I mean it’s not like China was open and allowed competition from western companies.

I don’t know which company you’re referring to, but I think it’s pretty damn likely that China also classifies them as a military company too.

I fail to see the hypocrisy that you appear to be implying.

Not just Google. There was a performance “bug” in Windows Defender a while back that specifically harmed Firefox. It had been reported but Microsoft took 5+ years to fix, and Mozilla did the bulk of the sleuthing and proposing fixes themselves.

Now, whether MS were intentionally crippling a competitor’s browser in the beginning when the bug surfaced (which coincidentally was around the time Edge was relaunched as a chromium browser), there’s no way to know.

But after a certain point, a software company with a market cap in the trillions loses any benefit of doubt I’d give them in scenarios like this where it benefits them not to find a solution. And 5 years is far beyond that point.

Unfortunately for Firefox, they didn’t really have the money for a lawsuit against a juggernaut like Microsoft.