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Google Play Store: Browsing with Firefox is no longer supported on Android

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Google Play Store: Browsing with Firefox is no longer supported on Android

#101

Post by fpgeek »

fastball wrote: post #81
josteink wrote: post #14

Hi Google. Remember those non-evil days where you said you cared about web-standards and actually acted according to those claims? Those days were great. Feel free to get back to those.

What are they supposed to do if they want to implement features which are not supported by Firefox?

Degrade gracefully?

BTW, for those playing at home, the Play Store website loads just fine if you claim to be running Firefox OS instead. If there actually are features the Play Store site uses that work in Firefox OS and not in Firefox for Android, I'm sure Mozilla would like to hear about them (probably via Bugzilla).

Re: Google Play Store: Browsing with Firefox is no longer supported on Android

#102

Post by oblio »

This is a dangerous slope.

And I'm sad seeing many of the arguments here - a wild guess is that they've been made by people who weren't here (or have forgotten) the Microsoft/IE story.

Soon it will become: "Why would they invest resources? Firefox is a niche browser, the return on investment is not justified". After all, Firefox's market share is dwindling.

I really hope we're not slowly being boiled like the proverbial frog, by Google.

Re: Google Play Store: Browsing with Firefox is no longer supported on Android

#104

Post by Karunamon »

pyre wrote: post #100
lmm wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That approach is what got us XHTML 2.0 and a "lost decade" for web technology. The things Google adopts (vp8, dart, spdy) are things it releases and publishes as open standards, and therefore significantly more standard and open than e.g. javascript, or even the tag, were when first introduced.

> are things it releases and publishes as open standards Publishing working code (even as Open Source) and possibly a white paper does not make something a 'standard.' It may be 'open' but not a 'standard.'

And yet it also completely disproves the argument of anyone claiming that Google is trying to make another ActiveX.

The idea that nobody can do anything cool on the web unless all browsers support it seems like a great way to encourage stagnation.

Re: Google Play Store: Browsing with Firefox is no longer supported on Android

#105

Post by madez »

bighi wrote: post #90
vetinari wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm using Firefox and I care to have a browser, that does not spy on me.

Oh no, not the spying argument again...

I would like to understand you but I don't yet.

Why do you refuse an argument just because it was used in another occasion? That appears to me to be a logical fallacy. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

The heart of the argument - that is the demand not to be spied upon - seems to be to be perfectly reasonable and justified due to economic and security aspects. Care to weigh in?

Re: Google Play Store: Browsing with Firefox is no longer supported on Android

#106

Post by fpgeek »

untog wrote: post #73
Steuard wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would it mean to make Firefox for iOS? My understanding was that iOS requires all browsers to use the same rendering engine under the hood, so "Firefox" there wouldn't be much more than a different skin for Safari. (Has that changed?)

No. It will be a skin around the Webkit runtime - but with Firefox Sync and similar enabled. Maybe a few extra APIs, too...

In other words, more of a SafariFox than a Firefox.

Re: Google Play Store: Browsing with Firefox is no longer supported on Android

#107

Post by JeremyNT »

fastball wrote: post #81
josteink wrote: post #14

Hi Google. Remember those non-evil days where you said you cared about web-standards and actually acted according to those claims? Those days were great. Feel free to get back to those.

What are they supposed to do if they want to implement features which are not supported by Firefox?

They could at least not intentionally block the browser and let it render to the best of its abilities. The Google Play site is still functional in desktop Firefox anyway, and it's difficult for me to imagine that it's not at least still mostly functional on Mobile Firefox.

Perhaps they should inform the user that they've designed the site for a particular browser in such a case, though. A little animated GIF that says "This page works best in Google Chrome" would do the trick.

Re: Google Play Store: Browsing with Firefox is no longer supported on Android

#108

Post by drzaiusapelord »

oblio wrote: post #102

This is a dangerous slope. And I'm sad seeing many of the arguments here - a wild guess is that they've been made by people who weren't here (or have forgotten) the Microsoft/IE story. Soon it will become: "Why would they invest resources? Firefox is a niche browser, the return on investment is not justified". After all, Firefox's market share is dwindling. I really hope we're not slowly being boiled like the proverb…

Weren't we all applauding some startup that had a douche-bagy "We dont support IE" message on their site and everyone here was so excited about it. Now that the bell is tolling for Firefox, its a different story, eh?

There's been this largely ridiculous "revenge of the geeks" after the IE6 days. Now we've fed so much fuel into that fire, that casually telling people to use different browsers is the norm. I'm not saying I told you so, but.. I told you so.

Instead of focusing on your customers' needs, we just ran with what's popular. That's always going to be a losing strategy.

Re: Google Play Store: Browsing with Firefox is no longer supported on Android

#109

Post by LiroXIV »

qntmfred wrote: post #42
zanny wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably just don't want you accessing the store from a browser on mobile when you can be using their app. I don't think this is some malicious betrayal of trust, even if its a stupid thing to do.

You can access the store from Chrome on mobile

Completely missing the point here.

Re: Google Play Store: Browsing with Firefox is no longer supported on Android

#110

Post by lkbm »

gcp wrote: post #97
unreal37 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to your link, Firefox has 0.7% market share in mobile, which is the relevant metric to this post.

The Play Store (LOL) claims there's about 50M-100M users. It's up to you whether that counts as "nobody" or not.

Downloads, not users.
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