New redesign of Skype for Web blocks Firefox/Opera/Safari users

[kuhnertdm]

News Link: https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/8/18255848/skype-for-web-hd-video-calling-recording-search-gallery-chrome-edge

/r/firefox Community Link: https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/apu2u6/the_bad_old_days_are_back_according_to_skype_web/?st=jt0730bu&sh=8e5bf5aa

 

Microsoft has now released their new redesign of Skype for Web, their webapp version of the Skype videocalling service. The redesign brings new features to the webapp that were previously only available on the standalone apps, such as call recording, and HD video. Along with the redesign, Microsoft has chosen to block users on any web browser other than Edge, Chrome, or Chromium-based browsers, stating that the new webapp is not compatible. Firefox/Opera/Safari/etc users are not happy, and have also reported that the webapp behaves perfectly fine on Firefox if one were to spoof the user agent, which essentially has Firefox telling Microsoft "I'm a Chrome browser, so you should let me in."

 

In the olden days of Internet Explorer (circa IE6), Microsoft and other sites had gotten a lot of criticism for checking the user agent of the browser, and blocking anything that was not IE6, effectively blocking anyone who wanted to use an alternative. This caused the market share to become more consolidated in Microsoft's favor, and actually created a feedback loop, where more and more users switched to IE because they couldn't use any sites that employed this tactic, causing more developers to only support IE, causing more people to use IE, etc. We may now see this feedback loop happening once again in favor of Chrome, as Edge is now going to be using the Chromium rendering engine, narrowing down the number of viable alternatives.

[elfensky]

That just makes me not want to use it even more.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

Scumbag moves from Microsoft?  Who would have thought?

 

Unfortunately for them, people nowadays are figuring out this BS right away and come up with workarounds.

[thexzenon]

Isn't Opera Chromium-based?

[Stefan Payne]

Just incompetence??
I mean M$ fired the whole software Test Staff...

So its possible that they just messed it up...

[TH3R34P3R]

this is why discord is superior. slap OBS on it and bam, screen recording of call recording, and you got your HD video too. 

[yian88]

This to me looks like MS+ Google did a browser market fixing, first they switch Edge to chromium, cry about Firefox should use chromium as well, and now they start blocking non chrome/edge stuff just like google did with youtube new UI and video player where they implemented experimental stuff leaving firefox and non chromium browsers with performance/rendering issues.

 

I have no doubt now MS is playing dirty with Google on the browser market.

[RejZoR]

26 minutes ago, thexzenon said:

Isn't Opera Chromium-based?

Yeah, it is. And what's even more ironic, all Chromium based browsers are actually based off Safari which gave away its WebKit engine... This is some hardcore level PR idiocy from Microsoft. I guess they really want to absolutely kill Skype just like they killed MSN Messenger... Messenger didn't go dodo because people lost interest in it, it went dodo because MS made dumb decisions with it until they just killed it off in the end.

[Blademaster91]

30 minutes ago, thexzenon said:

Isn't Opera Chromium-based?

It is based on the Chromium engine, it doesn't really make sense why Opera would be blocked though as mentioned it does seem like market fixing.

13 minutes ago, TH3R34P3R said:

this is why discord is superior. slap OBS on it and bam, screen recording of call recording, and you got your HD video too. 

Yeah discord is much better, but skype is still used in alot of businesses.

[GoodBytes]

36 minutes ago, kuhnerdm said:

In the olden days of Internet Explorer (circa IE6), Microsoft and other sites had gotten a lot of criticism for checking the user agent of the browser, and blocking anything that was not IE6, effectively blocking anyone who wanted to use an alternative. This caused the market share to become more consolidated in Microsoft's favor, and actually created a feedback loop, where more and more users switched to IE because they couldn't use any sites that employed this tactic, causing more developers to only support IE, causing more people to use IE, etc. We may now see this feedback loop happening once again in favor of Chrome, as Edge is now going to be using the Chromium rendering engine, narrowing down the number of viable alternatives.

Actually, it is web developers pushing for IE support only (complete with fix screen resolutions), due to laziness, by going via market-share argument.

More and more websites are doing the same now with Chrome. The website does not exclude any web browser, but page element don't perform well (YouTube was guilty of this until found by Microsoft and Mozilla), or just doesn't work at all.

 

Soon your only choice will be:

 - Chrome

 - Chromium

 - New Microsoft Edge (or whatever it will be called, as it would use Chrome engine)

 

As for the business world, well company choice was to cut cost, and only supporting 1 web browser that all the corporate company computer would have (IE6)... yup, ended up costing more money in the end if they would just use standard multi-web browser support.

 

[RejZoR]

3 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

It is based on the Chromium engine, it doesn't really make sense why Opera would be blocked though as mentioned it does seem like market fixing.

Yeah discord is much better, but skype is still used in alot of businesses.

Irony is, out of Chrome based engine browsers, Opera is really the only usable one. It has nice features and is really fast thanks to built in super fast adblocker. But for some dumb reason has the lowest user share and most webpages don't even recognize it as legit browser. Blocking it on purpose or making it perform badly just means someone is dicking around with it on purpose.

[HarryNyquist]

9 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Soon your only choice will be:

 - Chrome

 - Chromium

 - New Microsoft Edge (or whatever it will be called, as it would use Chrome engine)

And then this happens again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.

The EFF, FSF, and Mozilla need to push to sue for antitrust violations.

[Master Disaster]

So yesterday I fitted my Mum's laptop with an SSD because it was running slower than a guy with no legs.

 

After I had installed Windows I was doing drivers and midway through a driver install and without warning the laptop turned off because the battery died which obviously caused the Windows install to bork. To remedy this is used System Restore from WinRE and I was quickly back into Windows.

 

After a few minutes I noticed the Firefox icon was gone from the desktop and had been replaced by an Edge icon. I know for a definite fact the restore point I had chosen was after I installed FF so there was no real reason for it to have gone anywhere. A quick check and sure enough, System Restore had removed FF (entirely) and replaced it's icons with Edge. It did not remove any other software I had installed however.

 

I was not a happy bunny.

[mxk]

Man, I stopped using skype a bit ago. It used to be the standard for all my brother's and I's friends but we all slowly moved onto discord since it had a better layout and the role/ranking stuff.

 

Just another reason that I'll never go back. Thanks microretards.

[poochyena]

I use to really like skype too, but all my friends started to have problems with it, and now its kinda glitchy for me, and the updates aren't great, like this update. And I hate discord for not allowing custom usernames (they add random numbers to the end) and not allowing you to search for users like you can on skype or steam (or literally any other service, really).

I need an alternative.

[S w a t s o n]

Oh man as a Firefox user what ever will I do. Oh wait, this is Skype? The same skype I ditched years ago? Meh. Also, who even uses skype for web lmfao

[Bananasplit_00]

yay MS doing dickbag things when they dont have too

[GoodBytes]

8 minutes ago, S w a t s o n said:

Oh man as a Firefox user what ever will I do. Oh wait, this is Skype? The same skype I ditched years ago? Meh. Also, who even uses skype for web lmfao

Actually, this would not affect you even if you were an avid user of Skype. This is Skype for web. This is for the rare case where you want to use Skype, and it happened to not be installed on the system. You'll be using the Skype app.

[GoodBytes]

45 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

So yesterday I fitted my Mum's laptop with an SSD because it was running slower than a guy with no legs.

 

After I had installed Windows I was doing drivers and midway through a driver install and without warning the laptop turned off because the battery died which obviously caused the Windows install to bork. To remedy this is used System Restore from WinRE and I was quickly back into Windows.

 

After a few minutes I noticed the Firefox icon was gone from the desktop and had been replaced by an Edge icon. I know for a definite fact the restore point I had chosen was after I installed FF so there was no real reason for it to have gone anywhere. A quick check and sure enough, System Restore had removed FF (entirely) and replaced it's icons with Edge. It did not remove any other software I had installed however.

 

I was not a happy bunny.

Actually, Windows does not remove Firefox icon or any icons on the desktop. Edge is added from one of the Windows updates, but that is all.

 

What you need to keep in mind is that, even if you have an SSD, Windows doesn't write everything to the storage right away. If you want to disable that, and actually write the data, then you need to need to go in Device manager, go on your drive properties, then go under the policy tab.

And from there, you want to set "Quick Removal", or at the very least "Better performance", but uncheck the 2 check boxes bellow, "Enable write caching." and "Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device"

 

 

 

[captain_to_fire]

1 hour ago, GoodBytes said:

Soon your only choice will be:

 - Chrome

 - Chromium

 - New Microsoft Edge (or whatever it will be called, as it would use Chrome engine)

 

You’re forgetting WebKit which is an open source rendering engine from Apple. I think even Goofle has forked some WebKit components and used it in their Blink engine. 

[S w a t s o n]

1 hour ago, GoodBytes said:

Actually, this would not affect you even if you were an avid user of Skype. This is Skype for web. This is for the rare case where you want to use Skype, and it happened to not be installed on the system. You'll be using the Skype app.

Yes that's why I said, who even uses skype for web?

[Master Disaster]

1 hour ago, GoodBytes said:

Actually, Windows does not remove Firefox icon or any icons on the desktop. Edge is added from one of the Windows updates, but that is all.

 

What you need to keep in mind is that, even if you have an SSD, Windows doesn't write everything to the storage right away. If you want to disable that, and actually write the data, then you need to need to go in Device manager, go on your drive properties, then go under the policy tab.

And from there, you want to set "Quick Removal", or at the very least "Better performance", but uncheck the 2 check boxes bellow, "Enable write caching." and "Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device"

 

 

 

No, nice try but no. Firefox had been installed for over 3 hours and had survived multiple reboots plus I physically deleted the Edge icon from both the taskbar and the desktop myself. System Restore uninstalled it from the laptop entirely and replaced the icons with Edge, it even removed the appdata as when I reinstalled it none of the saved information was present.

[dalekphalm]

Not cool Microsoft. Don't want to support those other browsers? Fine. But outright blocking them via an artificial means (checking the agent) is definitely anti-consumer and anti-competitive.

[Princess Luna]

Even at my job place we no longer use Skype, it was replaced in favor for WhatsApp and Telegram.

 

Who still uses it? it become bloatware I need to constantly get rid off every Windows 10 update.

 

Also as a Firefox only user (I don't even have another browser aside Edge on my systems), I can guarantee it's doing just fine, some proprietary shitty service less and less people uses is not a signal Firefox will die at all.

[manikyath]

4 hours ago, thexzenon said:

Isn't Opera Chromium-based?

depends which version of opera really.. trough the few years i've bothered opera changed mindset more than a stereotypical teenage girl.

 

vivaldi tastes just fine however..