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Comment by zmmmmm | Hacker News Reader

We're getting into the scary space now where it's becoming feasible for sites to insist on Chrome and drop support for other browsers. I've hit two such apps in the last month where not only did the app not work on FireFox, but the experience was completely broken (blank page, etc). So they aren't even bothering with enough testing to put up a "please use chrome" message.

I use FireFox for everything personal and Chrome for development. I'd encourage others to do the same. Apart from expressing a "vote" for web standards and interoperability, it also ensures that by default you are separating personal from work / dev which makes things a lot easier when you want to nuke all your browser settings / cache / cookies etc.

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Same, I switched to FireFox recently as well. Lol if they think they can make these changes, and remain dominant (speaking Apple as well), then they should look at what happened to Freenode. Personally, I'm really just lazy, but I can go back to compiling my own Linux distros if it means I can control my system.

I wonder how many of us do this. I used to use Firefox for everything personal (e.g. social media) and opera for anything that's completely impersonal (e.g. I'd log into news sites) and work related. Lately Brave has replaced FireFox for everyday use; I only use Firefox for things that require being logged in to Google, like Google Calendar and YouTube.

If someone says they are a developer but do not test other browsers I don’t take them very seriously as a developer at all.

I wholeheartedly think it’s a good idea to split browsers between work and personal just so to get familiar with other browsers.

I worked on a project that a company decided to be Chrome only. This was during times when IE was still popular. We were spending a lot of time on cross browser compatibility and at one point the start-up didn't have money to spend on that. We picked Chrome as at the time offered best performance and it was fairly easy to make the app look as intended. We had to help some customers install Chrome and after that we had amazing velocity and we could focus on features rather than worrying why some customers can't see something etc.

This is the slippery slope we're on. You only have to get a little bit down the pathway of the dominant browser departing from standards and the cost of maintaining cross compatibility goes up exponentially. Your experience is absolutely real and it's actually the reason why we have to be vigilant not to get in that state in the first place.

I ONLY use Chrome when x-browser testing. I browse in Safari and develop and test in FF first. If anyone else’s site or app doesn’t work in Safari or FF, they lose me as a user/customer.

Demand the break up of Google! Now!

Email your reps.

Tell them this is dangerous and that Google shouldn't be allowed to run the entire web. Take chrome away!

The issue here is that "making a web browser" isn't a sustainable business. You could force Google to spin off Chrome...and then what? The new "Chrome Inc." would probably need to either start integrating ads or start charging money to even have a chance at not immediately going under.

The only reason Firefox is even able to exist is Google propping them up with lots of extra money.

There are some interesting experiments around Firefox forks funded by Patreon. Though not sure how viable they are against a hostile web.

It's not sustainable because Google props up its browser with money from other sources. I used to pay for a browser (Omniweb, that I still yearn for) because it was worth it. Most software is worth paying for, strangely.

If people won't pay for Windows, good luck getting them to pay for Chrome or Safari.

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