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Tell HN: Skype on web does not support Firefox

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Re: Tell HN: Skype on web does not support Firefox

#131

Post by lostgame »

taneq wrote: post #85
Carpetsmoker wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook "kind of" works in Firefox, but there's loads of subtle breakage: for example pasting anything in Messenger (with ctrl+v) breaks the entire site for me. Middle-click kind-of but kind-of-doesn't work, depending on planetary alignments or some such :-/

What? I've been using Facebook in Firefox since IE6 stopped being cool, and it's always worked fine.

IE6 was cool?

(j/k - I do remember the years where it was actually alright, before it became the plague on the dev community it evolved into)

Re: Tell HN: Skype on web does not support Firefox

#132

Post by tinus_hn »

gregdoesit wrote: post #73
realusername wrote: post #4

The worst is that just changing the user agent makes everything work.

As above, I was on the Skype for Web launch team. While chat will probably work, as it doesn't have anything browser-specific, I am not sure video/audio calls will be reliable. Even if they work now, that flow is no longer tested or fixed if it breaks on Firefox. The downloadable video/audio plugin on Windows and Mac, supporting Firefox is the expensive part that the team likely stopped supporting.

So it’s just like the native Skype client.

Re: Tell HN: Skype on web does not support Firefox

#133

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

vetinari wrote: post #13
sodosopa wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a larger problem since Safari has a larger userbase. Mozilla is generally at 5% Safari has been at 7-8%. Collectively, Microsoft is fine with losing potentially 12%

On desktops, it is ~9,5% for Firefox and ~5% for Safari (4,5% for Edge). On mobile, I would rather use native app than web one. On desktop, the "native" app is Electron anyway.

Though frankly I'm fed up with installing yet another mobile app for whatever conferencing system someone wants to use today.

Re: Tell HN: Skype on web does not support Firefox

#134

Post by tinus_hn »

gregdoesit wrote: post #67

Original Skype for Web developer here. I was part of the launch team who built the first version for this product in 2014[1]. Back then we supported Chrome, IE 9+, Safari and Firefox. Already we had internal debates to support Opera, but the decision was to focus on the largest browsers. For each browser, we had to add support in our standalone plugin, that was (and still is) required to install for audio/video calls…

In other news, you don’t need plugins to provide voice or video calls in a browser. You do have to make a real web version though.

Re: Tell HN: Skype on web does not support Firefox

#135

Post by rchaud »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #116
mcv wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we back to the "built for Netscape 4.7" days? Sites shouldn't support browsers, but standards. By all means check if a browser supports a certain standard, and provide an error message for browsers that are too far behind, but don't ban them simply for having the wrong user agent.

I don't want to destroy your illusions, but so-called "web standards" have been "whatever Chrome does" for a while now. FF is great (I'm using it all the time, even on Android until very recently), but publishers have no incentive to test on FF specifically because of ad blockers eliminating all ads irrespective of whether they're targetted/tracking ads or regular ads. Actually, from a purely economical PoV, publishe…

FF does not include ad blocking by default, you have download the necessary extensions just as you would on Chrome.

Re: Tell HN: Skype on web does not support Firefox

#136

Post by aphextim »

gorhill wrote: post #88
aphextim wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I bet if there was a one-click to install firefox with ad-blocker and some other stuff enabled by default people would start switching. Check out Brave, been getting my friends to switch as it has a built in blocker that is even more verbose than ublock. Works on mobile as well which helps them save data and load websites faster. https://brave.com/

> has a built in blocker that is even more verbose than ublock I don't understand this sentence. What does "more verbose" mean?

I guess what I meant was that it shows you a lot of details of what trackers are being blocked with individual switches for cookies/scripts etc, which is nice for users who may not be as tech literate.

https://imgur.com/a/REAStmy

Re: Tell HN: Skype on web does not support Firefox

#137

Post by amaccuish »

userbinator wrote: post #11
realusername wrote: post #4

The worst is that just changing the user agent makes everything work.

I always thought having a UA header in the HTTP spec was a bad idea, because it just encourages things like this. Unfortunately, I've tried browsing with no UA header, and a surprisingly large number of sites --- even ones without any sort of "app functionality" --- will return strange errors.

Actually that's a really good idea to move things towards checking compatibility with standards rather than by user agent. The hard job would be forcing these broken sites to fix themselves.

UPDATE: the idea below of Safari not updating it's UA seems to be a good way to move this forward.

Re: Tell HN: Skype on web does not support Firefox

#138

Post by falcolas »

aphextim wrote: post #52
phkahler wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting rid of ads IS a compelling reason to switch. People will switch if the default is better. They dont want to get a new browser, pick and install an ad blocker, then configure that stuff. People will stop at the slightest uncertainty. I bet if there was a one-click to install firefox with ad-blocker and some other stuff enabled by default people would start switching. Installing, extensions, configuration, thos…

>I bet if there was a one-click to install firefox with ad-blocker and some other stuff enabled by default people would start switching. Check out Brave, been getting my friends to switch as it has a built in blocker that is even more verbose than ublock. Works on mobile as well which helps them save data and load websites faster. https://brave.com/

Isn't this the same browser that by default allows through certain ads to fund its own development? Or that has replaced ads on web pages with its own approved ads?

Re: Tell HN: Skype on web does not support Firefox

#139

Post by ghusbands »

zsrxx wrote: post #114
mcv wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That number should grow again. It's becoming increasingly obvious what a privacy leak Chrome is, and Firefox is just as good, making it an obvious choice for anyone who cares about privacy.

Chrome attacking the privacy and the choice of its users has been happening for years now. And Firefox keeps dying.

Mozilla (Firefox) management thought that installing a Mr Robot advert extension on people's computers, without asking, was a good move, and defended it until the internet outcry got loud enough. With management like that, I find it hard to trust them. Default-installing Pocket was also not entirely defensible and was probably money-driven.

Essentially, both companies have done anti-privacy and untrustworthy actions, and choosing the lesser evil is hardly ideal.

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