When I try to open play.google.com from Firefox on my Android device I get:<p><pre><code> This browser is no longer supported.
Please use the Google Play Store app to access Google Play.
</code></pre>
My Firefox version is 35.0, which is the latest version for Android. So it looks like the walls are going up around that particular garden as well.
This is a dangerous slope.<p>And I'm sad seeing many of the arguments here - a wild guess is that they've been made by people who weren't here (or have forgotten) the Microsoft/IE story.<p>Soon it will become: "Why would they invest resources? Firefox is a niche browser, the return on investment is not justified". After all, Firefox's market share is dwindling.<p>I really hope we're not slowly being boiled like the proverbial frog, by Google.
Hi Google.<p>Remember those non-evil days where you said you cared about web-standards and actually acted according to those claims?<p>Those days were great. Feel free to get back to those.
For reference, this is being tracked by Mozilla's webcompat group in <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1131601" rel="nofollow">https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1131601</a>.
Sloppy user-agent matching. This string:<p><pre><code> (Android) Gecko
</code></pre>
triggers the message, with both "Android" and "Gecko" being required components.<p>I don't see any benefit to this. It's just stupid.
On Android, clicking a link in the browser generally takes you to the default application for that type of url. If there is no default set, then it will give you the choice of what to use to go there (possibly including the browser in the case of a link like this).<p>Firefox doesn't support that, and would instead take you to the play website, that really doesn't perform well on a lot of mobile devices. I'm guessing this factored into their decision to discourage its use.<p>I don't necessarily agree with this decision, but I think it is an exaggeration to imply that there is some evil intent here. It's not keeping you from doing anything that you could do before, and if you are really eager to get to the site just tap "Request Desktop Site" and it will still load.
Is it just me, or did anybody else see here a comment from a Google dev just one minute ago, stating this was "just a simple bug", going to be "fixed in short time"? I refreshed the page and now it's gone.<p>Edit: well I don't really know if the comment came from a Google dev, I guessed so because it looked very authoritative.
Now might be a good time to mention that Firefox on Android has a built-in marketplace which allows you to install most FirefoxOS Apps as full Android Apps, with access to most of the device APIs.<p>Unfortunately, I find that most of the apps aren't very good at all (and in no way is it a replacement for Google Play) but it's something interesting to keep an eye on.
Why this is bad: Google is saying "I don't care whether or not your browser can view this site, <i>I won't even let you try.</i>"<p>If more online properties go this way, we effectively give Google the exclusive ability to develop and drive the Web platform at a fundamental level. For instance, Servo, an experimental, highly-parallel rendering engine written in Rust, won't be able to improve the efficiency or security of the Web as a whole if it's not allowed access to the Web in the first place.
If you visit Gmail with Firefox on Android, Google will serve up a low-fidelity, non-ajax version of the site/app... a very poor user experience vs Android Chrome. I feel like this is done intentionally as Safari on iOS gives the same user experience as Android Chrome.<p>Also, Google search omits many filters and feature options in Firefox and again, it seems intentional since Safari on iOS offers the same UX as Android Chrome.
Doesn't appear to be related to Firefox. I tried it from Chrome on my desktop (with dev-tools emulating a Nexus 5). See screenshot. Looks like if you're on a mobile device at all they want you to use the app instead of your browser.<p><a href="http://snag.gy/Dl0ay.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://snag.gy/Dl0ay.jpg</a>
Just a bug :P.
<a href="http://www.androidcentral.com/heres-whats-google-play-store-being-blocked-firefox-mobile" rel="nofollow">http://www.androidcentral.com/heres-whats-google-play-store-...</a>
For those lazy but curious, hurl: <a href="http://hurl.eu/hurls/75bc3ea92343cf38b3711597c5bd4a2e25bed842/7e0dd3048409eaaa4f8b1ef95db7cebefb926ede" rel="nofollow">http://hurl.eu/hurls/75bc3ea92343cf38b3711597c5bd4a2e25bed84...</a>
(GET of `<a href="https://play.google.com/store`" rel="nofollow">https://play.google.com/store`</a> with User-Agent header of Fx 35 on Android)
Google broke Youtube with IE mobile years ago by simply refusing to serve up HTML5 to it. It's just the way they do business.<p>Relevant items on HN: <a href="https://hn.algolia.com/?query=youtube%20windows%20phone&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story" rel="nofollow">https://hn.algolia.com/?query=youtube%20windows%20phone&sort...</a>
luckily, firefox has a useragent plugin. you can change it to 'i hate chrome because chrome is stupid, and so is google play' and you can access the google play store again. or you can simply use apkleecher and bypass that as well. this is why firefox is king. adaptability for whatever idiocy plagues you.
have you seen firebox for android? it's years ahead of chrome.<p>you can have extensions to begin with. from ad blockers to stylish, which let people with poor vision actually use the browser.<p>also it allows you to disable all sort of asinine tracking that is forced in chrome.<p>expect Google to play a Microsoft on Mozilla harder and harder now.
I sometimes wonder if browsers are going to become runtimes. For Google services you obviously use Chrome. For others they choose to support runtimes Chrome and Firefox. Microsoft supports IE as the runtime for there services.<p>It's awful, but it seems like the direction things are going.
I'm not jumping on this bandwagon. What are you looking for - plugins for the Firefox browser? Go to the Firefox store. And hey, Firefox is my backup browser. But I haven't seen any anti-Firefox campaigns from Google, though I've certainly seen anti-Google campaigns from Firefox, and I thought, they need to choose their battles a little more carefully. You start a war, there's always a chance you'll become a casualty.
This seems consistent with the other poor design decision in the play store: no anonymous app reviews.<p>A team that forces you to compromise your anonymity in order to write a positive app review has no qualms about forcing you to use a different browser. That team must be filled with former MS employees.
Works for me: <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/pushbullet-uploads/ujvlIvV7Mia-fXRnH1aX5UsBdzGcThKC60devQbBjjaJ/Screenshot_2015-02-11-20-45-25.png" rel="nofollow">https://s3.amazonaws.com/pushbullet-uploads/ujvlIvV7Mia-fXRn...</a>
This was an unexpected move from Google.<p>I am guessing they are trying to have singleton system around their app market but this is not how it is supposed to be done.<p>They can give users a unique email address with play store domain and ask them to sign in if they want to give a different user experience to Google users. And you need to have installed Google OS or Chrome in order to get that email address.<p>With this way, Google is no different than the 90s enterprise companies whose sites were only supporting IE in order to function.<p>This is not the first time Google is doing this, and I am guessing this will not be the last one either. Since they got Eric Schmidt on board, they are focusing more on revenue than being the Internet hero. I can not really blame them though..
> Update 9:05 a.m. PT: Google has informed VentureBeat that the issue experienced by Firefox users on Android is a bug, and a fix will be issued “very soon.”<p>i.e. "whoops, we got caught"
The bug has been fixed:<p><a href="https://twitter.com/ficus/status/565234296294625280" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/ficus/status/565234296294625280</a>
I think we're just making a big deal out of this. As someone pointed out, they're likely using technologies not implemented in other browsers yet. Has the OP tried using play store on Aurora? In any case, I feel Google has the ethical and moral right to use whatever they see fit for their own web applications.<p>And let this be said people, this isn't something new. Not even from Google. Inbox doesn't work on non-chrome browsers.<p>Even apple restricts using iCloud anything other than Safari. So, why the commotion?
"Embrace, extend and extinguish" comes to mind. They've played the long con.<p>Personally not against it, I see Chrome as a better product.
I suppose this way they can control access to the store of users coming from AOSP devices. Firefox is available in 3rd party app stores, Chrome isn't. So AOSP users who are not aware of other browsers (=average non-techies) can simply not browse the Play Store.
For twitter users: Google play seems to be @GooglePlay. Tag with #ChromeIsTheNewIE and ask if it is malice or incompentence (those are the only two I can come up with : )
Is this a reasonable complaint? Why would you be browsing the play store from Android in a browser? If you try to open it in the Chrome browser, it just forces you to the play store app, which rather makes sense.<p>Every platform and browser requires support and attention, and in this case they chose not to support an edge case that really makes no sense, and simply causes usability issues (so how do you install an app from the Play Store in Firefox?). But cue the typical "don't be evil" sorts of comments.<p>EDIT: Wow, five downvotes within 2 minutes. The Google hate is strong in this case (and is probably a coordinated effort), where an app <i>ignoring Android URL intents</i> is used in a comically irrelevant fashion....don't be evil, hurr durr.<p>And the decline of HN continues.
wow. hope --Maemo--, er... --Meego--, er... Tizen can gel, or I guess we can wait on Firefox OS to show up on a device that isn't terrible in the US.
Jeff Atwood's App-pocalypse Now gets more relevant every day
<a href="http://blog.codinghorror.com/app-pocalypse-now/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.codinghorror.com/app-pocalypse-now/</a>
Chrome deleted. Default search engine in firefox set to duckduckgo. Will be moving all my gmail/gdocs to a self hosted solution this weekend. If anybody can recommend an open phone or a cheap/throwaway I would appreciate it.