Consider what support mean. It doesn't mean "works with".
Supported likely means that they test with and design for. It also means that if a customer is using that browser and there's a problem (e.g., seeing their bill online) they will fix the problem if it's just in that browser.
Firefox is 3.3% of users [1]. When it comes to testing features with (including QA validation) and working around browser specific bugs, what % of usage should drive that?
Well summarized. It's amusing to read Brave on their unsupported list, since it's just Chromium with privacy features built-in. They wouldn't be able to tell, non-invasively, since it self-reports as the most boring, common version of Chrome that it can. Actually, privacy features that break sites by default if you don't know how to adjust them. Works, guaranteed by our developers and customer support folks, should be a different bar.
So long as they don't active sniff and reject non-approved browsers.
I wish we didn't only measure (and pay for) five nines+ uptime, but also support. Remember how annoyingly often just 99.9% uptime means you're out of business?
I have a theory that Firefox gets under reported in a lot of stats because its users are more likely to use Adblockers. Statcounter for example is going to be blocked by most Adblockers; stats based on server logs will be more accurate.
It's not just client side trackers that get blocked -- any server side tracker that only counts specific resources being requested is going to be blocked by Adblockers too.
Their website is SO SO bad. It is almost like they don't want you to easily be able to see your bill and investigate the rates. The only part of the website that is easy is making payments.
Every single ISP does this. Even both of Googles ISP brands do it. I've convinced myself it's to hide their coverage maps, forcing you to give address and get a single data point. In reality it just means I never wind up helping friends move ISPs because it feels.lile an abusive relationship no matter what move you make.
It's more that they don't care if, say, an automated support chatbot doesn't work in Firefox. In which case they tell you to just use Chrome rather than submit a ticket telling one of their web devs to fix something.
It's more a case of they don't bother testing using firefox. It may incidentally work on firefox, as a side effect of being tested in browsers that people still commonly use in the 2020s.
"Don't worry, though... Regardless of your browser choice, we'll still hijack 'alt+back_arrow' to show you supported browsers instead of navigating to the previous page."
That'll teach me to try to eat leftover bbq with my primary hand while using the other to browse HN over lunch.
> Regardless of your browser choice, we'll still hijack 'alt+back_arrow' to show you supported browsers instead of navigating to the previous page.
Frustrating. I'm using Mac, so the corresponding shortcut for returning to the previous page is command + left arrow (back arrow), now hijacked. command + [ does the same thing and isn't hijacked yet. If you're on Windows, backspace might work in Firefox, but you'll first need to change to change a flag in about:config [1]. I'd be reluctant to give backspace that behavior, since I've accidentally lost progress on online forms by accidentally navigating to another page.
Example: Twitch still doesn't let me login from Firefox if I'm on Alpine Linux.
It only happens when I try from Alpine Linux, so they might be testing for some musl-specific quirk and denying access just for not being the Firefox from a different distro.
Brave is unsupported by a lot of websites, but almost always works (at least if you turn off shields).
"Unsupported" = "We don't test or develop with this browser in mind", not "This browser doesn't work." If that browser effectively mimics one that is supported, it usually works fine.
Whenever I mention a website's issue to tech support, they give me the "just use Chrome" song and dance. I have to actively protest for the right to use Firefox. If your company does this you are complicit in Google's monopoly control of the web and you probably don't support Linux either.
> I've lived all over the US. Why are utility company websites SO BAD? All of them are terrible.
Utility companies are deliberately regional monopolies, without the threat of competition there's no incentive to do better. That's presumably reflected in but not limited to the quality of their web sites.
In California, PG&E refused to hand over legally-required documents, in addition to refusing to hand over ordinary information that they were not required to hand over. Subsequently, a pipeline in San Bruno (updt) area exploded, a dozen houses burned to the ground, and several people died. They established new legal precedent by being convicted of Murder One.
investigations subsequently determined that PG&E had falsified reports, and failed to conduct testing that was required by law.
> Subsequently, a pipeline in San Mateo area exploded, a dozen houses burned to the ground, and several people died.
I recall the San Bruno gas explosion[0] you're referring to. It happened at a time when I regularly drove down that leg of Skyline to access Pacifica and Ocean Beach coming from south bay via the peninsula/280.
We clearly need better solutions for how such utilities are delivered and their businesses operated. Though in the case of residential gas lines, we should probably just stop the practice, especially in seismically active regions like the bay area...
It doesn't reduce their income to have a bad website, and might save them a bit in dev costs (maybe not though? if not, there's an opportunity to sell them on better sites)
Lots of other websites that don't have this disclaimer, but also have much worse support for Firefox (read: none, and it's likely perma-broken and wontfix)
I'm not sure why this was voted so high or would be news to anyone. It's a single website and historically this is nothing new (IE used to be the only supported browser on nearly all sites, or the reverse became true once Chrome had enough traction while IE development languished).
Firefox is not that popular of a browser. Not news at 11.
It's a electricity and gas utility that serves San Francisco and the Bay Area. Many Hacker News readers are from this area.
People love complaining about PG&E since its prices are ludicrously high (one of the highest in the nation --- about 50 cents per kWh), while the service is quite poor (they famously caused some serious wildfires and have frequent power outages during storms, although admittedly the recent couple of storms were quite strong). Now that they stopped supporting a beloved browser, there is all the more reason for the Bay Area techies to complain.
Fast facts about PG&E
The company provides natural gas and electric service to approximately 16 million people throughout a 70,000-square-mile service area in northern and central California.
You're getting dogpiled on for not knowing this, but it's a reasonable question. If you're not one of the ~5% of the US population (0.2% of the global population) that lives in the part of California indicated on this map [0], the only interaction you might have had with PG&E is when they sparked a forest fire that caused smoke to cover most of the United States in 2018 [1].
For many people this is the power company. If you want electricity, you go through them. Needing to use specific browsers to get basic services is an accessibility problem.
PG&E is Pacific Gas and Electric. It provides utility services to tens of millions of people. They’re one of, if not the biggest single utility companies in the country.
They may as well be for a lot of us. I'd never heard of Kroger before a few months ago, and apparently they're one of the biggest grocery store chains. Their size doesn't mean that everyone knows about them.
5.2M households is roughly 15M people. 3% of that is 450k users. While not huge on the scale of the global browser install base, that is still a pretty sizeable chunk of users that this might impact.
Also, I'm not in CA and I know of PG&E - in fact many USA residents probably do because they make the national news cycle quite a bit. No need for such a patronizing comment.
self note: realize this when I login to the website to check my bill and now there is always an orange bar saying I am using unsupported browser, and a pop up every time I open the website.
The bigger problem I think is I cannot dismiss the bar. Of course I can use adblocker element match to block it but it is a hostile move imo.
At $0.60/kWh, I cannot afford a new excuse to hike my electric and gas bill.
I cannot stand this company. I don’t agree with the practice where people in San Francisco have to pay for mismanagement and neglect of this for profit corporation’s infrastructure in far flung rural areas - places that I have never been before - and have no connection to. If we forced PG&E to breakup after the last bankruptcy, and San Francisco had purchased the wire infrastructure and transmission lines that give us light in the City, we would be much better off. Proceeds would be reinvested… Municipal ownership is the only proper solution. Just a thought.