Hacker News Reader

Comment by confounded | Hacker News Reader

“Hm, works in Chrome. Are you using Chrome?”

I know someone who loves giving this response. "Safari is junk, use Chrome and it'll work".

I also love sending him patches to show how easy it is to fix his stuff so it works in Firefox, Chrome, Edge... and of course Safari.

This will become a less acceptable answer the more popular other browsers become.

The only way to make that happen is to stop using Chrome and tell others to do the same.

"But you told me to use Chrome."

Google took over with shady practices, with the help of tech savvy people.

Not to mention Edge moving to the Chrome base; which further disenfranchises anyone from making sure it works in 'x' browser, anymore.

"It works in Chrome and Edge, which is based on Chrome, so what's your problem, again?"

As developers we should take a blood oath that we will always optimize for Firefox.

I see that your heart is in the right place, but I think as web developers we should take a blood oath that we will always optimize for standard compliance, instead. And for a standard that is not a moving target, while we're at it.

Yes- this is better. I think those two things will be well-aligned though.

But when do we move on? When most browsers implement something the same way, or when all do? What about polyfills? What do you do when you need a new API to better support a user's device with a new form factor, interaction model, wide colour gamut, resolution, background threads, etc.? Tell them to not upgrade? Stop the world? It seems impractical to suggest "target a standard: job done, go home..."

If we target standards, then the standards are driving. The browser gets supported when it builds to the standards. Perhaps the issue will then be getting standards in place quickly around new capabilities?

Then maybe the standards process needs disruption. But if we don't build to standards then we are building roads that only certain cars can drive.

This is unfortunately not true - browsers are driving. Especially when entity everyone uses (Google) also owns the most popular browser. They can, and did, implement non-standard features that only worked in Chrome. Super cool tech demos, you have to see it, just install this browsers from an advertising company. What could go wrong?

Hence a blood oath is required :)

Well considering that Google already specifically blocks Chromium based Edge from its current YouTube version may be Recaptcha will not work in it soon too.

Google is not blocking edge, or at least we have no proof of that. In this instance I think it's safe to assume an oversight based on naive user agent whitelisting.

And before I get accused of shilling, I hate chrome and despise Google with a passion.

As I responded to a comment just below this one, somebody over on reddit tested different user agents: https://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/btysl9/google_have_....

It seems pretty clear from the fact that nonsense user agents like "TotallyNotMicrosoft" and "IE6" worked, that there is a blacklist, not a whitelist.

Not true.... https://twitter.com/ericlaw/status/1123993553070448651?s=20

Somebody over on reddit tested different user agents: https://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/btysl9/google_have_....

It seems pretty clear from the fact that nonsense user agents like "TotallyNotMicrosoft" and "IE6" worked, that there is a blacklist, not a whitelist.

Technicality, but it's a chromium base, not Chrome, which is Google's browser

Reply on news.ycombinator.com