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Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

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Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#171

Post by mikeash »

techrat wrote: post #149
msandford wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You might have an argument if Chrome wasn't open source. Being that is not the case...

How does open source invalidate that argument?

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#172

Post by pbhjpbhj »

sosborn wrote: post #141
msandford wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SUPPORT COST?! HA HA HA HA HA! You can't get support out of Google at any price, unless you're an advertiser. But in that case, it's only help for your ads and nothing else. You can't talk about "support cost" when it's zero.

"Support cost" doesn't apply only to customer support.

Go on, I'm interested - what extra cost do Google have if I use the same service in FF as I would otherwise have to switch over to Chrome to use; given that they say up front that other browsers aren't supported and that this is a beta so expected to be shonky.

What cost is there?

If I've switched UA string Google might not even be able to tell, without actively seeking out the information, that other browsers are using it - how then could that be an extra cost?

School me, please.

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#173

Post by couchand »

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #75
couchand wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to admit it seems a little shady when it comes from the browser vendor. It would be fine if the message said, "we haven't tested this, it might not work, YMMV". Instead, the message says, "click here to download our product", the implication being they'd like you to convert to only ever using their product.

I might agree with some things but not with e-mail, it's too important to most people say "hey this is probably OK but who knows". And because of that there is the risk of reputational damage around one of their core products. Working in tech you understand what a Beta really means and you can make that call on an informed basis but that's not true of a typical G-mail user today.

It doesn't sound like they're dropping e-mails or anything else painful like that (something I've experienced several times trying to run GMail on Firefox and/or Opera). It sounds like they wanted to break CSP and have some animations and not have to worry about proper data modelling. Or maybe they just want to keep throwing rocks at people using browsers other than their own.

Lazy or evil, pick one.

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#174

Post by SimeVidas »

Kalium wrote: post #160
SimeVidas wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Achieving web compat with Firefox (and possibly other browsers) is not a wise use of resources? What?

For an initial beta release on a product with no revenue gains? Yeah, probably not. For later releases? Sure.

Like accessibility, web compatibility is harder to achieve (and requires more resources) when addressed late in the development process. A web app must be accessible and compatible with the major browsers, so ensuring this from the start is the optimal approach.

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#175

Post by mikeash »

res0nat0r wrote: post #164
diggan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks a lot for that information! Will include it in the post when I get a chance. The performance is kind of bad in Firefox but I'm not sure it justifies blocking the entire browser because of that. For a comparison, Google Photos is slow as hell in Firefox, but you could still use it if you want to.

Don't say "blocking" (or maybe that is preferred since the tone of the post is to insinuate Google is being evil) and say "not supported yet" since the product is still in beta.

To me, "not supported" means that no effort has been put into making it work and you can't expect any help, but also that no effort has been put into not making it work. If the only problem is performance, then "not supported" would imply that it can be used, but it will be slow and you shouldn't complain about it being slow because you're doing something to supported. If there's code explicitly added to make it not work on Firefox, then "blocking" is a perfectly good word to use.

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#176

Post by Kalium »

SimeVidas wrote: post #174
Kalium wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For an initial beta release on a product with no revenue gains? Yeah, probably not. For later releases? Sure.

Like accessibility, web compatibility is harder to achieve (and requires more resources) when addressed late in the development process. A web app must be accessible and compatible with the major browsers, so ensuring this from the start is the optimal approach.

And it's clear that they were looking at it from the start. If you read around a bit, you'll see that they ran into a particular performance problem with Firefox. They're working to solve it, but decided they could release something usable for Chrome users immediately.

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#177

Post by moogleii »

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.

BS. Half the comments would be slamming them that it's only for Safari (just look at the comments for the stories involving Apple's safari-only streams).

I think skywhopper hit it on the head. Just good ol' abuse of the word "trivial" and an underestimation of how much work is needed to finish the last 1%.

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#178

Post by somebehemoth »

techrat wrote: post #152
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?

Google still open sources their apps. That's why there's almost always two versions of each app on Android. Messenger versus Hangouts. Google also allows you to remove ANY AND ALL information they have on you that is used to target advertisements. Google also allows you to export ANY AND ALL data you use in their services and to import it to any other service you choose. Really much ado about nothing here.

Are both versions of their apps open source and do they have equivalent features? Second question (maybe based upon old info) but I thought deleting email from GMail does not really delete the email which is retained for Google's purposes? These are sincere questions and not intended to be rhetorical.

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#179

Post by techrat »

mikeash wrote: post #171
techrat wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might have an argument if Chrome wasn't open source. Being that is not the case...

How does open source invalidate that argument?

Anyone can build and release a compatible browser whereas one would be stuck with Internet Explorer (and no compatible browser) if something were only to work on IE.

As it stands, Chromium exists.

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