Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

gist.github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 217 posts

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#191

Post by techrat »

mikeash wrote: post #190
techrat wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How is it any better that something can run on a bunch of slightly different versions of Chromium, but no other browsers built from a different base?

Chrome isn't the only option. It is not a case where it could be Microsoft making Hotmail only work in IE, for example.

Don't want Google's services in your browser? Download Chromium or the dozens of other browsers forked from that codebase.

With something being limited to working in IE, THERE IS NOTHING ELSE, binary or otherwise.

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#192

Post by lkbm »

gcb0 wrote: post #51
johnward wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the way I read it too and I'm surprised no one else has mentioned this. Unless I'm missing something Google is allowing XSS for their own domains in chrome.

yes. and much more. for example, even when using open source web kit or chromium they actively removed all options to disable referrer. go on. try to find it on your current chrome build. or even on chromium thanks to their legacy. then remember that referrer with its most exposing setting is required for Google to monetize both their organic and paid search.

The only way to do it in Firefox is through the scary and arcane about:config (or an extension). Historically, methods to remove that have not been provided by browsers, whether Google-developed or not. I've always done it via Privoxy, never the browser.

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#193

Post by dblohm7 »

mintone wrote: post #24

Google have produced a product which offers a great experience on one browser. They are happy with the performance of the application on that browser. They have no doubt tested it on other browsers and found the performance to be sub par. That application is clearly still in 'beta' mode (The app is still invitation only). I am sure that they will 'un-block' the browsers that Inbox doesn't perform well on once they've…

I think the most telling fact is that Google made zero effort to file bugs against Firefox to help make things work.

A Mozilla JS dev fixed the sparse array bug the SAME DAY it was filed. Note that the bug wasn't filed until somebody saw a Google dev here on HN stating that the sparse array bug was the reason why Firefox couldn't work with Inbox.

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#194

Post by dblohm7 »

Bahamut wrote: post #62

For those who did not see my comment in the gist, I'll paste it here: "Probably the performance threshold Google has for its consumer facing products - if it runs slow on Firefox, then it would have normally have been a release blocker." Google cares probably the most out of any tech company I have seen about performance, especially with any consumer facing apps. CSP would probably be trivial for Google to fix. Anima…

Yet they didn't file a single bug against Firefox!

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#195

Post by dblohm7 »

diggan wrote: post #15
pilif wrote: post #9

On the HN thread accompanying the release of Google Inbox, a (supposed) engineer working on Inbox was saying that the reason for the exclusion of Firefox was a performance issue with accessing sparse arrays with huge indexes. Link to the post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8495498 Link to the bugzilla entry: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1087963

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.

I'd also like to point out that, if you read the bugzilla bug, it was fixed on the same day that it was reported!

Nobody from Google bothered to file any bugs against Firefox; it wasn't until a Mozilla engineer saw the Google engineer's complaint on the HN thread that he filed it and fixed it himself!

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#196

Post by drdaeman »

couchand wrote: post #31
transfire wrote: post #4

Google's attempt to take over email does not sit with me well. We need better email. But email is too important to be proprietary. We need open standards here. And we need open source developers to kick it in high gear to create better email clients.

In case you haven't seen it, you might consider Fastmail [0]. They have a great webmail client, they just released native mobile apps (for both iOS and Android at the same time, wow!), and they are very much working to expand the standards to meet the needs of modern e-mail. [0] https://fastmail.com

Privacy-wise, personally, I'd just love to see what are my options for self-hosted email service.

Presently it's just Postfix and Dovecot on the physically-owned server and Thunderbird and K9 Mail on desktop and mobile. Quite old-fashioned.

I had seen links to some fastmail support branch for cyrus and some jmap.io, but didn't really get what thase are and all on Fastmail's website suggests it's a service, not software. But maybe I had missed something.

So... is it for me or not?

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#197

Post by ZanyProgrammer »

techrat wrote: post #147
ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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." You gloss over this as if its not a big deal.

Please cite examples in which Google has demonstrated that they could not be trusted with information that they use to deliver targeted ads to you. Did they ever pull a Facebook-esque social experiment by trying to limit what you saw in order to manipulate your feelings over the course of a day? Do they sell personal information about you for other companies to use however they please? Think about this a little bit b…

By your logic, since AFAIK the NSA hasn't ever targeted me specifically, then they must be a okay!

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#198

Post by bzbarsky »

pilif wrote: post #9

On the HN thread accompanying the release of Google Inbox, a (supposed) engineer working on Inbox was saying that the reason for the exclusion of Firefox was a performance issue with accessing sparse arrays with huge indexes. Link to the post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8495498 Link to the bugzilla entry: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1087963

It should be noted that the Inbox folks didn't bother to report the issue, and that once it was reported it was fixed within a few hours....

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#199

Post by techrat »

ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #197
techrat wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please cite examples in which Google has demonstrated that they could not be trusted with information that they use to deliver targeted ads to you. Did they ever pull a Facebook-esque social experiment by trying to limit what you saw in order to manipulate your feelings over the course of a day? Do they sell personal information about you for other companies to use however they please? Think about this a little bit b…

By your logic, since AFAIK the NSA hasn't ever targeted me specifically, then they must be a okay!

>By your logic, since AFAIK the NSA hasn't ever targeted me specifically, then they must be a okay!

An exact example of the false equivalence fallacy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence

Re: Why Is Google Blocking Inbox on Firefox?

#200

Post by bzbarsky »

voyou wrote: post #115
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's not really a good reason for Google to make applications they create work outside their own run-time environment - Chrome" Except that the only reason Google built a run time environment in the first place was to encourage people to use their services - that is, the things that collect the data and serve the ads that make them money. Google has no business reason to block Firefox; quite the opposite, in fact…

When Google _wants_ to make sure something they create works with Firefox, they take some steps to make that happen. Things like filing bugs on issues in Firefox that are blocking it working and contacting Mozilla about those issues directly via the dedicated coordination mailing list we have set up for issues like this.

None of those things happend with Inbox. There were no bug reports filed, no mention of issues getting it to work, nothing.

So this was a pure business decision to not put any particular effort into making Inbox work in Firefox.

Now you might say that simply writing to standards should make it work in Firefox and if it doesn't that's a problem with Firefox, and I agree. But in my experience "writing to standards" doesn't really describe Google properties very well, especially when they try to push the envelope where standards don't exist yet.

Post reply on HN