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> It’s crazy to think that some software engineers might actually intentionally degrade user experience on non-Google browsers or for people using adblockers.

by HunOL 2y ago

> It’s crazy to think that some software engineers might actually intentionally degrade user experience on non-Google browsers or for people using adblockers. Pretty sure that was happening back in a days when Opera was using own engine (Presto). They shipped browser with scripts to fix some popular sites. Actually Firefox also has some fixes for particular sites about:compat

immibis 2y ago
Even market-dominant companies do this. Windows ships a bunch of backward compatibility patches. Graphics card drivers (especially Nvidia) wholesale replace shaders in popular games.
- darknavi 2y ago
  Webkit does this. Examples: - https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit/blob/main/Source/WebCore/page/Quirks.cpp https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit/blob/main/Source/WebCore/pa... - https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit/blob/main/Source/WebCore/platform/glib/UserAgentQuirks.cpp https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit/blob/main/Source/WebCore/pl...
  - immibis 2y ago
    > DuckDuckGo discriminates against WebKitGTK's standard user agent by returning an HTTP 400 Bad Request error when loading every search result. I guess they only want spyware browsers on DDG.
- int_19h 2y ago
  Thing is, Opera had to do this specifically to work around stuff like UA-based degradation of service on YouTube etc.
doctor_radium 2y ago
Somehow I wasn't previously familiar with about:compat, which led me down a rabbit hole to finding about:about. Great stuff!