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Johanno ,

Microsoft made their minecraft website complete in functional for Firefox. You can't even download the launcher without chrome.... And I don't understand why. What in the world do they need chrome features that Firefox hasn't?

moonburster ,

Wdym? I downloaded it on my PC last week without trouble

Johanno ,

Mhh maybe because I was using Firefox on Linux. But I got a 404 when I was using Firefox. On chromium it worked

moonburster ,

I'm on Ubuntu. Not the fav distro of this place, but to call it windows

jflorez ,

This is not mildly infuriating this is the free internet being eroded through Google’s control of Chrome

EvokerKing ,

No it seriously means the feature isn't available yet in the browser. Like there is a part of Firefox missing that they need to use the website. Basically all websites are coded in HTML, css, and js or a form of that. The browser controls them and the code operates out of it. If a feature is on chrome and chromium but not Firefox, the site won't work on Firefox. Not sure exactly what is missing but it is mozillas fault not Microsoft.

Cosmicomical ,

Google meets and zoom work perfectly well in firefox, this is just ms stuff

EvokerKing ,

You clearly don't fully understand what I'm talking about but that is unrelated since they don't have to use the features they implement.

SavvyBeardedFish ,

They support meetings in Firefox so it's a bit weird why they would block calls... They're effectively the same thing

Additionally, if you change your userAgent to be Chrome things are working pretty good in Firefox as far as I've tried it (not too extensively)

EvokerKing ,

But that could open a security exploit, for example letting other users take your IP and use it within the call to perform a ddos or other kind of attack on your system. They could have been trying to fix that.

bouh ,

MS purposefully not respecting the standards for its softwares to only work on their own browsers is a feature since they made Internet Explorer. It's an industrial strategy to trap the users into their own tools. It's to the point they don't respect even their own standards in the case of docx for example so that there is no easy interoperability with libreoffice.

hamid ,
@hamid@lemmy.world avatar

I agree with you that the real reason for it is EEE but their justification for it is that for enterprise and corporate customers, the only ones they care about, they can't control Firefox in the same was as they can Edge or Chrome with the Microsoft Account add in which allows the MDM agents like InTune to apply DRM. Their primary concern (so they claim) is the enterprise administrators ability to control the computer, provide settings, configure defender xdr security and all the other bs products they sell.

Katana314 ,

That remark, while truthful a long time ago, didn't really apply during the later periods of IE, or the early periods of Edge before it became a webkit clone. When it needed to win back users, there was a lot of focus on standardization, meaning that when I worked on sites, I tested them through MDN Docs, and in Firefox and IE first, made sure my solutions were not using any -webkit- nonsense, and then they would be fine on other browsers. Anytime I did find IE bugs late in its life, it was usually because some other browser coder was not correctly following standards.

ChaoticNeutralCzech ,

It used to work months ago. I’d try switching the user agent to spoof Chrome.

EvokerKing ,

This may open a security exploit or something, I don't recommend it.

ChaoticNeutralCzech ,

As long as you use Ctrl+Shift+M and not a proprietary third-party add-on, and your chosen user agent is not too unique, there is no risk.

EvokerKing ,

Not what I mean. I mean Microsoft may know about an exploit with Firefox users joining calls like that and they blocked the user agent because that was the simplest way to keep most people safe.

maynarkh ,

This is not just dumb, it would be illegal under EU law.

MaximumOverflow ,

Firefox implements everything the various web standards require. There are a few non standard features that Chromium implements that certain websites take advantage of, but the fact that their code isn't portable is not Firefox's fault.
As for Teams... Microsoft's just being a dick: if you change the user agent it works just fine.

EvokerKing ,

And maybe Microsoft requires it. Also the could be more under the surface we don't know about with the user agent, where it might have some kind of security exploit or something.

MaximumOverflow , (edited )

If there was a known security exploit, it would have been patched. Everything works, so nothing essential is missing.
The way I see it, it's yet another attempt to manipulate users into switching away from open standards.

Also, it's a multi billion dollar company, can they really not afford to put a couple of devs to work on changing a few lines of code to fix whatever small incompatibility there may be?

EvokerKing ,

But we don't know if Microsoft can fix it, as it's most likely on Firefox's end.

MaximumOverflow , (edited )

You really don't want to lose this argument do you?
As a software engineer myself, I can assure you that that's complete bullshit.

Teams is nothing special, it doesn't intrinsically require any functionality only available in Chromium. It isn't some weird magical piece of software that can't be made work strictly using standard web protocols and features, something that, apparently, it already does because it does work if you trick it. It's not even cutting edge, chat and video conferencing web apps have been around for ages at this point, many were implemented years back with only a fraction of what's available today. They worked everywhere and still do.
Microsoft is perfectly capable of making it work, because it can.

And If there was a known security exploit, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN PATCHED. It doesn't matter if it's on Microsoft's end or Firefox's end.

The only reason they don't make it work on Firefox by default is because they don't want you to use it on Firefox, that's it.

EvokerKing ,

You seem to not want to lose either. I'm a software developer myself who specializes in websites. If Microsoft knows a severe exploit, they probably wouldn't go around telling everybody exactly how to exploit it, would they? And we don't know that it works perfectly, just that it works enough to use it.

MaximumOverflow ,

They'd disclose it to Mozilla and the Firefox team if they knew. It would make no sense for them not to. Why are you so obstinate when it comes to this exploit theory, it's the least likely reason you could pick for them not to support it.

EvokerKing ,

How do we know they didn't and are just waiting for mozilla to fix it? All of this is speculation, including the shit about it being Microsoft wanting you to use their browser. This isn't that unlikely either.

MaximumOverflow ,

Look, this is going nowhere, I give up. If you aren't going to be reasonable, I'm not gonna waste my time discussing this. If you don't want to listen, fine. Stick to your uninformed and unreasonable opinions and be happy.

waz ,

Corporate shill energy all the way through this comment thread

EvokerKing ,

Uninformed idiot energy all throughout your comment.

pokemaster787 ,

Last time this came up, just spoofing the Firefox user agent to Chrome made it work perfectly. Maybe they block it because they haven't tested it on Firefox yet, but it works as well as it does in Chrome.

And if they haven't had the time to validate it in Firefox yet, that is a conscious choice by MS to not dedicate time specifically to validating in Firefox and treating it as a second-class web browser.

bitwolf ,

I think this is more a push towards tightly couplings with Edge.

Rand0mA ,

Its telling you to use the webapp. https://teams.microsoft.com

You cant share your desktop in it last i used it, but calls did work.

AnyOldName3 ,
@AnyOldName3@lemmy.world avatar

It says few opposite of that, i.e. to try the webapp in Microsoft Edge or Chrome, or use the desktop app.

Rand0mA ,

I dont think you understand opposites, and it doesnt detract from the fact that It still works in ff on that url.

Cosmicomical ,

Ms teams sucks in a big way

JoeKrogan ,
@JoeKrogan@lemmy.world avatar

On a bullshit teams call right now. I'd call it not working a feature 😄

seth ,

I just had to switch to New Teams last week because Classic teams just continued to have more and more call drops and connection problems. The New Teams doesn't even have an option to change the notification sound, and now I can't move the banner that appears in the top center of the screen when screen sharing that covers up tabs in browsers and the main preferences/search dialog in VS Code...also a Microsoft product. Apparently no one at Microsoft noticed that one of their most used products used in the most normal way blocks out important functionality from another one of them.

bob_lemon ,

The new presentation blurb is really annoying bad at hiding itself.

That said, new teams finally supports multiple accounts, so I don't have to keep using a web app for the second one on my work laptop.

ramjambamalam ,

can't, or won't?

qaz OP ,

Apparently it can when changing the user agent so it seems like it’s more won’t than can’t.

ramjambamalam ,

I'm not surprised. I guess they follow on Google's footsteps of anti-competitively neutering search results for things like weather and stocks from Firefox for Android vs. Chrome, which work fine if your change the user-agent. -_-

email , (edited )

Im sure if you swap user agent to chrome they wouldn't give a fuck

AeonFelis ,

It'll complain later that the browser is blocking its spyware and adware.

bitwolf ,

It crashes right after a call starts.

Everything else works fine though.

bitwolf ,

It really can't.
If you spoof the user agent it'll crash immediately after a call starts.

I suspect they use something extra on top of normal WebRTC.

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