
Tell HN: Skype on web does not support Firefox - gyosifov
The Skype for web -&gt; https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.skype.com&#x2F; does not support Firefox. Urges the user to use Microsoft Edge or Chrome.
======
realusername
The worst is that just changing the user agent makes everything work.

~~~
mcv
Are we back to the "built for Netscape 4.7" days?

Sites shouldn't support browsers, but standards. By all means check if a
browser supports a certain standard, and provide an error message for browsers
that are too far behind, but don't ban them simply for having the wrong user
agent.

~~~
cameronbrown
I think so. A solution to this might be to croudsource an extension which
changes the User Agent on known good apps (where changing it _just works_ but
they've decided not to let you use it).

~~~
cies
> known good apps

Correction: known bad apps (where changing it just works but they've decided
not to let you use it).

I consider it very shameful behavior, sabotaging the internet.

~~~
cameronbrown
Well I meant it as 'apps that work good' when changing the UA string.

But you are right.

~~~
cies
I kinda got you, just think that they do not deserve the word "good" at this
point :)

------
Santosh83
You can expect to see more and more of this as most of the world converges on
the Chromium browser base. There is very little incentive for these companies
to test for Firefox. Device users have spoken. They do not bother to change
the defaults that come with their devices (Chrome, Edge, Safari) and do not
really care about the deeper aspects of privacy or control or FOSS. At most
they care about blocking ads, which is not a compelling reason to switch.

~~~
phkahler
Getting rid of ads IS a compelling reason to switch. People will switch if the
default is better. They dont want to get a new browser, pick and install an ad
blocker, then configure that stuff.

People will stop at the slightest uncertainty. I bet if there was a one-click
to install firefox with ad-blocker and some other stuff enabled by default
people would start switching.

Installing, extensions, configuration, those are sysadmin function, not stuff
Joe public wants to do no matter how easy the developers think they are.

~~~
aphextim
>I bet if there was a one-click to install firefox with ad-blocker and some
other stuff enabled by default people would start switching.

Check out Brave, been getting my friends to switch as it has a built in
blocker that is even more verbose than ublock. Works on mobile as well which
helps them save data and load websites faster.

[https://brave.com/](https://brave.com/)

~~~
gorhill
> has a built in blocker that is even more verbose than ublock

I don't understand this sentence. What does "more verbose" mean?

~~~
aphextim
I guess what I meant was that it shows you a lot of details of what trackers
are being blocked with individual switches for cookies/scripts etc, which is
nice for users who may not be as tech literate.

[https://imgur.com/a/REAStmy](https://imgur.com/a/REAStmy)

------
kerng
"Urges the user to use Microsoft Edge or Chrome."

Meaning "Chrome only" is the strategy here (since Edge, mshtml.dll, as unique
rendering engine will disappear).

Welcome back to the past - have seen this all before in the late 90s.

~~~
stanski
Suddenly it's okay to develop for just one browser again. Even though browsers
are lot more standardized now than they were before, it's still okay to do it.
Bizarre.

------
lovelearning
LinkedIn too behaves strangely on Firefox/Ubuntu. Endless login loop, even if
all add-ons are disabled. I'm surprised that such popular websites treat
Firefox so poorly.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Fellow Firefox/Ubuntu user here. Are you blocking Captchas somehow? This is
usually my problem (and specifically very recently with LinkedIn, hence the
comment).

~~~
lovelearning
I don't think I have changed anything related to captchas, at least not
intentionally.

I see a lot of "Request to access cookies or storage on
[https://www.linkedin.com/](https://www.linkedin.com/) was blocked because of
custom cookie permission." in console.

However, my Preferences > Content Blocking is set to "Standard"; no add-ons
are enabled; not a private window. I have DNS-over-HTTPS enabled. There are no
linkedin-related entries in about:config.

~~~
floatingatoll
The list of cookie exceptions (deny or allow) isn’t stored in about:config.
Try these steps?

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Pri...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Privacy/Storage_access_policy/Errors/CookieBlockedByPermission)

------
Havoc
Skype has been truly rubbish lately anyway. I generally use free whatsapp
calls over my paid skype credits because it's such a stark quality difference.

No idea what they're doing but it's terrible.

------
tpaschalis
Also, Skype for Business is being replaced with Microsoft Teams. Bold
prediction : Skype has less than five years of life left.

~~~
albertshin
You wager they'll shut down the consumer facing portion too? It's a fairly
decent brand. Although I guess with VoIP so ubiquitously free (WhatsApp, etc)
I'm not sure how they monetize these days...

~~~
mathw
It's a well-known brand but Microsoft have dragged it through the mud since
they acquired it and among those I know it now has a reputation for being
extremely unreliable. They might want to retire it rather than fight to
rehabilitate its image.

~~~
albertshin
True, on second thought, I found myself saying let's Skype soon and end up
using some other app during facetime...

------
gregdoesit
Original Skype for Web developer here. I was part of the launch team who built
the first version for this product in 2014[1]. Back then we supported Chrome,
IE 9+, Safari and Firefox. Already we had internal debates to support Opera,
but the decision was to focus on the largest browsers.

For each browser, we had to add support in our standalone plugin, that was
(and still is) required to install for audio/video calls. There was a small
maintenance cost per browser, which was a bigger one whenever changes to the
plug-in were made.

I left Skype/Microsoft a long time ago and Microsoft announced in March they
will drop support for Firefox[2]. I can only speculate, but it’s likely due to
not wanting to pay the maintenance cost of this product on an ongoing basis.

 _Not directly related story from building Skype for Web:_ a big internal
battle those days was us vs the Edge team. We wanted Edge to ship the Skype
plugin as default, making calls seamless for Edge users, not needing to
install a plugin (we saw large drops in adoption due to this plugin). Chrome
already did exactly this with Hangouts back in the day and we saw it as them
eating our lunch.

This was at the time of Steve Balmer’s Microsoft, where collaboration between
different orgs was difficult and facing strong political headwind. We got
nowhere with the Edge team, who wanted no dependencies and prioritised
performance above anything like this - and also wanted to hit their own KPIs,
which had nothing to do with Skype users preferring to use Edge.

We reasoned, pleaded, argued, steamed, shouted names and even used the "C"
argument ("but... but... but... even Chrome does it!"). No avail. So a
separate plugin install it was, giving people zero incentive to use a
Microsoft browser for a Microsoft product. The Edge team were pleased they did
not have to cater for another dependency and their roadmap remained unchanged.
We were frustrated and had little doubt which brodwser will keep gaining
market share - being certain it will not be IE/Edge.

 _Other not directly related story_ : a few years ago I wrote in detail my
take on why Skype failed, here on HN. Read it on this thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10927600](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10927600)

[1]
[https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp...](https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2014/11/14/7219779/skype-
for-web-beta-launch) [2] [https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/03/microsofts-
new-skype...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/03/microsofts-new-skype-
for-web-client-an-early-taste-of-the-browser-monoculture/)

~~~
cameronbrown
> no dependencies and prioritised performance above anything

Edge was in a weird position where it somehow looked fast but _felt_ sluggish.
A real shame it didn't work out though.

~~~
vezycash
It was sluggish and hung for no reason. It was super bare boned and still
slow. So, if I installed the same number of extensions as I have on Firefox,
it would grind to a halt. I guess that's what we get when they prioritize
looks or design over functionality.

The most annoying part for me was updates. They supposedly created Edge as a
browser decoupled from the OS unlike Internet Explorer. They claimed that with
Edge, they would be able to iterate quickly with regular updates - like
Chrome.

Yet, for 4 years, updating edge required a major OS update AFAIK.

------
sj4nz
I gave up on Skype a long long time ago. Aside from the dumpster fires of
their clients, their attempts to manage the spam/bot problem make legitimate
use nearly impossible because they keep disabling "new, lightly used"
accounts.

------
betimsl
Instead of switching the browser. I switch the app. In this example I stopped
using skype. Whoever wanted to contact me on skype, I simply say that I don't
have an account there. Let's meet somewhere else.

------
iicc
Jitsi Meet supports Firefox.

[https://jitsi.org/jitsi-meet/](https://jitsi.org/jitsi-meet/)

~~~
dhimes
Looks cool. How does jitsi make money?

------
joaobeno
Tweeted them about this, their response: "Request/vote for this feature on our
community site", with the following link:
[https://skype.uservoice.com/forums/914527-welcome-to-
skype-i...](https://skype.uservoice.com/forums/914527-welcome-to-skype-
ideas/suggestions/36658774-preview-firefox-support)

~~~
extra88
I don't know what "Preview" is but it sounds more specific than supporting
Skype for Web in Firefox overall. There are a number of other UserVoice ideas
about Firefox support. Microsoft should consolidate the ones that are
essentially saying the same thing.

[https://skype.uservoice.com/forums/914527-welcome-to-
skype-i...](https://skype.uservoice.com/forums/914527-welcome-to-skype-
ideas?query=firefox)

------
sgt
Also not supported in Safari. That's fine, I wasn't going to use Skype anyway.

~~~
sodosopa
That’s a larger problem since Safari has a larger userbase. Mozilla is
generally at 5% Safari has been at 7-8%. Collectively, Microsoft is fine with
losing potentially 12%

~~~
hypfer
Yeah but to support safari, you need a way to test your web application with
it.

The only way to do that is to buy a Mac. That's why a lot of sites don't
support it.

~~~
sgt
I think Microsoft can afford it. I heard at some point they were Apple's
largest corporate client for Macintoshes.

------
IMTDb
If it only support chrome and derivatives, it should be called Skype on Chrome
not Skype on Web

------
LeonM
I remember reading about this in the early 00's when msn.com and some other MS
websites did the same. Changing the UA made the site work just fine.

History repeating itself.

------
bjornjaja
Yeah, it’s pretty lame these days when web apps don’t bother to go the extra
mile. The text chat feature still works so maybe they’ll add video support
soon? Honestly I’d rather use Skype in the browser instead of installing it.
It’s nice to have that stuff alongside webmail and office apps. I’m also an
avid Firefox user and won’t switch from them. Mozilla has done amazing work
advancing web technology.

------
amaccuish
You can spoof your UA and it'll work, at least for audio, and maybe video,
IIRC. Not really an answer though I know.

------
benologist
I use this - [https://mybrowseraddon.com/custom-useragent-
string.html](https://mybrowseraddon.com/custom-useragent-string.html) \- to
fake Chrome UA and it works. You only need it faking your UA to open the web
version of Skype then you can change it back.

------
lukaszkups
Can someone explain me why Skype needs a plugin to be installed to use it over
the web? WebRTC/Sip.js works pretty well these times across all (major)
browsers I think?

------
pedrocr
This is really annoying because Skype video inside a Windows VM basically
doesn't work. Encoding/decoding probably falls back to software and is much
too slow.

------
soliton4
who is using skype anyway?

~~~
wyclif
Skype has 300 million monthly active users
[https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/05/skype-publicly-launches-
sc...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/05/skype-publicly-launches-screen-
sharing-on-ios-and-android/)

------
pbhjpbhj
Would be interested to know how successful they are at switching people to
Edge (not just with this, but in general).

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
I recently had to use Windows 10 for some .NET work and found it really
surprising that it nags so much when changing the default browser. Not just in
the control panel prompt, but repeatedly afterwards via notifications and even
on the login screen.

Hint: Your OS shouldn't do this. It should stay out of your way and honour
your choices.

~~~
gmueckl
The Windows login screen does other startling things, too. I have also seen it
display sneaky advertising for Netflix.

------
anatolinicolae
Thanks for the info!

------
blentrop
Same thing with GoToMetting

------
geekit
It's happening!

------
dhimes
OT, but check out the comments in the code. It doesn't instill confidence:

    
    
        // Adjusts the position of the given element
        WebDeveloper.Common.adjustElementPosition =      
           function(element, xPosition, yPosition, offset)
        {
          // If the element is set
          if(element)
          {
            var contentWindow = WebDeveloper.Common.getContentWindow();
            var innerHeight   = contentWindow.innerHeight;
            var innerWidth    = contentWindow.innerWidth;
            var offsetHeight  = element.offsetHeight;
            var offsetWidth   = element.offsetWidth;
            var offsetX       = contentWindow.pageXOffset;
            var offsetY       = contentWindow.pageYOffset;
    
            // If the x position is less than 0
            if(xPosition < 0)
            {
              xPosition = 0;
            }
    
            // If the y position is less than 0
            if(yPosition < 0)
            {
              yPosition = 0;
            }
    
            // If the element will fit at the x position
            if(xPosition + offsetWidth + offset + 5 < innerWidth + offsetX)
            {
              element.style.left = xPosition + offset + "px";
            }
            else
            {
              element.style.left = innerWidth + offsetX - offsetWidth - offset + "px";
            }

~~~
diydsp
one may snicker at the redundancy of the "is less than 0" pair and so son, but
I'm grateful for "if the element will fit at the x position." It puts into
words what isn't obvious from the code.

~~~
dhimes
Fair enough. But if they are going to do that, wouldn't a comment about what
the positions are in each case (especially the case where it doesn't fit) be
helpful?

    
    
        // If it fits, put it there.  If not, align to the right side
    

or whatever.

