The argument that "Google still controls Chromium so it's not good enough" is exactly the kind of FUD I'd expect to back up this kind of psyop, too.
I find this notion completely baffling. I use Chrome, Firefox and Safari more or less daily cause I test in all 3, and other than Safari feeling clunkier and in general less power-user friendly, I can barely tell the difference between the 3, especially between chrome and FF (well, other than uBlock working better in FF anyways).
I think it's a case of yes, it does work, but web developers don't think so, so they implement checks just for kicks.
Indeed, even in the codebase at $JOB that I'm responsible for, we have had some instances where we randomly check if people are in Chrome before blocking a browser API that has existed for 2 decades and been baseline widely available. These days 99% of features that users actually care about are pretty widely supported cross-browser, and other than developer laziness there's literally no reason why something like a banking app shouldn't work in any of the big 3.
I guarantee you that if you set your `userAgent` to a Chrome one (or even better yet, a completely generic one that covers all browsers simultaneously, cause most of the time the implementation of these `isChrome` flags is just a dead simple regex that looks for the string `chrome` anywhere in the userAgent), all problems you might've experienced before would vanish, except for perhaps on Google's own websites (though I've never really had issues here other than missing things like those image blur filters in Google Meet, which always felt like a completely artificial, anti-competitive limitation)
I made some other changes, but I forget what. At least FF still has the full uBlock Origin.
News to me.
If this is even true, in the end it's still "so what?" Meaning, the alternative is even worse so, let's say granted there is this problem. Where is the better alternative that does not have this problem? Chrome doesn't have other equivalent or worse memory problems? Even if not leaking, it simply uses so much it's the same end result.
I've never consciously noticed a problem with youtube so if there is a problem, it's not one that necessarily matters.
> a well known kindergarden
I am baffled by the choice to include this laughably obscure example alongside a major telecom. Surely there are better options less likely to be the fault of a random lazy web developer.
Youtube, for example seems deliberately hampered on non-chrome browsers.
> I am baffled by the choice...
Rereading what I wrote, I see the unintended humour in my association.
That being said:
1. These are both websites where I don't have much of a choice whether I use them or not
2. I actually expected Verizon to have a terrible website based on the sum of my interactions with them (both online and over the phone) and how uncompetitive the market is. But I was surprised the kindergarden had a needlessly restrictive website because I thought they'd care more about their online presence. And, to be clear, the kindergarden's website is fancy and expensively designed, so their lack of Firefox support can't easily explained by laziness.
Also, sometimes the feature exists so the feature check is positive, but there is a bug in one browser that breaks your functionality, so you put in a user agent check. Then the bug gets fixed, but the user agent check isn't removed for years. I've seen that happen many times.
It isn't unique to youtube either. Gmail offline mode only works on chrome, even though other browsers have the necessary APIs. And menu copy and paste in google docs uses a special chrome-only extension that google pre-installs in chrome, instead of the clipboard API that works in other browsers as well.
It occurs to me that it could be a pathological edge case triggered by ublock and youtube interacting. I'm not going to disable it to find out.