OneDrive "Runs like a Dog" on Windows OS Rivals

Megalith

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Microsoft is being accused of perverting their OneDrive web app so it performs far more slowly on Linux, ChromeOS, and other Windows rivals. The supposed evidence is that users see an increase of performance once they change their browser’s user-agent string to IE or Edge. Uh, I think that just means OneDrive’s code for Firefox, Chrome, and other non-MS browsers is terrible—although that in itself is worthy of complaint, I guess.

Plenty of Linux users are up in arms about the performance of the OneDrive web app. They say that when accessing Microsoft's cloudy storage system in a browser on a non-Windows system – such as on Linux or ChromeOS – the service grinds to a barely usable crawl. But when they use a Windows machine on the same internet connection, speedy access resumes. Crucially, when they change their browser's user-agent string – a snippet of text the browser sends to websites describing itself – to Internet Explorer or Edge, magically their OneDrive access speeds up to normal on their non-Windows PCs.
 
This is almost certainly a mistake

MS has much more to gain from a non-Windows user embracing their cloud offerings than they do from one switching OSs
A lot of users wouldn't have thought that the OS was the problem - they would have just assumed OneDrive is slow period
 
Ahh, now that's more like the good old M$ that we all know and love.

BRB, want to see how the local shill spins this one.

Well, I am sure you are on Linux, care to try this and get back to us?
 
My dog runs pretty fast so is this a good thing?

Honestly I'm not surprised, it feels like anything MS does outside of Office and Server is pretty crap. Even for W10 I feel like it was an improvement from 8 (which isn't hard) but then every patch makes things worse.
 
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Well, I am sure you are on Linux, care to try this and get back to us?
I am and I know better than using anything from them in Linux.

Damn, I just fed one of the shills...
 
As a onedrive user, I feel like it runs like ass on Edge/IE too. Every time I need to go through my camera roll to select a bunch of pictures for something, it drives me insane how shitty the performance is.
 
Doesn't Edge identify itself as Chrome nowadays? (because Edge meets modern web standards so if it identified as a MS browser, sites that adjust for IE bugs would break under Edge) So if OneDrive were made to underperform based on browser user agent, they'd be shooting themselves in the foot with their own browser.
 
Ah, the great Microsoft is purposely crippling something conspiracy popping up again. Like the Microsoft was slowing down Windows 7 updates to shovel you to Windows 10 conspiracy... :rolleyes:
 
Ah, the great Microsoft is purposely crippling something conspiracy popping up again. Like the Microsoft was slowing down Windows 7 updates to shovel you to Windows 10 conspiracy... :rolleyes:

You mean this?: https://hardforum.com/threads/micro...ng-used-in-windows-7-8-1-on-new-cpus.1927423/

As one who remembers "DOS isn't done till Lotus won't run", Microsoft does have a history of doing crap like this. Time will tell if this is one of those cases or just a bad performing product that sucks for everyone regardless of OS or browser.
 
As a onedrive user, I feel like it runs like ass on Edge/IE too. Every time I need to go through my camera roll to select a bunch of pictures for something, it drives me insane how shitty the performance is.

Exactly... Onedrive runs terrible at the best of times, even on windows. But I have the 1TB + office 365 home which is overall a pretty good deal so I keep using it. The picture/video upload from our android phones works well enough though which is what we use it for the most.
 
I doubt they'd purposely do this. They are expanding their apps across all platforms. They WANT people to use them, even if it's not on Windows. This would make them search for alternatives. It's not intentional, even if it is a real issue.

Of course, they probably did it the past few days during the Microsoft services outages/slowdowns. :)

I'd like to see more data and more people having the same issue before I call Microsoft a bunch of scumbags.

They wouldn't cripple their own service to make someone switch to Windows. If they are on Linux/OSX/etc., there are other cloud storage services available. They aren't going to switch to Windows just to use OneDrive.

That's preposterous. :D
 
I am and I know better than using anything from them in Linux.

Damn, I just fed one of the shills...

Yeah, that is right, I must be a schill. LOL :D So, you have no proof nor are willing to provide it or try it, ok.
 
Nothing to see here.... Just a coincidence... Linux is not their main focus... Move along....
 
I concur that this is a poor use of "running like a dog." I don't know about your dogs but I got 2 spectacularly well behaved and healthy GSD's, one similarly excellent doberman and they are absurdly fast. The bug guy showed up for quarterly poisoning of all the crap on Monday and the dogs are weird about having to be introduced to people and I knew the bug man was cool because instead of freaking out that these 280lbs of dogs running at him at ~29 mph he said "they run so...gracefully" and petted them.
 
Changing the browser agent doesn't change the browser, it only changes how the browser is identified on the other end. So, if changing the browser agent changes behavior or performance, the cause is not the browser, it's the other end displaying different behavior based on what it thinks is a different browser.
 
So I just tried this on a Windows 10 machine used the same extension in Chrome to make it look like Chrome on Ubuntu and then ran it side by side with Edge. It's working fine. So it doesn't look like the agent string is the problem, unless somehow on Windows 10 Office Online has disregards the agent string and knows the OS some other way then is intentionally breaking?
 
I call bullshit on this one. I have a Lenovo N22 Chromebook, two Linux VM's (Ubuntu and Mint) running chrome and Firefox and my Main Windows machine running chrome as default browser. I just tested this claim between the different systems and there was no difference in performance between them when accessing my personal OneDrive or all three of the business OneDrive accounts using the web interface on any browser.
 
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Wanna buy a bridge?

Sure.

"Our product is slow on those devices, try the alternative instead. Or change your whole OS to Windows 10 where OneDrive works much faster!". Even they know people aren't going to switch from Linux/OSX to Windows for a simple cloud drive. They'll stop using OneDrive and go to Dropbox or other service. It'd be a lose/lose decision.
 
I call bullshit on this one. I have a Lenovo N22 Chromebook. two Linux VM's (Ubuntu and Mint) running chrome and Firefox and my Main Windows machine running chrome as default browser. I just tested this claim between the different systems and there was no difference in performance between them when accessing my personal OneDrive or all three of the business OneDrive accounts using the web interface on any browser.

I just confirmed myself under Windows 10 and Chrome the agent string makes no difference. So whatever this is it can't be the agent string alone.
 
They've been doing a lot of that lately.

True but this time, this one, just doesn't make sense as something for them to do on purpose. I can absolutely see them doing it I just don't think they did. MS has done a lot of shitty and really shady things recently, but purposely force somebody off one of their cloud services isn't one of them.
 
I know it wasn't just me! Here at work I have symmetric 1Gbps and one drive on the web was straight up breaking chrome and would barely work on Firefox. Never had issues running on Windows but on my Linux desktop it is so so so slow.
 
I know it wasn't just me! Here at work I have symmetric 1Gbps and one drive on the web was straight up breaking chrome and would barely work on Firefox. Never had issues running on Windows but on my Linux desktop it is so so so slow.

Did you try changing the agent string to see if that fixes the performance?
 
I know it wasn't just me! Here at work I have symmetric 1Gbps and one drive on the web was straight up breaking chrome and would barely work on Firefox. Never had issues running on Windows but on my Linux desktop it is so so so slow.

What Linux Distro are you running?

I just tested this with my Win machine against my VM Ubuntu and Mint 18 along with my Chromebook and there was zero speed difference using IE, Edge, chrome and firefox. I have 152 Gigs of data in my personal OneDrive of photos and music and about 30Gigs spread over 3 different OneDrive for Business accounts. All where just as quick on each machine as it was on my Main win system. This was all tested in my Home lab with 100Mbps Cable connection running through an Sophos SG 115 UTM.

Note, I did not change any browser strings. I just open up the browser on each machine, logged in and started browsing through folders.
 
Besides redefining 'unlimited' storage as 1TB when their marketing budget ran o... er, I mean when people started 'abusing' it?

Well that's OneDrive, not Office, but fair point. But Office/OneDrive have clients for everything now, Windows (there's actually 2 native clients for Windows, desktop and mobile focused UAWs), macOS, iOS, Android and web. So it does seem odd that an issue that just in this this thread is producing inconsistent results is the product of a Microsoft conspiracy to prevent the web client from working just in desktop Linux when all that's needed is to change the agent string.
 
Changing the browser agent doesn't change the browser, it only changes how the browser is identified on the other end. So, if changing the browser agent changes behavior or performance, the cause is not the browser, it's the other end displaying different behavior based on what it thinks is a different browser.

Fair enough, though only one part of the apps runs in the browser. They could easily delay responses and whatnot. It's not like 99.9% of users would have any idea why it's running like shit.
 
I like bashing Microsoft as much as the next guy but couldn't this just be load-leveling roulette? They did just have a sporadic service outage after all.
 
I like bashing Microsoft as much as the next guy but couldn't this just be load-leveling roulette? They did just have a sporadic service outage after all.

It's hard to tell the difference these days since MS takes so many self-sabotaging actions against their own best interests, but this one sounds more ineptitude and oversight than one of the new anti-user policies. The same brain surgeons that thought it was a good idea to remove onedrive placeholders or bait-and-switch the storage limits.
 
Although unlikely, I like to think this is Microsoft's retaliation for Google blocking Windows phone users from using their services. (google did the same thing with google maps. If Windows phone 8 was detected, the site was blocked, but if the browser id was changed just slightly, it worked fine)
 
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