this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
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[–] scholar 383 points 1 year ago (4 children)

It's bizarre how blatent this is. Google has so much power over web standards that Mozilla have to work really hard to make firefox work, but YouTube don't bother being subtle or clever and just write 'if Firefox, get stuffed' in plain text for everyone to see.

[–] [email protected] 136 points 1 year ago (1 children)

this isn't much different than when microsoft added code specifically to break windows 3.1 when run under dr-dos instead of their own ms-dos. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code

[–] [email protected] 74 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And it cost them 280 million in the 90s ouch

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago

Something tells me they survived.

[–] aseriesoftubes 70 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Google has been doing this kind of thing for a while. If you try to use Google Meet in Firefox, you can’t use things like background blurring. Spoofing Chrome works in that situation as well.

[–] Lemminary 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And the stupid thing is that all I use Chrome for is Meets... And that's it. Do they really think they win me over?

[–] chiliedogg 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not you or me. But most people, yeah.

[–] sulsaz 7 points 1 year ago

That is, as always, the problem: it works for them. The average Joe isn't going to implement a new filter into ublock...

[–] FontMasterFlex 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] dual_sport_dork 17 points 1 year ago

You can change your user agent string, the text your browser uses to tell the web site you're looking at what browser it is, either via your F12 developer tools menu or via an extension.

[–] scholar 11 points 1 year ago

The most convenient way is with a browser extension that changes your user agent. You can also change it in the developer options of most browsers.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It works for me now. Only took them 8 years

[–] agent_flounder 12 points 1 year ago

In my other comment I provide a link to the US DOJ anti-trust complaint center website.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

@scholar @db0 Buy enough of the competition and pay off enough government regulators and as a company you get to do pretty much do whatever you want.