-sensitive internal software? > And, honestly, telling your employees to run a browser that only techies have heard of sounds like a really dumb idea. Sounds like they're using this for internal tools, as a kind of thin-client layer. They could recommend or mandate a particular browser, and people would just use it. ("Click this icon, and a window opens with our internal tool. It's pretty much the same as any other browser, as far as you care.")
  - saagarjha 3y ago
    As an employee I would be really upset if you forced me to use a specific browser to do my work.
    - laurent_du 3y ago
      I have been forced to use IE for some internal apps when I was working in investment banking. It's not that bad.
kube-system 3y ago
> They don't address why they didn't just run Chromium. Or Firefox. Probably: 1. Because it is reasonable to expect the application to work in Chrome. 2. Chromium isn't intended for production use cases. Back when IE and Chrome had about equal market share, I worked somewhere that had one team insisting that all employees must use IE for one of their applications, and another team insisting that all employees use Chrome for their application. 50%+ of support calls were employees confusing the two browsers.
- MattDaEskimo 3y ago
  I don't think the post you quoted is implying that they should've closed their eyes. It makes much more sense to try a different browser first and see if the problem persists. Instead of test versions and extensions.
  - kube-system 3y ago
    The post I quoted itself quoted the article saying they did test in Chromium. The article also says they tested Firefox and Safari.
  - hbn 3y ago
    > As urgency waned because our users were using other browsers as a workaround, progress on this bug slowed to make way for other priorities. We didn’t have much left to go on without being able to reproduce the bug. However, we wanted to resolve it since users had bookmarks/settings/preferences in Chrome. We believed that we shouldn’t have to ask our users to avoid the world’s most popular browser, and we were also still getting periodic pings from various users asking whether we had made any progress on this bug.
lobf 3y ago
You must not have read the article because he literally addresses this.
- mplewis 3y ago
  *She – the author’s name is Amy
mplewis 3y ago
You really want to change an entire company’s mandated browser every time a bug causes a problem with an extension?
nabakin 3y ago
They say in the article that the bug became a much lower priority because their employees simply switched browsers
cristeigabriel 3y ago
Maybe Grammarly doesn't work for Chromium? (guessing)

by neilv 3y ago

Etheryte 3y ago

What makes this doubly frustrating is that they also didn't report the bug to Chrome. It's super easy to do, plus they're very responsive if you have a repro case which in this case they do. I think I'm now up to three or four Chrome bugs reported that their team has subsequently fixed.

ncann 3y ago
They said it wasn't reproducible anymore though. So if they make a bug report now and say "this used to cause a crash in an old version of Chrome while also having an old version of another software installed, but is no longer reproducible in latest builds", most people would probably just ignore it.
- masto 3y ago
  It was reproducible at the time they found it, and trivially so: install Grammarly, drag this GIF into Chrome, and it crashes. I understood everything up to the point where they just changed the GIF and moved on without ever telling the Chrome or Grammarly folks about it.

gwbas1c 3y ago

> They don't address why they didn't just run Chromium. Or Firefox. The article implies that Gusto's employees can whatever browser they want. And, honestly, telling your employees to run a browser that only techies have heard of sounds like a really dumb idea.

neilv 3y ago
> The article implies that Gusto's employees can whatever browser they want. For users of their security-sensitive internal software? > And, honestly, telling your employees to run a browser that only techies have heard of sounds like a really dumb idea. Sounds like they're using this for internal tools, as a kind of thin-client layer. They could recommend or mandate a particular browser, and people would just use it. ("Click this icon, and a window opens with our internal tool. It's pretty much the same as any other browser, as far as you care.")
- saagarjha 3y ago
  As an employee I would be really upset if you forced me to use a specific browser to do my work.
  - laurent_du 3y ago
    I have been forced to use IE for some internal apps when I was working in investment banking. It's not that bad.

kube-system 3y ago

> They don't address why they didn't just run Chromium. Or Firefox. Probably: 1. Because it is reasonable to expect the application to work in Chrome. 2. Chromium isn't intended for production use cases. Back when IE and Chrome had about equal market share, I worked somewhere that had one team insisting that all employees must use IE for one of their applications, and another team insisting that all employees use Chrome for their application. 50%+ of support calls were employees confusing the two browsers.

MattDaEskimo 3y ago
I don't think the post you quoted is implying that they should've closed their eyes. It makes much more sense to try a different browser first and see if the problem persists. Instead of test versions and extensions.
- kube-system 3y ago
  The post I quoted itself quoted the article saying they did test in Chromium. The article also says they tested Firefox and Safari.
- hbn 3y ago
  > As urgency waned because our users were using other browsers as a workaround, progress on this bug slowed to make way for other priorities. We didn’t have much left to go on without being able to reproduce the bug. However, we wanted to resolve it since users had bookmarks/settings/preferences in Chrome. We believed that we shouldn’t have to ask our users to avoid the world’s most popular browser, and we were also still getting periodic pings from various users asking whether we had made any progress on this bug.

lobf 3y ago

You must not have read the article because he literally addresses this.

mplewis 3y ago
*She – the author’s name is Amy

mplewis 3y ago

You really want to change an entire company’s mandated browser every time a bug causes a problem with an extension?

nabakin 3y ago

They say in the article that the bug became a much lower priority because their employees simply switched browsers

cristeigabriel 3y ago

Maybe Grammarly doesn't work for Chromium? (guessing)