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As the article mentions at the end, and I agree, I don't think this was inherently meant to be an anti-firefox change, otherwise they most likely wouldn't have

As the article mentions at the end, and I agree, I don't think this was inherently meant to be an anti-firefox change, otherwise they most likely wouldn't have made something specific to firefox on windows. More likely, this is a case of an anti-bot measure that only works in firefox on windows specifically, hence the specific targeting, and some google engineer didn't bother to test it thoroughly enough.

mrd3v0 2y ago
And how many 'innocent' didn't-test-it-enough targetted user agent incidents do we have to witness in order to call it what it is and stop making excuses?
acdha 2y ago
I think intention matters less than impact. Being a browser vendor should come with a legal obligation to support other browsers just was carefully as your own on all of your company’s websites. We’d never tolerate it if, say, Verizon stopped connecting calls to T-Mobile customers and just went “ooops, totally missed that, our bad” when people complained. Part of why I think that needs to be a legal requirement is to prevent debates about whether management knowingly sabotaged a competitor – proving intent is much harder than simply showing negative outcomes for users – but the other is to keep web standards meaningful in a world where Google has successfully pushed most people to use Chrome: if a regulation required cross-browser testing and use of W3C standards (i.e. if Firefox implements the standards and reCAPTCHA fails, Google has 7 days to fix it or shut the service down until they can), they can’t push key functionality into Chrome-only APIs.
- google234123 2y ago
  Bug telecoms have bugs all the time and we accept it…. Complicated systems fail
  - acdha 2y ago
    What, precisely, do we accept? Have you ever personally experienced something like what I described? Feel free to provide supporting documentation.

mrd3v0 2y ago

And how many 'innocent' didn't-test-it-enough targetted user agent incidents do we have to witness in order to call it what it is and stop making excuses?

acdha 2y ago

I think intention matters less than impact. Being a browser vendor should come with a legal obligation to support other browsers just was carefully as your own on all of your company’s websites. We’d never tolerate it if, say, Verizon stopped connecting calls to T-Mobile customers and just went “ooops, totally missed that, our bad” when people complained. Part of why I think that needs to be a legal requirement is to prevent debates about whether management knowingly sabotaged a competitor – proving intent is much harder than simply showing negative outcomes for users – but the other is to keep web standards meaningful in a world where Google has successfully pushed most people to use Chrome: if a regulation required cross-browser testing and use of W3C standards (i.e. if Firefox implements the standards and reCAPTCHA fails, Google has 7 days to fix it or shut the service down until they can), they can’t push key functionality into Chrome-only APIs.

google234123 2y ago
Bug telecoms have bugs all the time and we accept it…. Complicated systems fail
- acdha 2y ago
  What, precisely, do we accept? Have you ever personally experienced something like what I described? Feel free to provide supporting documentation.