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Ask HN: Do you still optimize/test websites for Firefox

18 points by AndyPa32 ↗ HN
I get the feeling that Firefox is unfortunately getting less and less TLC from websites these days.

A couple of days ago I could not login to zalando.de, one of the largest online clothing retailers in Germany. At the same time login was working in Chrome.

My online coffee roaster's website has a comment section. It is not rendered in Firefox while working perfectly in Chrome.

On chefkoch.de - one of the largest cooking sites in Germany - the widget to calculate the amount of ingredients for a different number of people does not work in Firefox. At least the mouse widget to increase/decrease the number of eaters does not work in Firefox. The click does nothing. In Chrome it works.

It has gotten to a point that whenever something is not working for me in the web, the first thing I do is check, if it's working in Chrome. And more and more I am getting the feeling that it's just websites that don't really test with Firefox anymore.

Is it just my experience or do you see the same? Will it get worse over time, so that at one point I won't be able to use my favorite browser of choice anymore?

22 comments

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petr25102018
I see the same (Microsoft Teams, and others) and it is frustrating.
johneth
When developing, I primarily test in Firefox, then Safari, then Chrome.

I've found that if it works in Firefox and Safari, it'll almost certainly work in Chrome without tweaking.

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crazypython
I've tested in Firefox only to find Chrome bugs appear and wreck my approach.
montroser
With Firefox's declining usage share (~35% => ~5% over the last decade), while unfortunate, it is easy to see why business folk will be less inclined to invest in QA here now.

But on the other hand, Firefox developers are increasingly prioritizing compatibility issues, matching Chrome's behavior in order to mitigate this phenomenon.

I've recently switched from Chrome to Firefox nightly on mobile and desktop, and I have to say, I am actually very impressed with how few issues I've run into.

tompccs
Are you sure this isn't related to tracker blocking activated by default in Firefox? I use Brave and almost always when something is broken it's because the browser is blocking some external script
AndyPa32
I usually try it without uBlockOrigin, once I find a glitch. But those three I have described had nothing to do with blocking.
thiht
Don't forget Firefox includes a content blocker by default. Disabling uBlock origin is sometimes not enough.
AndyPa32
Good tip, thanks. I really did not think about that at all.
arkitaip
I mostly use Firefox so making sure projects work with it happens naturally. Also, using a decent framework like Bootstrap for simple projects automatically makes code Firefox compatible.

But I'm more frequently noticing that sites don't work with Firefox, that I have to switch to Chrome. The worst issue so far has been using WordPress; the default post editor simply doesn't work reliably with Firefox when doing basic text editing. That means Firefox can't be used on millions on sites that run WordPress. That's just sad.

axyz
Do you still have issues on Zalando.de? I just tried with Firefox from Linux and it seems to work correctly. Do you have more details in order to reproduce the problem?
AndyPa32
Not anymore. Had the problem for about six hours, then went to bed. Next morning it was working again. Also Firefox + Linux
tofukid
I don’t do cross browser testing at all.

I use JavaScript supported across all major browsers, and UI frameworks/libraries that work consistently across all major browsers.

speedgoose
You should consider to test your app/website on an iPhone, you may have a few surprises.
tofukid
That’s why I prefer to use UI and JS libraries that are already tested and work consistently across browsers. It’s easier to reuse libraries across projects instead of reinventing the wheel, and spending time chasing down browser inconsistencies.

We often set ourselves up for failure by using JS APIs that don’t work across browsers, or hand rolling UI/CSS for each project.

poundofshrimp
Using a good library is not enough. For a simple example, try setting “height: 100vh;” on the body, and then open the page on an iPhone. You may be surprised that the height of the body does not fit into the screen and a scroll appears (I was, when I learnt about it). Similarly, there are many small differences that exist between Desktop <> Mobile or Chrome <> Safari. Sometimes the differences are significant enough to make your page appear completely broken.
tofukid
Instead of writing custom CSS you could use or develop a UI library that targets browsers consistently, and use that.
speedgoose
Have you discovered this holy grail library yet?
ramtatatam
I personally refuse to use service which is not supporting Firefox. Of course - such service will not even notice, but a few years ago I decided I'm just not going to support business which are not supporting diversity in browsers.
2rsf
Yes, around 3% of our customers still uses it. TBH IE11 has the same usage rates and we are abandoning it soon, but IE11 has a secondary problem of lack of support.
joshxyz
Tbh no lol. I just check caniuseit.com, and that's it.
maverick74
Hey, money talks!

Firefox is choosing user privacy side.

But there is 2 problems:

1.Most people are *** and go behind "every thing google" without asking any questions about it...

2.companies optimize sites to what brings them moreeconomical advantages, what's more "known" and what makes them expend less (if you build it for chromium, look at how many browsers it will work on.)

People do not study history and they should, because it would make them remember they already lived this with IE6... AND THE FIGHT IT WAS TO GET OUT OF THAT SHITHOLE...

And make no mistake - it was thanks to Mozilla - alone - we got out!!! Firefox does have a lot of problems, but everyone owes them being in a more "advanced" web!

But maybe that's just me...