Speaking of Firefox 3 add-ons and compatibility, I have an odd story that illustrates just how quirky software interactions can be.
When I upgraded to Firefox 3, I couldn’t get Google Maps to work properly. Instead of seeing a map, I saw a big grey box with the word “loading…” in the upper left corner. But nothing ever loaded. It just stayed a big grey box.
It took a bit of experimentation to finger the culprit: an add-on from Skype that turns every phone number I see online into a click-to-call button. When I have number highlighting turned on, it disables Google Maps. When I turn it off and reload the page, Google Maps work just fine.
Why should software that identifies phone numbers block a map? I have no idea.
Why should it block only maps from one company? Couldn’t tell you.
I assume Microsoft and Yahoo and Ask use similar technology to render their maps on screen but they work just fine no matter how I set my Skype add-on.
There’s only one explanation for laymen. Software is inexplicable.
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