Former Mozilla exec: Google has sabotaged Firefox for years

[Brink]

A former high-ranking Mozilla executive has accused Google of intentionally and systematically sabotaging Firefox over the past decade in order to boost Chrome's adoption.

He is not the first Firefox team member to come forward and make such accusations in the past eight months; however, his allegations span far beyond current events and accuse Google of carrying out a coordinated plan that involved introducing small bugs on its sites that would only manifest for Firefox users.

OOPS AFTER OOPS
Johnathan Nightingale, a former General Manager and Vice President of the Firefox group at Mozilla, described these issues as "oopses."

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) View on Twitter

Read more: Former Mozilla exec: Google has sabotaged Firefox for years | ZDNet

 

[lehnerus2000]

Sounds plausible to me.
If normal people did the sort of things Google does, they'd be sent to prison (i.e. Stalking).

 

[townsbg]

Doesn't surprise me.

 

[tetraps]

"Don't be evil."

- Google

 

[billmcct]

Never liked the Chrome browsers and have no use for web extensions.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

It doesn' surprise me one bit, considering Google's insidious campaign to sneak Chrome (and Google's Toolbar) onto people's computers via other program installation files, then make it the default browser.

I wonder how many other browsers have been compromised in the same way?

 

[feetand nches]

just thought I'd toss something in there! What happened to morals and integrity, oh yeah CEO's and investor profits?

 

[townsbg]

Google and YouTube are designed for Chrome. Plain and simple. This isn't news. Sometimes I wonder if they disable 4k on YouTube except for Chrome however my resolution isn't high enough to use it anyway. Maybe that's why I never see any. Does anyone know of any 4k vids that I can test? Maybe a trailer for an upcoming movie?

 

[file3456]

My browser of choice is Pale Moon because Firefox started to copy Chrome and went to utter hell. Now they copy Chrome with asinine Webextensions and not the tried and true XUL code for add-ons. Pale Moon uses XUL. Now when you try to solve a Google Recaptcha with Pale Moon, you have to solve at least six puzzles before you are let though. Now do that with Firefox or Chrome and all you have to do is solve one to two puzzles max and your in. That is what I call browser discrimination. And Recpacha is not looking at the user agent either because I forge my user agent to look like I'm using Firefox to mitigate issues with websites that sniff the UA and give you crap if you're not using the big two. There are other metrics Recaptcha is using to determine what browser you're using. One way to mitigate it is to stay logged into your Google account. Yeah, they'd love that, wouldn't they? As it stands now I never keep cache and cookies on browser exit and I use Sandboxie so nothing sticks. And of course my computer's are encrypted so there's that.

Now reading this, what do you wanna make a bet Google makes it so that Recaptcha plays hell with Firefox? Other online presences, etc like Mozilla should create their own captcha and give web developers options beyond the sole piss off Recaptcha.

 

[RoWin7]

Not surprised. Google, Amazon and Facebook own the world, and all 3 are totally without scruples. Mozilla joined them with Quantum as a junior partner.

I've stuck with Firefox 52.9ESR, not upgrading or abandoning my XUL. I've had as many as 6 Recaptchas on some sites. And I don't have a Google account. If I established one and tried the same recaptchas, it would be interesting.

@Simpilot--problem with Pale Moon is: are the developers going to continue supporting it the way Mozilla once did FF? And tell me how you faked your UserAgent, as I'd like to try it. Are all the XUL extensions available?

 

[RoWin7]

Google and YouTube are designed for Chrome. Plain and simple. This isn't news. Sometimes I wonder if they disable 4k on YouTube except for Chrome however my resolution isn't high enough to use it anyway. Maybe that's why I never see any. Does anyone know of any 4k vids that I can test? Maybe a trailer for an upcoming movie?

Could you explain this please? I can get the videos in 4 or 5 diff resolutions on FF. What's 4K?

 

[townsbg]

4K resolution - Wikipedia

 

[RoWin7]

4K resolution - Wikipedia

Thanks. You watch YT on your TV? Sorry, can't help with that.

 

[file3456]

@Simpilot--problem with Pale Moon is: are the developers going to continue supporting it the way Mozilla once did FF? And tell me how you faked your UserAgent, as I'd like to try it. Are all the XUL extensions available?

I'm pretty sure Pale Moon will continue to be developed. Its source is at Github. The main sole developer is Moon Child. You can find him at the Pale Moon forum.

The useragent add-on is called UAControl. In Pale Moon you can use the add-on Classic add-ons archive to retrieve many of the now defunct, but still useful XUL-based add-ons. Releases . JustOff/ca-archive . GitHub

Also, at the Pale moon website are some extensions you can use.

Another add-on that's a companion to UAControl is User-agent JS Fixer.