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Google Denies Altering YouTube Code To Break Microsoft Edge (theverge.com)
Earlier this week, a former Microsoft Edge intern alleged that Google deliberately introduced bogus changes to YouTube to break the functionality of the video portal when users on Edge and other browsers tried to access the website. Google today denied the allegation. From a report: Google disputes Bakita's claims, and says the YouTube blank div was merely a bug that was fixed after it was reported. "YouTube does not add code designed to defeat optimizations in other browsers, and works quickly to fix bugs when they're discovered," says a YouTube spokesperson in a statement to The Verge. "We regularly engage with other browser vendors through standards bodies, the Web Platform Tests project, the open-source Chromium project and more to improve browser interoperability." In a statement, Microsoft said, "Google has been a helpful partner and we look forward to the journey as we work on the future of Microsoft Edge."
While Netscape wasn't Mr. Standard Complaint. IE, with Active X combined with being installed and integrated in the OS so it couldn't be removed. Is what really got it, more then any coding fault in Netscape.
Being integrated in the OS, meant the browsers components started up when you booted the OS, and took less foot print, because it was used for other components, (such as the file browser). Active X was faster then Java Applets, because they only ran on Windows so it was just running the application, with the browser replacing window frame.
Back when PCs were just breaching 200mhz, and 16megabytes of RAM was considered a common amount. Waiting about a minute to load up a browser was common. To have it pop up after a double click was a big deal. And for the Web-Applications to have it run snappy was a big deal too. As on these old system, Running Java Byte Code was a big process.
Now granted Active-X combined with high level browser OS integration was a long term Stupid idea, because it turned your computer into a pile of goo. Because a bad Active-X control can take over your computer, and via the browser you have access all areas of your OS outside your normal permissions. But at the time, people didn't care about it, because "Why would anyone want to hack me? My computer isn't special"
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Well, it certainly was either incompetence or malice. Google were (actually are) using a non-standard "Shadow DOM v0" model that was only implemented in the Google Chrome browser. On non-chrome, a "polyfill" or pure javascript implementation of that DOM engine was used instead.
And it's not just Microsoft that are complaining here.
That's right, all you anti-microsoft blinkered people out there, Mozilla has the same complaint about Google.
YouTube basically uses an experimental version ("v0") of the shadow DOM API that is officially oboslete before it really got any traction (it's been superceeded by other versions). It was so obsolete that only Chrome implements. it is officially "depcreated" by Google, but we'll see what happens in April 2019.