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0 pointsbzbarsky11y ago0 comments

I mean the services Google provides to users in the form of web applications, yes. The terminology is sucky.

As for concrete examples, Hangouts only works in non-Chrome browsers (including ones with WebRTC support) if you install a Google-provided binary blob. Which you may not be able to do.

Gmail only supports offline access in Chrome (see https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6557?hl=en the "two exceptions" bit). Whether not having offline access to your mail counts as mail "not working" is up to you, I guess; for me it counts as "not working".

Various Google properties use UA sniffing to deliver degraded content to non-Chrome browsers. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=921532#c9 is an example.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=973754 is an example where as far as I can tell they built the feature around non-standard Chrome-only functionality even though Firefox supports the standard version.

Google news menus don't work in standards-compliant browsers because they rely on a Chrome/WebKit bug. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1083932

Google patent search uses UA sniffing and locks out various browsers as a result. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1013702

Google Translate will fail to work in Firefox unless you have Flash installed (good luck on Mobile).... or spoof the Chrome UA string. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=976013

They do fix these bugs sometimes (the UA sniffing ones, where they just got the sniffing flat out wrong, tend to get fixed once someone diagnoses them). And sometimes not.

0 comments

cpeterso11y ago

> Hangouts only works in non-Chrome browsers (including ones with WebRTC support) if you install a Google-provided binary blob.

The Google Hangouts website uses some carefully-constructed language to imply that people must download Chrome to use Hangouts, even though a Hangouts NPAPI plugin supposedly exists:

https://www.google.com/hangouts/

  The Hangouts Chrome extension won't work in your current browser. You'll need to
  download Chrome before installing the Hangouts Chrome extension. Do you want to
  download Chrome now?

Google+ photo editing is another Google feature that requires Chrome. I believe it uses NaCL to optimize some photo effects.

gsnedders11y ago

The NPAPI plugin is the binary blob bz was referring to.

cpeterso11y ago

The NPAPI plugin is one binary blob. The Chrome extension is another. The Google Hangouts home page only offers the Chrome extension. To actually find the NPAPI installer, you have to know it exists and search for it.

pcwalton11y ago

Google Inbox is also Chrome-only. It UA sniffs and tells you to download Chrome if you aren't using it.

haberman11y ago

For non-nefarious reasons: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8495939

bzbarskyOP11y ago

It's not nefarious on the part of the _developers_. They were given concrete goals. I wasn't privy to those, but it sure looks like those were: Must work in Chrome (Android) and on iOS, working elsewhere is nice to have but optional. They were also given deadlines. Then they proceeded, with no nefariousness, to deliver a product that works on Chrome and iOS and not elsewhere. I'm sure if they had more time or more people they would have made it work elsewhere too.

Then you ask yourself why the goals were set the way they were. Obvious guess at an answer: because they only want to target "mobile" and Android+iOS cover most "mobile" clients. Had iOS had less market share, I will bet the goal would have been Android-only (modulo advice by lawyers based on antitrust worries in that situation, of course).

No malice anywhere along here, but the end result is not so distinguishable from malice, sadly.

2 more replies

cpeterso11y ago

btw, the Inbox team clearly didn't bother to contact Mozilla about the Firefox performance problem because Mozilla fixed the bug within a couple hours of it being reported on HN:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1087963

sintaxi11y ago

This is a huge problem for the overall strength of the open web and Mozilla unfortunately is no less guilty of this. Many of the tools developed for FxOS are targeted for Gecko and wont run on other rendering engines. More and more it seems the only people actually building libs for the open web are independent developers and small shops. :(

bzbarskyOP11y ago

I think there's a difference between ChromeBook or FxOS apps, which may need functionality and more importantly permissions that are not available on the web yet and creating web apps that use functionality that's supported in multiple browsers but restricting to only one browser.

That said, I agree that more FxOS bits need to end up on standards tracks. The permissions issue really needs solving to make serious progress there.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsbzbarsky11y ago0 comments

I mean the services Google provides to users in the form of web applications, yes. The terminology is sucky.

As for concrete examples, Hangouts only works in non-Chrome browsers (including ones with WebRTC support) if you install a Google-provided binary blob. Which you may not be able to do.

Various Google properties use UA sniffing to deliver degraded content to non-Chrome browsers. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=921532#c9 is an example.

Google news menus don't work in standards-compliant browsers because they rely on a Chrome/WebKit bug. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1083932

Google patent search uses UA sniffing and locks out various browsers as a result. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1013702

Google Translate will fail to work in Firefox unless you have Flash installed (good luck on Mobile).... or spoof the Chrome UA string. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=976013

They do fix these bugs sometimes (the UA sniffing ones, where they just got the sniffing flat out wrong, tend to get fixed once someone diagnoses them). And sometimes not.

0 comments

cpeterso11y ago

> Hangouts only works in non-Chrome browsers (including ones with WebRTC support) if you install a Google-provided binary blob.

The Google Hangouts website uses some carefully-constructed language to imply that people must download Chrome to use Hangouts, even though a Hangouts NPAPI plugin supposedly exists:

https://www.google.com/hangouts/

  The Hangouts Chrome extension won't work in your current browser. You'll need to
  download Chrome before installing the Hangouts Chrome extension. Do you want to
  download Chrome now?

Google+ photo editing is another Google feature that requires Chrome. I believe it uses NaCL to optimize some photo effects.

gsnedders11y ago

The NPAPI plugin is the binary blob bz was referring to.

cpeterso11y ago

pcwalton11y ago

Google Inbox is also Chrome-only. It UA sniffs and tells you to download Chrome if you aren't using it.

haberman11y ago

For non-nefarious reasons: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8495939

bzbarskyOP11y ago

No malice anywhere along here, but the end result is not so distinguishable from malice, sadly.

2 more replies

cpeterso11y ago

btw, the Inbox team clearly didn't bother to contact Mozilla about the Firefox performance problem because Mozilla fixed the bug within a couple hours of it being reported on HN:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1087963

sintaxi11y ago

bzbarskyOP11y ago

That said, I agree that more FxOS bits need to end up on standards tracks. The permissions issue really needs solving to make serious progress there.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse