3 ms·

going by Hanlon's Razor, i would guess that this is merely the result of an engineering update that nobody bothered to QA on Firefox rather than a malicious att

by zelias 2y ago

going by Hanlon's Razor, i would guess that this is merely the result of an engineering update that nobody bothered to QA on Firefox rather than a malicious attack on a single browser that isn't _really_ winning market share let's not assume Google malice is _too_ competent

AlwaysRock 2y ago
No one bothered to QA the browser with the 4th largest market share? The willful negligence is the malicious.
- thebytefairy 2y ago
  Wouldn't be surprised. The 4th largest browser is a mere 2.7% of the market. What about the fifth and sixth? If I had to decide how to allocate testing hours, I probably wouldn't put much into the 2.7% vs the top 3 with 88%.
kccqzy 2y ago
That's totally true, but it's still Google's fault. I found a nice article on exactly this from a former Mozilla exec: https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has-sabotaged-firefox-for-years/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has... > Gmail & [Google] Docs started to experience selective performance issues and bugs on Firefox. Demo sites would falsely block Firefox as 'incompatible' […] All of this is stuff you're allowed to do to compete, of course. But we were still a search partner, so we'd say 'hey what gives?' And every time, they'd say, 'oops. That was accidental. We'll fix it in the next push in 2 weeks.' […] Over and over. Oops. Another accident. We'll fix it soon. We want the same things. We're on the same team. There were dozens of oopses. Hundreds maybe? This latest article is basically the same thing again. Google would tell Mozilla it's a genuine bug; they would fix it soon; but Mozilla loses some users and Chrome gains some. Nothing new.
timw4mail 2y ago
Yeah no, this has happened too many times to be just incompetence. It's malicious, plain and simple.
- dymk 2y ago
  Everybody knows a company can’t be incompetent a bunch of times in a row.
  - Sakos 2y ago
    Incompetence isn't an acceptable excuse for anti-competitive behavior by a company the size of Google. It's their responsibility to ensure that incompetence can't result in things like this. This isn't something that should just be shrugged away.
    - dymk 2y ago
      An explanation is not an excuse. It's tiring seeing people be so, so confident they know what's going on behind the scenes. In reality, they know just as much as everyone else.
daedrdev 2y ago
Still they shouldn't let this happen considering their antitrust scrutiny
Kiro 2y ago
Yeah, I'm baffled that people on HN will happily accept pretty damning conspiracy theories at face value when there are much more plausible explanations available. My app is also having performance issues with WebGL on Firefox so I guess I'm part of the conspiracy?
- riiii 2y ago
  These are glaringly obvious flaws that even a basic rudimentary QA test will uncover.
observationist 2y ago
Google is a megacorp - Hanlon's razor doesn't apply. Just because there's no one person twirling their mustache and mwahahaha-ing doesn't mean this isn't malicious and hostile behavior by Google. It doesn't matter even if there's no individual human at Google that intended this. What does matter is that the leadership at Google clearly doesn't do what is necessary in preventing hostile behavior as a consequence of negligence. They know that if they don't put in the effort to ensure compatibility, side effects will degrade competitor performance. It's an inevitable consequence; they've done, and been forced to do, the right thing, and provide quality assurance and compatibility review in complex systems. There are people that know the consequences of not being proactive. Hell, they probably have lawyers that know the exact numbers - they probably make some tens of millions of dollars more revenue by "slacking off" and not being proactive about compatibility.
- bawolff 2y ago
  > Google is a megacorp - Hanlon's razor doesn't apply. On the contrary, i think it applies more. The larger the group, the more stupid stuff it does.
  - entropicdrifter 2y ago
    This this this. Megacorporations aren't more competent,they're able to get away with more incompetence and tell whoever complains to shove it.
    - saurik 2y ago
      But knowing you can repeatedly get away with incompetence is malice. Hanlon's razor is used as an excuse for moral culpability, as if who is merely incompetent isn't evil; but, once you point out how that level of incompetence is hurting others, if they choose to not merely prevent such incompetence going forward, but recognize when they make mistakes and take steps to make it right--yes: after the fact; not merely fixing a bug, for example, and not merely apologizing for their incompetence, but making some kind of reparation to those harmed--that must be understood as malicious behavior.
chippiewill 2y ago
The idea that Youtube wouldn't QA test on Firefox is ludicrous. Yes, it's not a massive browser share these days, but it's basically the only major browser left that doesn't share any lineage for the rendering engine. I agree it'll be incompetence, but they'll definitely have Firefox QA testing.

by zelias 2y ago

AlwaysRock 2y ago

No one bothered to QA the browser with the 4th largest market share? The willful negligence is the malicious.

thebytefairy 2y ago
Wouldn't be surprised. The 4th largest browser is a mere 2.7% of the market. What about the fifth and sixth? If I had to decide how to allocate testing hours, I probably wouldn't put much into the 2.7% vs the top 3 with 88%.

kccqzy 2y ago

That's totally true, but it's still Google's fault. I found a nice article on exactly this from a former Mozilla exec: https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has-sabotaged-firefox-for-years/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has... > Gmail & [Google] Docs started to experience selective performance issues and bugs on Firefox. Demo sites would falsely block Firefox as 'incompatible' […] All of this is stuff you're allowed to do to compete, of course. But we were still a search partner, so we'd say 'hey what gives?' And every time, they'd say, 'oops. That was accidental. We'll fix it in the next push in 2 weeks.' […] Over and over. Oops. Another accident. We'll fix it soon. We want the same things. We're on the same team. There were dozens of oopses. Hundreds maybe? This latest article is basically the same thing again. Google would tell Mozilla it's a genuine bug; they would fix it soon; but Mozilla loses some users and Chrome gains some. Nothing new.

timw4mail 2y ago

Yeah no, this has happened too many times to be just incompetence. It's malicious, plain and simple.

dymk 2y ago
Everybody knows a company can’t be incompetent a bunch of times in a row.
- Sakos 2y ago
  Incompetence isn't an acceptable excuse for anti-competitive behavior by a company the size of Google. It's their responsibility to ensure that incompetence can't result in things like this. This isn't something that should just be shrugged away.
  - dymk 2y ago
    An explanation is not an excuse. It's tiring seeing people be so, so confident they know what's going on behind the scenes. In reality, they know just as much as everyone else.

daedrdev 2y ago

Still they shouldn't let this happen considering their antitrust scrutiny

Kiro 2y ago

Yeah, I'm baffled that people on HN will happily accept pretty damning conspiracy theories at face value when there are much more plausible explanations available. My app is also having performance issues with WebGL on Firefox so I guess I'm part of the conspiracy?

riiii 2y ago
These are glaringly obvious flaws that even a basic rudimentary QA test will uncover.

observationist 2y ago

Google is a megacorp - Hanlon's razor doesn't apply. Just because there's no one person twirling their mustache and mwahahaha-ing doesn't mean this isn't malicious and hostile behavior by Google. It doesn't matter even if there's no individual human at Google that intended this. What does matter is that the leadership at Google clearly doesn't do what is necessary in preventing hostile behavior as a consequence of negligence. They know that if they don't put in the effort to ensure compatibility, side effects will degrade competitor performance. It's an inevitable consequence; they've done, and been forced to do, the right thing, and provide quality assurance and compatibility review in complex systems. There are people that know the consequences of not being proactive. Hell, they probably have lawyers that know the exact numbers - they probably make some tens of millions of dollars more revenue by "slacking off" and not being proactive about compatibility.

bawolff 2y ago
> Google is a megacorp - Hanlon's razor doesn't apply. On the contrary, i think it applies more. The larger the group, the more stupid stuff it does.
- entropicdrifter 2y ago
  This this this. Megacorporations aren't more competent,they're able to get away with more incompetence and tell whoever complains to shove it.
  - saurik 2y ago
    But knowing you can repeatedly get away with incompetence is malice. Hanlon's razor is used as an excuse for moral culpability, as if who is merely incompetent isn't evil; but, once you point out how that level of incompetence is hurting others, if they choose to not merely prevent such incompetence going forward, but recognize when they make mistakes and take steps to make it right--yes: after the fact; not merely fixing a bug, for example, and not merely apologizing for their incompetence, but making some kind of reparation to those harmed--that must be understood as malicious behavior.

chippiewill 2y ago

The idea that Youtube wouldn't QA test on Firefox is ludicrous. Yes, it's not a massive browser share these days, but it's basically the only major browser left that doesn't share any lineage for the rendering engine. I agree it'll be incompetence, but they'll definitely have Firefox QA testing.