They say they’re doing a webbased updater so that their software will work with all operating systems… not said is that their online updater only works with chromium based browsers… so…
https://web.8bitdo.com/browser-support
Yeah it’s probably using webusb https://caniuse.com/?search=webusb
not said is that their online updater only works with chromium based browsers
Currently, it only supports Chromium-based browsers.
Second paragraph, yo.
pft, implying I read it and not just clicked the links…
I refused to install a Chromium based browser until recently, which was needed as a dependency for some software. At least it supports the base Chromium, which is free from all those bullshit of the other browsers its based on. I just recently updated the driver in a virtual machine with Windows 10 and their software installed. So using Chromium would be an improvement here. Still sad I have to use a different browser than Firefox, but Chromium will be just my “firmware-updater” and not my browser at all.
All of these wed based uber-projects are built on Chrome. This is bad. This gives more control to google and strengthens their strangle hold over web technologies.
It’s also bad because why the fuck should a web browser have that much access to the hardware to begin with?!
Considering they made Chrome an entire OS… It was sort of necessary for that and probably minimal to bring it to the regular desktop browser.
Otherwise it doesn’t really need to, other than simplicity for the end user. Being able to just go to the website regardless of platform and not having to install anything, or keep anything up to date, is a nice end user experience.
Considering they made Chrome an entire OS… It was sort of necessary for that and probably minimal to bring it to the regular desktop browser.
That’s both plausible and insightful on your part. Thanks!
That said, just because they could easily do it on the non-ChromeOS version of the browser doesn’t mean they should have.
Chrome OS existed long before this API, it has a Linux base to handle this kind of thing.
Also why the fuck is the OS giving the web browser the option of giving it that access to the hardware?
As long as it’s doable from userspace the OS doesn’t know what’s a browser or what is being controlled with external code. Blame the concept of ambient authority
Cause WebUSB still only exists on Chrome, even though Mozilla and Apple had 9 years to catch up: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebUSB_API#browser_compatibility
“to catch up”, while they deliberately choose not to implement this. they don’t just not do it, they outlined why.
their competitor has an advantage and real leverage, I’d say that’s enough reason in economics? I get why it isn’t implemented, but all that means is that chromium has the high ground when it comes to this.
This is exactly why economics, or any discipline, should not be permitted to dictate the function or structure of a system in a domain outside of its area of expertise.
yep in an ideal world, which we live very far from
Jesus fucking christ can’t you people ever just let something be good for once
Adding security, compatability, and vendor lock-in issues in exchange for convenience is not a good thing. Remember ActiveX and Silverlight? They forced users into uning IE. I am still finding industrial applications whos only config page is some ancient, IE only, nightmare.
Cant wait for Adobe Flash to make a comeback resulting in us being forced to use it to do something asinine like pay rent
In this case the spec is published, so it wouldn’t be a lock-in or compatibility issue if the other vendors didn’t lock themselves out.
Security, I get, but when I’ve used it to flash esp32s before the user agent pops up a box asking me which device I want to give access to before the website sees anything, so it’s not transparent and it doesn’t give it access to everything on my system.
I use Firefox all the time, but keep a Chromium on my system basically for stuff like this occasionally, and also web calls because Firefox’s implementation of the audio API doesn’t let me change microphones in the webapp, it just exposes one mic, and I’ve had issues with that before, so I join all calls in Chromium.
Maybe some of the other browsers should implement the tech needed to do this kind of thing then? Cause as far as I know, Chrome is the only browser that can give a websites access to USB.
Good stuff 8BitDo. I’m currently a GameSir enjoyer, but this kinda stuff is why 8BitDo is still considered the gold standard for controllers.
A downloadable program would be better for if the website were to ever go offline.
Yeah, but a website should make this compatible with all operating systems, not just Linux. BSD should profit from this as well.
Absolutely but at least they’re doing something for us Linux gamers.
Or, if it’s what I’m thinking of, you are not using Chrome but Firefox, and Firefox cannot use the “JavaScript USB” thing.
it’s what you’re thinking of. It doesn’t work with Firefox. Only chromium browsers.
You could already run the firmware updater with Proton/Wine though? At least I didn’t have an issue with that, but its obviously not helpful to everyone considering the many flavours of linux. Nice that they recognize and are at least trying to address the issue though
I got it working on Wine eventually but I do recall having to hunt down instructions for the terminal so it would properly read my USB port. It was definitely confusing, and I’m glad I won’t have to remember all the steps again.
Yep that’s the downside, I know fuckall about Linux relatively speaking, so I was lucky CachyOS just ran it and my wired controller got recognized.
Their firmware updater is so trash that it doesn’t work on Windows. I never got it to recognize my controller. Hopefully this one is better.
Where’s the difference? A program still has to fetch drivers and software from somewhere.
So we can now download software from our browsers, and we no longer need to use specialized downloader app? I must be really out of touch.
Yes but only in Chromium-based browsers as only those support the direct USB connection to the device.
Fuckin finally, the Android app is garbage.
The windows applet works just fine through Proton.
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Asus did this. Hate it, and glad I didn’t buy one. It locks you into their online service. What happens when they decide to stop supporting a controller?
