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Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

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Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#131

Post by moioci »

[deleted] wrote: post #127
skywhopper wrote: post #106

Any time you see a comment like "With some more man hours, it seems trivial for Google to get the application to run in Firefox", you know the author either doesn't know what they're talking about or just hasn't thought about it very much. Anyone who's done any serious web-app development in the past decade knows that cross browser compatibility at the bleeding edge (ie, past what the JS frameworks have worked out) c…

[deleted]

From the linked article: "First thing I tried, is to switch the user agent from Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:33.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/33.0 (Firefox default user agent for me on Ubuntu Linux) to my Google Chromes user agent instead Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/38.0.2125.111 Safari/537.36"

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#132

Post by TeMPOraL »

[deleted] wrote: post #127
skywhopper wrote: post #106

Any time you see a comment like "With some more man hours, it seems trivial for Google to get the application to run in Firefox", you know the author either doesn't know what they're talking about or just hasn't thought about it very much. Anyone who's done any serious web-app development in the past decade knows that cross browser compatibility at the bleeding edge (ie, past what the JS frameworks have worked out) c…

[deleted]

Well, isn't it what the whole article was about? ;).

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#133

Post by josteink »

custardcream wrote: post #55
eloisant wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering Microsoft is now Open Sourcing dotnet and releasing it for OSX and Linux, at what point did Google and Microsoft crossed each other?

Within the last couple of months literally. I think to be honest that some of the stuff Microsoft have been working on behind the scenes is probably scaring the crap out of Apple and Google. There's not been a platform as holistic and complete as Microsoft's offerings so far and they are adding REAL value daily rather than just moving the chess pieces to great fanfare.

> Within the last couple of months literally

I would rather say it has become apparent over the last year. I say windows 8 marks the moment.

That's where Microsoft realized they needed to garner goodwill and at that point Google had so much global market share (web traffic, browsers, mobile) they could say fuck all to everything and anyone.

And they started doing just that. Anyone else remember the forced and sneaky adaption tactics that was Google+?

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#134

Post by Kalium »

cognivore wrote: post #39

There's not really a good reason for Google to make applications they create work outside their own run-time environment - Chrome. Any technical reason they might offer (sparse array performance) is just facetious. They have the technical know-how to solve such problems, but business wise it makes little sense. I use three web browsers for just that reason. Chrome for Google products (YouTube, Gmail, now Inbox, etc.)…

There are always more problems that you can solve before you release a product. This is universally true of all products. It doesn't matter how developed the thing is, there are always more things you can do.

But at the end of the day, you do need to ship a product. Which means some of those go un-done. Especially when it's a product in beta where you're looking to get feedback and iterate.

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#135

Post by Kalium »

couchand wrote: post #10
jaimeyap wrote: post #3

I think the term "blocking" is a bit misleading. It implies they have it running properly in FireFox and are going out of their way to make it only run in Chrome. It seems more likely they had an aggressive plan to ship inbox across Web, Android and iOS. And they started with "Chrome only" to save development time. I'm sure support for other modern browsers will follow soon.

Except that with a few quick changes the application ran, so intentionally blocking seems like a valid description.

Running is not the same as running securely and with acceptable performance. You don't ship things you know will perform poorly.

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#136

Post by res0nat0r »

msandford wrote: post #128
TeMPOraL wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that most of those comments stem from Google-hating, which is currently a big fashion here. Were it Apple doing it, they'd be lauded for their attention to user experience. Was Inbox a product of a random startup, it'd be praised for good business approach and proper prioritizing of developer time. But it's Google, so it must be some evil plan.

I'm sure that there's a lot of that going on, yes. But Google has the legacy of their "don't be evil" company motto to content with. Which is to say that people expect (foolishly) for them to at least try not to appear evil. The difference between Google prioritizing Chrome vs anyone else is that Google owns Chrome whereas Apple doesn't, and some random startup certainly doesn't. It smells of Microsoft's "we'll only…

Why is picking one browser to get their product tested and working on first (that they happen to own) such a big deal?

These comments really are just FUD and hating (jealousy?) on Google for ignorant reasons.

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#137

Post by Kalium »

SimeVidas wrote: post #78

A $400B company cannot get their app to work securely & performantly in Firefox, so they’re blocking access via UA sniffing. Seems legit.

Release early, release often, iterate fast. Google's doing these things.

Just because you have the resources to do something doesn't make it a wise use of resources.

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#138

Post by Yhippa »

msandford wrote: post #128
TeMPOraL wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that most of those comments stem from Google-hating, which is currently a big fashion here. Were it Apple doing it, they'd be lauded for their attention to user experience. Was Inbox a product of a random startup, it'd be praised for good business approach and proper prioritizing of developer time. But it's Google, so it must be some evil plan.

I'm sure that there's a lot of that going on, yes. But Google has the legacy of their "don't be evil" company motto to content with. Which is to say that people expect (foolishly) for them to at least try not to appear evil. The difference between Google prioritizing Chrome vs anyone else is that Google owns Chrome whereas Apple doesn't, and some random startup certainly doesn't. It smells of Microsoft's "we'll only…

Apple is doing the same thing for icloud.com on mobile browsers. Only works on mobile Safari AFAIK.

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#139

Post by jenius »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #111
skywhopper wrote: post #106

Any time you see a comment like "With some more man hours, it seems trivial for Google to get the application to run in Firefox", you know the author either doesn't know what they're talking about or just hasn't thought about it very much. Anyone who's done any serious web-app development in the past decade knows that cross browser compatibility at the bleeding edge (ie, past what the JS frameworks have worked out) c…

I think that most of those comments stem from Google-hating, which is currently a big fashion here. Were it Apple doing it, they'd be lauded for their attention to user experience. Was Inbox a product of a random startup, it'd be praised for good business approach and proper prioritizing of developer time. But it's Google, so it must be some evil plan.

Just out of curiosity, what do people typically slam google for? I feel like I have a lot of trust in their services -- a hell of a lot more than facebook, and somewhere around on par with apple. Sure, they collect a bunch of your data, but it's for the purpose of them being able to serve more relevant ads to you if I'm not mistaken, since that's where most of their money is made, and their ads are fairly clean and not questionable as far as I've seen.

Overall, they have really solid products that have been incredibly useful to me, and you can see how they are working hard on so many important things: surpassing apple on the mobile design front with material design, cranking out bleeding edge and experimental innovations like self-driving cars and glass, and even working on a lot of projects that help to bring technology to those who don't have it, like project loon, the lower cost and open source android stuff, etc -- and these projects have actually been making a really big difference in third world countries (with no strings attached unlike facebook's total bullshit "charity" initiatives).

I'm not a google fanboy by any means. I more or less just use gmail and calendar, and just got an android phone after having an iphone 4 for like four years just to try it out. Just pointing out things I have passively observed about how they run. I would really love to hear the other side of the story though to perhaps balance my perspective a bit more!

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#140

Post by res0nat0r »

ppereira wrote: post #117
skywhopper wrote: post #106

Any time you see a comment like "With some more man hours, it seems trivial for Google to get the application to run in Firefox", you know the author either doesn't know what they're talking about or just hasn't thought about it very much. Anyone who's done any serious web-app development in the past decade knows that cross browser compatibility at the bleeding edge (ie, past what the JS frameworks have worked out) c…

That is a great technical argument, however, the reason this has attracted so much attention is because this product is about email. Email plays such an important role in our modern lives that any announcement hinting that Google is moving towards vendor lock-in for email access is going to attract scrutiny -- regardless of whether it is by innovative features, enhanced performance, or browser lockout.

Adding innovative features is now considered vendor lock-in? Interesting.
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