Ask HN: Is Google deliberately breaking Firefox?

pedrocr

There's a known buffering issue with YouTube on Firefox. Apparently it's been fixed and will ship in the next point release:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1878510#c114

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1djkdql/for_people...

According to the reddit comments it's a broken implementation by Google that doesn't trip up Chrome.

eitland

I don't have much problems (Firefox on Mac) but seeing how many others complain I guess it is just a matter of time before I get moved to another A/B testing "experiment" testing how much I can endure before I give up and switch to Chrome (it won't happen).

Seeing how many of the users report the problem goes away if they let Firefox report as Chrome I personally am rather sure this is intentionally from Googles side:

Yes, I believe there are some real bugs, but I also think Google do take advantage of "useful" bugs to force us over to Chrome.

So I have decided to put my money where my mouth is and since last month I am a nebula subscriber. I am also considering Patreon.

Please consider doing the same, and please do write competition authorities in your country and do ask about when they will look into Googles rampant abuse of market position.

tpoacher

Let's face it. Chrome is the new Internet Explorer. Especially when it comes to google and microsoft websites 'extending' the standard.

They may not be using explicit "Works best with Internet Explorer" stickers, but I come across a "requires edge or chrome to work properly" or "for best results"-style popup at least twice a week. Or sometimes things just straight-up don't work until you switch to chrome.

Don't get me started on text-fragments.

Festro

I use Firefox for most things at home, including a lot of browsing YouTube. I don't have the issues you're describing. Though I am on YT Premium and use uBlock.

flakeoil

The Google Adsense dashboard does not work at all on Firefox, only Chrome. It must be deliberate.

resonious

I have found, rather amusingly, that Firefox for Android runs YouTube better than the official Android app. The official app randomly closes itself for no reason during long videos, while the web version in Firefox stays up forever (even in the background!)

rcfox

The Google Cloud web interface is horribly slow for me in Firefox. For instance, while filtering logs, it can take a few seconds for my keystrokes to show up. This is the only website I've noticed performing poorly like this.

hiddencost

Malice, incompetence...

Every team has a mountain of bugs screaming for their attention and a director losing their mind over AI.

And no one gets promoted for fixing bugs anymore.

devuo

I have not noticed issues with YouTube, but it's been clear to me how gimped Firefox is compared with Chrome on Google Meet. Some missing minor features, sluggish performance and lower streaming quality to name a few.

Boriel

In a word: yes. I'm not going to provide links. There are many already in this page.

I've been always a Firefox user (never switched to Chrome). And everything works fine for me (on both Linux and MacOS). I remember when they disabled on purpose the Google Meet background feature in Firefox (yes, it was working in the beginning). After nearly 2 years they put it back on Firefox. It was never a Firefox bug.

The thing is that by pushing people to use Chrome / Chromium browsers they have more control on us (even was fined 5B for tracking uses in Incognito Mode: https://www.npr.org/2023/12/30/1222268415/google-settles-5-b...)

So yes, even in Private mode, Chrome / Chromium were spying on users without notice, which is unacceptable.

dogtierstatus

Photo edits sometimes won't respond on Google Photos in Firefox. It is not just Google. Microsoft Teams, Excel online etc don't work very well in Firefox and it is deliberate.

WCSTombs

I exclusively use Firefox and I don't have major issues with YouTube. I don't know about the other stuff. However, from what I gather, Google often does A/B testing, so different sessions may get served different versions of the same website, and I do see this often. Because of that, sometimes it's hard to pin down where it's breaking.

Edit to add: To clarify and be more specific, I watched a live stream on YouTube recently and it seemed to work fine.

janice1999

> Is Google deliberately breaking Firefox?

Yes, and they have been doing so for years.

> a former Mozilla exec who bemoaned intentional sabotage from the Google camp over several years. Johnathan Nightingale, who worked as a GM & VP on Firefox, saw relations between Google and Firefox sour as the former grew more ambitious for browser market share. Not only did YouTube suffer, he saw "oopses" hitting functionality and performance in other popular Google properties like Gmail and Google Docs.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/youtube-responds-to-delaye...

Saphyel

I only use Firefox, I haven't open Chrome in months... But I try to stay away from Google most of the time, so probably not the best.

And as some other people it's better Firefox on Android than the app. I don't have to deal with adds on Firefox, the official app always have 2 or 4 adds waiting for the next video

rodrigodlu

I use all the time with Fedora Linux. No such problems, including a new experimental ui available for premium users.

Now the experience with other Google services, plus Firefox mobile is terrible. I log into Gmail from time to time, it's awful. No, I don't want to use the app, I have other reasons and procedures.

perbu

I've had similar experiences. Switching to Safari seems to help when this happen. I don't expect they'll be doing this on purpose.

It could be that the encoded video block required by Firefox and not used that much, as such the cache hit rates are bad requiring trips back to an overloaded origin server.

Hamuko

I’ve definitely noticed issues with YouTube on Firefox where a video will start buffering for ages, but I’ve chalked that up to YouTube and uBlock Origin breaking each other. Quite often it’s been a better experience to just use mpv (yt-dlp) instead of the website. Haven’t tried it on Chrome though.

alcoholic_byte

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Contrary to popular believe Google IS Evil.

I have no problem with people wanting to make money,but sabotage and strong arming opponents(e.g. captcha(once again refuses me when I am on firefox)) is just vile.

Anyone giving their data to that corporation and trusting them to do the right thing(project dragonfly anyone) is an veritable idiot. IMHO it is high time that conglomerate is split up.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38924300

https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has...

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/youtube-responds-to-delaye...

https://www.pcmag.com/news/mozilla-developer-claims-google-i...

https://www.techspot.com/news/79672-google-accused-sabotagin...

https://tech.co/news/google-slowed-youtube-firefox-edge-2019...

That is enough reason for me to never touch Chrome or a Chromium based browser(nothing good can come from a hostile upstream(Manifest V3 anyone?))

PaulHoule

I am a fanatic Firefox user who develops in it most of the time so in the last few places I’ve worked (except for one) I was keeping our products compatible with it.

We have one screen in our admin Ui which loads way too much data and it is notably slow on FF, but otherwise it is great.

I have definitely noted sites hat are incompatible with Firefox are turning up but YouTube is by far the worst and most common. So I browse YouTube with Edge.

butz

There is a simple solution: do not use youtube. After I stopped watching youtube my side projects finally started moving forward, and I get quite a few extra hours in a day, especially on weekends. Although I still watch a video or two on archive.org or one of Peertube instances: tilvids, makertube, to name a few. But no more algorithm induced binge watching of random videos till late in the night.

sharmi

I faced this too but I attributed it to some obscure bug or setup issue. Seems like I am not alone.

Google sheets takes forever to load (Just 150 records on the biggest sheet. 9 other sheets with paltry records). Any keypress or scroll takes 10 seconds or more to take effect. I am torn between getting work done and being annoyed by how I am forced to use Chrome. Didn't yield, yet.

weberer

I haven't noticed any problems with Youtube on Firefox, but I also have some privacy toggles enabled that lie about my user agent.

aitchnyu

I've seen sites with Firebase-based logins breaking only with Firefox. The OOTB config works only in Chrome family. Unbreaking Firefox requires this crap:

https://firebase.google.com/docs/auth/web/redirect-best-prac...

rinka_singh

I have a similar issue using a (non-google) videoconferencing tool on Firefox. It is very irritating that I have to switch browsers (both Konqueror and Chrome work) just for my VC needs...

I think it is a Firefox issue (another friend reported the same issue).

glimshe

I don't think Google cares at this point to break Firefox on purpose vs simply not testing changes on it at all.

Whenever I need to use Chrome for whatever reason, I simply open Microsoft Edge - not that Microsoft is any better than Google in general, but at least it doesn't own the Internet.

hamilyon2

Something to note is there is a thousand of experiments running on YouTube at the same time. They test a lot of stuff directly on users. Try VPN, change user agent and/or open in private browsing mode to get a different set of feature flags.

sfilipco

I couldn’t use Google Maps on Firefox on Mac yesterday. I couldn’t click on the search bar.

ale42

Usually I have zero issues with Google Docs (which I only use because of my company) or Youtube (which is use quite rarely). I'm using uBlock though, not sure if it makes any difference. Never used Google Photos.

mancerayder

Does no one use Brave? I like how there's a Scripts on/off toggle, and various shields

Lots of stuff breaks, but I blame stuff, not the browser

Turning off my ability to turn off autoplay videos is what made me flee, angrily, Chrome.

DamnInteresting

I always use YouTube in Firefox because it allows one to disable autoplay. For the past week I've had frequent issues with buffering/stuttering, but reloading the page tends to fix it.

dethos

I solved it by avoiding Google products and services, whenever possible.

mnahkies

Main thing I've noticed is missing/fewer features, rather than outright breakage. Particularly Google meet on Firefox missing the fancy background effects and things like that.

lowdownbutter

I think the youtube streaming issue can be fixed with the h264ify extension. I've had it installed for years and I think that was why I did so.

goestoo

I switched to Firefox, start of this year, I have some issues with YouTube, but I think it must be related to Ad blocker I use.

bryanrasmussen

who's going to be their monopoly buffer if FF goes away?

cynicalsecurity

I haven't noticed any problems using Firefox.

blacklight

Are there people who still watch videos from that cesspit domain called youtube.com?

Do yourself a favour and use Libretube/NewPipe/Tartube/mpv, or any other youtube-dl/yt-dlp based wrapper.

No trackers, no ads whose aggregate duration is longer than the video itself, no idiotic Google employees who regularly break the UI, no aggressive policies against adblockers or any other extensions that you want to use.

Avoiding youtube.com and making sure that not a single dime goes in Google's pockets for providing such a shitty service is a moral duty. Directly fund video creators through Patreon/PayPal if you want to feel less guilty.

znpy

Yes, it's always been.