Dean Howell, a self-professed Google fan, thinks so:
I’ve been using Google Chrome for Linux since it was first made available. I use Gmail, Google Docs (now Drive), Google Plus, Google Adsense, Google Analytics, Google Music, and many more. I am the original owner of an original CR-48 Chromebook, having received mine way back in Dec. 2010. I promote Google services at work and have worked hard to point my business’ compass towards their entire suite of offerings. I use a Samsung Nexus S with an official build of Android 4.04 and I’m only interested in official devices moving forward.
At the same time, I have been gently treading a fine line between complete faith and trust in Google and fear of the Orwellian future they are capable of realizing for us all.
We lost faith and trust in Google years ago. Virtually every move Google has made since has vindicated our decision to Leave Google Behind. Sounds like Dean is starting to catch on.
I never had any errors loading Slashdot or OMG Ubuntu. Hacker News, Reddit and all the other sites that I frequent all loaded fine, %100 of the time. Of course Google Plus, Adsense, Analytics and Google Drive all gave me “Connection Reset”. So today, while running errands, a really nasty notion came to me. Is Google using user agent strings to create a poor experience in Firefox?
I decided to test this theory.
Dean’s tests confirmed his suspicions: Google’s offerings work just reliably when the browser identifies itself to Google as Chrome or a Chromium-based browser. But errors were commonplace for Dean when his browser identified itself to Google as Firefox.
How typical.