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www.google.com – The page is blank when accessed

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Re: www.google.com – The page is blank when accessed

#21

Post by m45t3r »

doublerabbit wrote: post #6
Symbiote wrote: post #3

Rather embarrassing that they didn't notice this in testing, but it only affects the homepage and not searches from the address bar

They probably did. However wanted to screw Firefox users the same way as the YouTube slowdown.

The title is bad, this only affects Firefox mobile that AFAIK has a really low amount of users (BTW, I am one of them).

Not saying that they shouldn't have detected this (i.e.: where is the automated testing for those things?), but I don't think this is Google screwing up Firefox on purpose.

And if Google really wanted to screw up Firefox, they would probably do a better job than User-Agent sniffing. Firefox already has an internal list where it applies fixes for websites (e.g.: setting a custom User-Agent), and the bug report actually comes from it. You can see it by going to `about:compat` page in Firefox.

Re: www.google.com – The page is blank when accessed

#23

Post by aragilar »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #10
doublerabbit wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably did. However wanted to screw Firefox users the same way as the YouTube slowdown.

Seems unlikely they'd want to sabotage Firefox. Google is Firefox' primary source of income, and Firefox is strategically crucial token competition that stands between Google and an antitrust lawsuit of the sort Microsoft faced in the early 2000s (where Microsoft were basically a technicality away from being broken up).

It does seem unlikely, but playing with the example UA in curl (as noted in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38925015) seems to show it's the combination of "Android" and "Firefox" that causes this behaviour. I wonder if any other mobile browsers are broken?

Re: www.google.com – The page is blank when accessed

#24

Post by jchw »

doublerabbit wrote: post #6
Symbiote wrote: post #3

Rather embarrassing that they didn't notice this in testing, but it only affects the homepage and not searches from the address bar

They probably did. However wanted to screw Firefox users the same way as the YouTube slowdown.

I get why people want to assume bad faith but it's pointless, it's hard to intentionally sabotage Firefox when nobody tests shit in Firefox at Google. There's (or at least was) still an internal group of Firefox users a few years ago, but it's small, and internal tools may have poor or no support for Firefox at any given time. When I worked there I made some attempts to fix things (e.g. once Google Cloud was accidentally broken on Firefox during a time when many people were out...) but the bigger problem is that most people don't use Firefox because it's inconvenient or they don't care to and a lot of the tooling only works on Chrome/only works well on Chrome.

There's a silver lining though: it really doesn't matter if it's due to negligence or malicious sabotage, and if they (where "they" is hypothetical leadership within Google that is trying to eliminate Firefox) thought that pleading negligence instead of sabotage was going to be a good defense, we'll see how that holds up to future scrutiny and regulation. I mean hey, Microsoft tried to pull a lot of shit too, and they were probably more competent at it if the Epic Games lawsuit is any indicator of Google's competence right now.

Re: www.google.com – The page is blank when accessed

#25

Post by yunohn »

doublerabbit wrote: post #6
Symbiote wrote: post #3

Rather embarrassing that they didn't notice this in testing, but it only affects the homepage and not searches from the address bar

They probably did. However wanted to screw Firefox users the same way as the YouTube slowdown.

Google isn’t sitting around randomly breaking things for Firefox users in this obvious way.

I really feel like HNers often forget how minuscule the scale of their usage patterns are.

Re: www.google.com – The page is blank when accessed

#26

Post by andyjohnson0 »

doublerabbit wrote: post #6
Symbiote wrote: post #3

Rather embarrassing that they didn't notice this in testing, but it only affects the homepage and not searches from the address bar

They probably did. However wanted to screw Firefox users the same way as the YouTube slowdown.

It's never been clear to me that Google is actively trying to take-out Firefox. Firefox's user base is pretty small - so if they succeed in reducing it they'd gain very little but lose some shielding from antitrust accusations.

I suspect that these problems are more to do with neglecting testing, and just not caring very much about non-Chromium browsers

(Disclosure: I'm a long-time Firefox user)

Re: www.google.com – The page is blank when accessed

#28

Post by MCUmaster »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #26
doublerabbit wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably did. However wanted to screw Firefox users the same way as the YouTube slowdown.

It's never been clear to me that Google is actively trying to take-out Firefox. Firefox's user base is pretty small - so if they succeed in reducing it they'd gain very little but lose some shielding from antitrust accusations. I suspect that these problems are more to do with neglecting testing, and just not caring very much about non-Chromium browsers (Disclosure: I'm a long-time Firefox user)

It’s pretty clear to others. Chrome is supposed to be The Web in the same way that Google is search.

Re: www.google.com – The page is blank when accessed

#29

Post by ranting-moth »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #26
doublerabbit wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably did. However wanted to screw Firefox users the same way as the YouTube slowdown.

It's never been clear to me that Google is actively trying to take-out Firefox. Firefox's user base is pretty small - so if they succeed in reducing it they'd gain very little but lose some shielding from antitrust accusations. I suspect that these problems are more to do with neglecting testing, and just not caring very much about non-Chromium browsers (Disclosure: I'm a long-time Firefox user)

Antitrust is just money to pay for Google. Firefox is cancer to Google.

Re: www.google.com – The page is blank when accessed

#30

Post by bayindirh »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #26
doublerabbit wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably did. However wanted to screw Firefox users the same way as the YouTube slowdown.

It's never been clear to me that Google is actively trying to take-out Firefox. Firefox's user base is pretty small - so if they succeed in reducing it they'd gain very little but lose some shielding from antitrust accusations. I suspect that these problems are more to do with neglecting testing, and just not caring very much about non-Chromium browsers (Disclosure: I'm a long-time Firefox user)

The thing about "high quality malice" is it's indistinguishable from an error.

A bug that breaks others' tools but not yours is not implemented intentionally, but it's not fixed intentionally, so it looks like a benign error.

At the end of the day, you use the chance you get, and it makes real damage while you sip your coffee...

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