Tell HN: Skype on web does not support Firefox

#1

Post by gyosifov » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 11:38 AM UTC

The Skype for web -> https://web.skype.com/ does not support Firefox. Urges the user to use Microsoft Edge or Chrome.

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

#2

Post by sgt » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 11:42 AM UTC

Also not supported in Safari. That's fine, I wasn't going to use Skype anyway.

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

#3

Post by amaccuish » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 11:43 AM UTC

You can spoof your UA and it'll work, at least for audio, and maybe video, IIRC. Not really an answer though I know.

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

#4

Post by realusername » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 11:45 AM UTC

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

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

#5

Post by Bigpet » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 11:46 AM UTC

realusername wrote: post #4

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

Yeah, I've been doing the same thing. Although I only use it for text chatting in the browser. I don't know if video or audio calls work with it.

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

#6

Post by pbhjpbhj » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 11:49 AM UTC

Would be interested to know how successful they are at switching people to Edge (not just with this, but in general).

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

#7

Post by anatolinicolae » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 11:50 AM UTC

Thanks for the info!

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

#8

Post by sodosopa » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 11:53 AM UTC

sgt wrote: post #2

Also not supported in Safari. That's fine, I wasn't going to use Skype anyway.

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%

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

#9

Post by Santosh83 » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 11:55 AM UTC

You can expect to see more and more of this as most of the world converges on the Chromium browser base. There is very little incentive for these companies to test for Firefox. Device users have spoken. They do not bother to change the defaults that come with their devices (Chrome, Edge, Safari) and do not really care about the deeper aspects of privacy or control or FOSS. At most they care about blocking ads, which is not a compelling reason to switch.

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

#10

Post by LeonM » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 11:55 AM UTC

I remember reading about this in the early 00's when msn.com and some other MS websites did the same. Changing the UA made the site work just fine.

History repeating itself.