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As if they needed to check for ““compatibility”” at all - just let the users try their makeshift coded-in-a-weekend browsers, or their 2008 version of IE.
The better question is why some websites even bother checking for the browser when the vast majority of people uses mainstream options that follow web standards and self-update.
Checking the browser version kind of made sense 15 years ago when updating the browser depended on the user’s awareness and willingness of doing so, and the lack of standards across browsers was blatant. Nowadays that’s pretty much useless. The maximum these sites should be doing is displaying a banner letting the user know their browser might be incompatible (because it’s likely not in a way that prevents usage), then fuck off.
I had a client once who used to be obsessed with this. By his logic, if a potential customer visited the website and had a bad experience because the site didn’t work properly in their browser, they’d think the company was unprofessional and wouldn’t come into the store and we’d lose them as a customer forever. Analytics showed that 99+% of people would visit in one of the big three, and he wouldn’t pay for someone to test the site on the less popular browsers, instead he insisted on fingerprinting logic that broke all the time and probably caused more bounces than any possible rendering quirks from niche mobile browsers would have caused
It’s ridiculous some people even consider blocking a browser completely and having a near 100% chance of turning away the customer that uses it instead of just letting the user browse and have a significant chance of nothing bad happening.
People are not going to change browsers to visit this website unless they absolutely have to - in which case they’ll hate this company for it.
Checking the browser almost never makes sense these days.
Sites should be using feature detection instead. Rather than checking the browser version, instead check if the browser supports the features they require.
It’s more practical though, from a more general UX perspective where the U is often a non technical person. If you throw a “ur browser doesn’t support webserial(or whatever)” message up on the screen, you’re just gonna confuse tons of users who won’t even know what the hell you’re talking about. Easier (for everyone) to tell them to just use what you know works.
The message doesn’t have to be technical and can still mention browsers - just say “your browser isn’t compatible with this site. Try updating it or switch to Chrome or Edge”. The idea is just that if someone with a non-Chrome and non-Edge browser tries to load the page and it supports the feature, they won’t see the message.
Time for OP to install a User Agent Switcher plugin
Yep, that’s always worth a try
The problem is that there are still features missing from certain browsers. For example, Mozilla does not like restrictive licenses, which is why many media codecs are not available in Firefox. Google does not care, pays the fees and provides the media codecs for free. As soon as we get rid of shit like h265 and switch to av1, the world will be a better (and more open) place where everyone can use any browser.
Yeah, then just try to load the website.
If something fails, blame the user. But don’t just block them based solely on brand of browser.
That‘s the problem. If you show a damaged or non working website, the user assumes it is a problem of the website, then thinking negatively about it. Unfortunately the world is not as easy as you see it :)
“We’re a very inaccessible and hostile webpage. Turn back now.”
Abandon all hope ye who enter here
If it’s a website which only works with a specific browser, it’s a shitsite.
At that point it’s not even a website. It’s just content for the app. Calling it a website is like calling my Minecraft base a website.
Companies like chrome because it’s the most used browser. So if they develop for it, and only for it without caring of compatibility on others, then it’s cheaper. And since they don’t want you to use another browser and complain that their site is broken, the just block you.
Which is kind of dumb, because if you target Firefox you are writing to a standards compliant browser that means your code should work on all other browsers. Chrome came when IE still owned the internet and their goal was to offer a faster browser that still worked, so now chrome has a bunch of hacks coded into it.
Sometimes the president or CEO just doesn’t give a shit even when devs tell them otherwise.
Devs don’t always get a lot of choice when the upper management thinks chrome is better
It’s why baracuda only really advertised in airport terminals everywhere.
Devs don’t always get a lot of choice when the upper management thinks chrome is better
The devs can tell management they’ll make it work on Chrome while really making it work cross-browser. It’s not too hard to make a site cross-browser these days, except for Safari sometimes having weird bugs.
Pfft, who would do that? As a Firefox user myself I never would. Carve out a bit of time on the down-low to enhance cross-browser support on a website after management shortsightedly told me to just block anything other than Chrome? No no no! Not me!
Of course as others here (including you) have pointed out, it’s much less of an issue these days. Though it does still happen, it’s nowhere near as bad as the IE days (that browser can burn in hell for all eternity!).
Shouldn’t they just commit to follow the web standards? Most modern browsers strive to follow those standards.
Well chrome should, yes. But they don’t.
Then some JavaScript framework developers think “well this non-standard feature is neat, let’s use that everywhere” and then companies who use their framework (or a framwork dependent on it) can’t support all browsers.It’s a multilayered problem (as always) with lots of individually decisions that make sense, but don’t work out in the end (as always).
I think the most annoying thing here is the decision to blanket ban other browsers. Why not just have a little drop-down bar at the top that says ‘You may encounter issues, we recommend browsing this site with Google Chrome’, instead of completely blocking access? The cynic in me suspects it’s linked to advertising.
If one changes the user agent in Firefox so that it announces itself as Chrome, most of these sites work just fine. Adobe Express is the last example I tried.
Because that would reveal that their site is flawed, instead of blaming the customer for not using the right browser.
Doesn’t have to be, some features are only available in certain browsers (usually Chromium). For example AFAIK Chromium is the only browser that allows you to connect in the browser to Bluetooth devices, its the only browser that can access for example a phone’s NFC chip or that can interact with USB devices.
That’s my point. Example, meet Sarah. Sarah goes to www.megacorp.com to pair her new MegaDevice via NFC. She gets to the pairing page and there’s only a small banner that tells her her browser may not work. She doesn’t see it and starts the syncing. It fails repeatedly. Her first thought will be “O… Mygod! mergacorp’s website is like, so. Broken!” Now example B: Sarah goes to the website and sees “WRONG BROWSER, use chrome instead” on the screen in big. Now Sarah thinks “Oh, I’m stupid, it’s my bad, I should use Chrome instead instead of Firefox. Firefox is the worst”. Then end.
Ads and tracking ? Browser with the largest market share ? Well, we are back to IE6 monopoly. :(
Largest marketshare to check for compatibility, while ignoring all the other browsers.
It’s almost certainly market share. Easier to just slap a “use chrome” check on it than to spend any dev time supporting the others.
There are two web browsers developers need to consider: Chrome and Safari. All the other browsers are either wrappers around/skins around/modifications of Chrome and Safari, or they’re statistically insignificant.
I default to Firefox myself (including my dev work, because Firefox has some real neat dev tools that Chrome lacks), but from a business point of view, it’s hard to warrant the expense of dedicating an hour of someone’s time to work around a browser incompatibility for the 2% of users that already have Chrome on their device anyway.
Hopefully, Mozilla’s new CEO will help bring Firefox back into the browser market. She may be able to capitulate on Apple opening the app store for other browser engines, because Chrome will certainly try to. For now, though, Firefox has a market share smaller than Linux.
On the other hand, if it works in Firefox, it’s likely to work everywhere else.
I use Firefox for development and then, barring some weird chrome bug, things just work everywhere.
That’s true, but sometimes you run into issues that are just Firefox issues, despite all the documentation saying it should work fine.
Chrome and Safari have similar issues, but their massive install base has a better return on investment.
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Most people don’t really care about what browser they’re using. They either use the one they’ve always been using (Chrome/Edge/Safari) or they just use the default (Edge/Safari/Chrome), or maybe whatever browser begs the hardest (Edge/Chrome).
Some people fall for ads and install Opera because it’s “gamer”, that seems to be the biggest non-megabrand browser.
Even though they’ve been into some predatory micro loaning schemes in the last last years (opera)
Eco system, email, google account, all bookmarks saved between devices. Where as Firefox you’ll need to actively make an account. Chrome also come pre installed on some systems, ive also seen that many installers for random software will offer to install chrome.
Its all subtle manipulation that leads to people using chrome because everyone uses chrome.
Personally I use Firefox based browsers. I font want to support google.
If it truly is only an hour of someone’s time, then I’d much rather they made that insignificant amount less profit, but did the work to make our experience better.
As a developer: I agree. I consider any website that completely refuses to work in Firefox to be broken.
However, some bugs are just too annoying to be worth serious investment. CSS bugs, unimplemented APIs (
input type="week"), and implemented features disabled by default (“log in with google” support, tracking protection breaking Javascript because of imperfect shims, WebGL/WebRTC being off by default). For ages, Firefox used to have a partial implementation for video/audio calling APIs, breaking spec-compliant applications that tried to show an audio/video input dropdown, and the only workaround was to disable the control (which was annoying because Firefox wouldn’t let you switch inputs on the fly) or telling people to use a browser that let you switch to the right audio device.It’s not just the writing of code itself. Every workaround/polyfill/third party library you add requires long term maintenance. When Firefox eventually gets patched, you need to remove your workarounds, and until then, you need to keep coming back to see if your workarounds are still required. This type of death by a thousand cuts can be a real problem if you try to implement every workaround under the sun.
Plus, sometimes Firefox just doesn’t (want to) implement a feature. For example, WebUSB/WebSerial is real useful for flashing phones or microcontrollers without having to download and install flashing software, but only Chromium supports it.
Weird, I see “You will need to use a different service/company”
Exactly what I saw. A giant nope.
I found a bug once in our content that only affected Firefox. Old versions of articulate whouldnt start properly. Not somthing I could fix on my own as i meeded anyoher department. I brought it to the attention of the managers. They didn’t want to fox it as apprently Google analytics showed only .4% of our user base was using Firefox. I manged to convince them its part of our user commitment to ensure that we work consistently across all browsers, but it was a pain.
That’s the main issue of using analytics and telemetry on something that’s used by power users: most of them disable/block them, so the real reported usage is much lower
Google analytics showed only .4% of our user base was using Firefox.
Maybe it was that low because the site didn’t work properly on Firefox…
Exactly. When the planes come back from battle, you put armor on all the places where the bullet holes aren’t, because that’s where the planes that didn’t make it back were shot.
If only being part of the .4% was like being part of “the 1%”.
🍻here’s to all the developers out there who makes sure there site works great not only with Firefox, but also with ublock origin and piholes!
It is always shocking to me how many sites or apps completely fail to load if you dare block google analytics!
https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/worldwide
According to this:
On the desktop, Firefox has about 6% marketshare, and Edge, the Windows default, about 11%.
On mobile, however, Firefox is at 0.5%, and Edge at 0.3%.
A lot of people only browse the Web on a mobile platform. And the ones using those tend to use the default browser bundled with their phone; if what they have out-of-box works, they’re not going to install anything else. Apple bundles Safari, and Google bundles Chrome, so that’s what gets used.
That’s why I started setting Firefox as the default browser on my family’s phones. They were too annoyed by ads and almost got scammed once. With Firefox and uBlock Origin it’s like magic for them. Plus they don’t visit any non-mainstream websites so they’ll never encounter such a screen.
A small step to a better web-browsing experience for all of us.
It still doesn’t explain all the extra work of detecting and intentionally blocking firefox…
Something didn’t work on Firefox and the dev didn’t get permission to work out how to fix it as it was uneconomical compared with just disabling firefox
I expect that they had something break on it and decided that it wasn’t worth the time spent fixing it, so they just blocked it so more users didn’t run into it. A simple message may be annoying to them, but at least they have a straightforward workaround then.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I use Firefox on both mobile and desktop, but it’s not too hard to see why they’d do a cost/benefit analysis like that. No one company is in the business of trying to do antitrust work, to avoid a browser monopoly, and that’d be the reason why it’d be important to have competing browsers.
The point of a commercial website is that it is accessible from everywhere at every time.
It does not make sense to exclude an entire customer base just because you don’t want to support multiple platforms.
If businesses were smart, yes. But they are, first and foremost, greedy.
Important to note as well that both Edge and Opera along with Chrome (and many other niche browsers) are based on Chromium, giving them an even bigger spread of users that are using the same browser from a compatability standpoint.
Chromebooks are frequently used in US schools, this has to screw the statistics.
for the love of god, charge your phone
4%, absolute madman, probably only had time to make this post and can’t answer comments anymore
RIP {I can’t type out that username}, you shall be remembered while you charge your phone
4% is enough for like 8-10 minutes tho
Counterpoint: let the battery run out and have a nice rest!
Because they hire cheap developers who don’t know what the fuck they are doing?
Is very possible to know exactly what should be done, but not have the time available to achieve it.
This is the correct answer
I would sooner blame the management, that would even think of excluding “untested” or “unsupported” browsers, like some kind of technofacist dictator, instead of choosing a helpful “if you’re having problems with our shit site, use chrome” message… or even literally doing nothing… everything is broken these days, and a half-functional site is better than an intentionally-broken one.
The tools and knowledge exist to make building standards compliant web applications just as easy, if not easier, than chrome-only web applications. It’s not the responsibility of management to use those tools or acquire that knowledge.
Unless you’re using some fancy WebGPU shit. I don’t think we’re talking about some fancy WebGPU shit.
Well good thing my employer runs a script every 15 min to set the default browser to Edge.
run a script to set the default browser back to chrome just after it changes, using some timer estimation magic also… try taskkill
They probably get better metrics off of you running corporate logins and edge. Edge is equivalent to Chrome It supports all the same plugins.
It’s probably just secops picking the low hanging fruit dissuade you subverting network security.
Edge is built upon chromium
When I say that Edge is equivalent to Chrome, I don’t mean that Edge is exactly Chrome It’s not what I said and it’s not what I meant. I mean that for all intents and purposes you can use edge for anything you want to use Chrome for. Major differentiation is that you’re giving all of your data to Microsoft in lieu of Google. And you could look at all the other chromium base browsers and say yeah you could do the same thing with those but in this case we have a business user. There’s businesses are probably already running Microsoft networks. They might very well already have Microsoft SSO. Edge is going to have all kinds of great tie-ins to active directory policy. So secops/it is going to try to force you to use Edge, instead of say Firefox with a barely have any control over or maybe brave where you’re going to try TOR or IPFS and just basically be a stain on their HIDS board.
Edge is equivalent to Chrome It supports all the same plugins.
What’s this then?
Jesus man I just explained it to you. Welcome to my block list
Ah I see Mr I’m never wrong
Jeez, imagine.
I don’t know, works on my browser.
-Devs, probably.
Because Firefox has better XSS detection than Chrome and will block adware sites from injecting tracking that Chrome completely allows.
is this true?
In my experience of using the traffic inspection tool fiddler: for https sites you have to have it add its own self signed cert to be able to see traffic.
Firefox, out of the box, detects it immediately and warns you of a security issue, not letting you do anything.
Chrome, and chromium based browsers,
don’t even notice it and happily let you do what needs to be done.I’ve had the experience of a few sites not working recently in Firefox, one of them explicitly stated an ad server was blocked because of xss settings and refused to load. Chrome didn’t care.
Spoofed user agent goes brrrr
