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Former Edge Browser Intern Alleges Google Sabotaged Microsoft's Browser (ycombinator.com)
Joshua Bakita, a former software engineering intern on the Edge team at Microsoft, says one of the reasons why Microsoft had to ditch EdgeHTML rendering engine in Edge browser and switch to Chromium was to keep up with the changes (some of which were notorious) that Google pushed to its sites. These changes were designed to ensure that Edge and other browsers could not properly run Google's sites, he alleged. Responding to a comment, he wrote: "For example, they may start integrating technologies for which they have exclusive, or at least 'special' access. Can you imagine if all of a sudden Google apps start performing better than anyone else's?" This is already happening. I very recently worked on the Edge team, and one of the reasons we decided to end EdgeHTML was because Google kept making changes to its sites that broke other browsers, and we couldn't keep up.
For example, they recently added a hidden empty div over YouTube videos that causes our hardware acceleration fast-path to bail (should now be fixed in Win10 Oct update). Prior to that, our fairly state-of-the-art video acceleration put us well ahead of Chrome on video playback time on battery, but almost the instant they broke things on YouTube, they started advertising Chrome's dominance over Edge on video-watching battery life. What makes it so sad, is that their claimed dominance was not due to ingenious optimization work by Chrome, but due to a failure of YouTube. On the whole, they only made the web slower.
Now while I'm not sure I'm convinced that YouTube was changed intentionally to slow Edge, many of my co-workers are quite convinced -- and they're the ones who looked into it personally. To add to this all, when we asked, YouTube turned down our request to remove the hidden empty div and did not elaborate further. And this is only one case.
For example, they recently added a hidden empty div over YouTube videos that causes our hardware acceleration fast-path to bail (should now be fixed in Win10 Oct update). Prior to that, our fairly state-of-the-art video acceleration put us well ahead of Chrome on video playback time on battery, but almost the instant they broke things on YouTube, they started advertising Chrome's dominance over Edge on video-watching battery life. What makes it so sad, is that their claimed dominance was not due to ingenious optimization work by Chrome, but due to a failure of YouTube. On the whole, they only made the web slower.
Now while I'm not sure I'm convinced that YouTube was changed intentionally to slow Edge, many of my co-workers are quite convinced -- and they're the ones who looked into it personally. To add to this all, when we asked, YouTube turned down our request to remove the hidden empty div and did not elaborate further. And this is only one case.
"but due to a failure of YouTube."
You mean a failure of Edge?
Can you imagine if all of a sudden ________ apps start performing better than anyone else's?
Yes we can. Ask the DR-DOS team.
I believe this 100%. Google Docs has basically become unusable unless you're using Chrome.
We may be seeing Microsoft getting a taste of its own medicine.
Chrome is repeating all the tricks that Microsoft used in the 90's to ensure browser dominance.
Don't be evil. Yeah, right. Sell eyeballs at any cost.
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
I guess Microsoft does't require interns to sign an NDA...
Whoever wins... we lose.
#DeleteFacebook
Contrary to MS in the 90ies, Chrome (Chromium) is FOSS. Everyone can use it, everyone can fork it, everyone can deploy it to their platform. Even MS. (sic) The technology and the core software itself is objectively good, while MSes was objectively evil.
Googles tactics were probably neccessary to prevent MS from doing their MS-threestep. Given, Google, like no other, profits from a strong web, especially because they own it with their key product, Google Search, but no one is preventing MS from building their own video streaming site that competes with youtube.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
strange game...the only way to win is not to play.
run "web"-services that relied on Microsoft-proprietary extensions that were built only to make it impossible for non-Windows-browsers to be compatible?
It's hilarious when it is Microsoft who complains about the strategy they have been using for decades to suppress healthy competition.
Google can go to hell, but Microsoft should lead the way.
A Microsofty complaining their cool little piece of tech was ruined by vast heartless corporation using a virtual monopoly. Does he see the irony there? Or the karma?
He (the intern) is probably too young to even remember those days.
So Google embraced some new piece of technology, extended it and then used that to extinguish the competition.
Where have I heard of a company doing that?!?
I love it when Microsoft gets to eat the same shit sandwich they've feed to so many others.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
I agree with a lot of the other up-modded comments, but let me get this straight... MS worked on EdgeHTML for 4 years, and finally threw in the towel because of changes that Google kept implementing on their sites? Edge hardly even broke 2% of the browser market share - EVER.
Google makes a lot of little changes, all the time. And they probably do get 'insight' into the benefit of those before others. But I think it's pretty clear that MS didn't fail with Edge because of Google. MS failed because they still really don't play well with others. It's just that now, the others are the big dogs in the yard.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
BTW: The web version of Microsoft "Teams" runs fine with Chrome on Linux, but only if the "UserAgent" is faked to indicate a Windows-based browser. Exactly the same evil strategy, used as of today, by Microsoft.
Microsoft can't keep up with a hidden empty div?
Apparently, Microsoft's goal was to create a fast rendering path that only worked on the one site they wished to brag about, and only if that one site never changed. "Good grief," they all whispered among themselves, "if we're forced to make our fast path robust we'll never climb this mountain fast enough to overtake competent competition".
If Google inserted custom code into Chrome with the only function of ignoring a hidden empty div, then I might enlarge my tiny violin to the manly scale of Schroeder's baby grand. After DR-DOS, it shrunk so small that my personal Jiminy Cricket hauls it out only when he needs a good mosquito repellent. I've got one earlobe that hasn't been bitten, yet.
Netscape had to contend with random and erratically documented behaviour from the entire operating system they ran on top of. One suspects that just one of those old Netscape greybeards from the 1990s could log roll the entire Edge team all by himself. While drinking scalding hot tea from bone china with those dainty handles—and not spilling a drop.
It's not fair!
Refrain of bullies everywhere when they're on the receiving end of the abuse.
The ironing is delicious.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Have you ever written a bug report for any browsers? There are currently two types of development communities:
1. Chrome and Firefox: You write a bug report and someone will take a look. There will probably be a short discussion and your bug may get fixed or there is a reason why it won't be fixed. I wrote a but report last week for Chrome and the bug got fixed within two days. The current Chrome Canary build already contains the bugfix. Filing bug reports for these browsers is fun, because the development community works.
2. Edge and Safari: You write a bug report and nobody gives a sh&t. I wrote a bunch of bug reports for WebKit and the feedback was exactly zero. Nothing. Not even a confirmation that the bug is valid (or invalid). And of course the bugs are still in there and they are getting more and more, because the development community is broken.
So no, Edge and Safari are the new Internet Explorer, they suck and they will continue to suck. Chrome is almost years ahead, and the distance will grow. Mozilla has the right attitude and is trying hard to catch up with Chrome. I hope they will succeed, because otherwise we will be left only with Chrome, Opera and Vivaldi, which are all based on Chromium.
Signature deleted by lameness filter.
Here's to the 90's and early 2000 when Microsoft did the exact same shit
Microsoft and IE6 set the web back over a decade (throw in some Adobe Flash to add insult to injury) and Microsoft wants to whine about fair?
What they should do is say "Hey, we did the same thing 20 years ago and it was a mistake. We are sorry for being such assholes and screwing the entire world with regards to HTML. We see Google is apparently doing the same thing, and while it's karma coming to bite us in the ass, it doesn't mean it's good for anyone, so maybe someone other than us, since we are biased and anything but above reproach, should look into it."
While I disagree with what Google may be doing if it's intentional just to break Edge, I can't anything but joy in seeing Microsoft get fucked in the exact same way they fucked the rest of the world 20 years ago. I know I should be more angry, but I can't get past the fact that Microsoft is crying about being bullied the same way they bullied everyone else. So someone else needs to take the reigns on this and drive the discovery and corrective action (if possible).
Suckitup Buttercup - MS invented the 'crush the competition under the weight of a vertically integrated monopoly by breaking their own peripheral product' business model.
/. of all places.
Douchebag behaviour from any monopolist but hearing MS browser devs bleat about being on the receiving end. on
This perpetual motion machine Lisa made is a joke, it just keeps getting faster and faster. - Homer
MS is still playing the same tricks as it ever did before.
A lot of MS web based applications only work properly when using IE or Edge; you get bogged up pages or slow response when using other browsers, some things don't even work.
Think sharepoint, but also o365.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
I'd like to say "Boo Hoo" like the others. The truth is, it's just a boo hoo.
Here's the deal. What Google did was absolutely and completely compatible with the web. It wasn't a violation of standards. It wasn't much of anything other than a legitimate case where by using a transparent div, they could choose to provide overlays on the video. Now, if they had no intention of using it, it wasn't particularly relevant. But there's nothing particularly wrong with what they did.
If you read the HTML5 specs and you see the nasty crap associated with how the video tag works, modern browsers have to be coded to render to a 3D context (webgl is easiest). Video, for battery performance if often pipelined in a way that would offload rendering from the GPU. As such, it can be really problematic to render if there's overlays (meaning divs) while not hogging battery. So, the solution is to redirect video rendering directly to the frame buffer bypassing the fancy 3d rendering bits if there's nothing to render as an overlay on the video. In other words "If stuff on top of video is invisible, don't waste cycles rendering stuff on top of video". This is a simple optimization which they should do anyway.
I would love to call Boo Hoo, but in reality, we went through this for 20 years with Netscape and Microsoft and Google. We dumped our own rendering engine a million years ago because the web is just too damn big these days.
The best solution is that everyone just dumps their own rendering engines and all standardizes on Chromium at the core and then build something like the Linux foundation to support it independently. If Microsoft, Google, Apple and Firefox were to honestly try to stay compatible with each other through standards documents, it would just be a waste of time. We don't really need 50 different web browser engines anymore. Just make a single one and commit to it.