Former Edge Browser Intern Alleges Google Sabotaged Microsoft's Browser (ycombinator.com) 427
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.
Boo hoo (Score:4, Insightful)
"but due to a failure of YouTube."
You mean a failure of Edge?
Re:Boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft has to learn how to make software like everyone else. You need to keep compatibility with the big fish, and not just do your own thing, and thinking everyone will switch to your method.
I am sorry, I had to code too many IE 6 workarounds and not put in new features due to having to keep IE 6 compatibility for so long, I have no sympathy to this Edge engineer.
Re:Boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your ally.
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These changes were designed to ensure that Edge and other browsers could not properly run Google's sites
Google ain't done until Edge won't run? I have a feeling I've heard something like that before somewhere...
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True, but watching the enemy of my enemy screw my enemy over using the same tricks my enemy screwed me over is fucking hilarious.
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Karma's a bitch (Score:4, Funny)
Here's to the 90's and early 2000 when Microsoft did the exact same shit
Re:Boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
Google would be able to change YouTube's code a lot faster than Microsoft could push out updates for Edge.
Re:Boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
And Microsoft is well aware of this. Why? Because that's exactly how they were conducting their "embrace, extend, extinguish" policy when they were the big bully on the block.
Do you notice that it's an intern complaining, and not an official Microsoft statement? I guess that they are ashamed, or unwilling to remind those of us who remember of all the hoops we had to jump to keep stuff IE (was it 6) compliant. Client side VisualBasic, not-quite JavaScript, non-compliance to standards, etc.
Google has read Microsoft's "Book of Evulz", and is following it to the letter.
Re:Boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, I'm not losing sleep either, but if Google is making useless changes to their websites in order to specifically screw with Edge, that's bad. If they are making useful changes to their websites...and it happens to screw with Edge. Not really their problem. Of course I didn't RTFA, so I can't really say which is which.
let's just get this out of the way right now (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not fair!
Refrain of bullies everywhere when they're on the receiving end of the abuse.
The ironing is delicious.
Re:let's just get this out of the way right now (Score:4, Funny)
The ironing is delicious.
Yes, but not the best way to add fiber to your diet.
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Google's work on HTML frameworks like Angular where a lot of HTML in the DOM is generated by the framework from some other abstraction, makes me think that the change had nothing to do with Microsoft. An upgrade of whatever framework they use for YouTube could have inserted the empty div. Which might appear useless in the particular context, but if a different part of the framework were used it would not be empty.
Basically, the framework trades off what should be a harmless empty div in some cases for ease
Re:Boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
So what you're saying is... Google is following in Microsoft's evil footsteps?
Re: Boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
I came here to say this.
ActiveX
Silverlight
Incompatible CSS and IE specific JavaScript.
Microsoft is one of the reasons the internet was a standards nightmare, while Mozilla, Google and Opera all played nice with standards, Microsoft didn't.
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Edge isn't IE.
Believe it or not, it seems that MS really learned their lesson. Edge ain't perfect, but it virtually on par with most other browsers for standards compliance. Only Chrome has a significant lead in that regard.
Of course, I imagine it's just a whole lot easier to carry on the MS hate than it is to actually pause and take a look at what's really going on.
Re: Boo hoo (Score:5, Informative)
MS haven't learned their lesson, they just don't like the fact that someone else is now in a position to give them a taste of their own medicine.
Don't dish it out if you can't take it.
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Re:Boo hoo (Score:5, Informative)
yeah but MS now is behaving better than google.
Google, has many umm 'addons' to the internet specs that offer better , faster, but is 100% google.
Btw, YOUTUBE, fix your shit UI, I am sick of seeing video suggestions with NO TIME STAMPS, I need to know if your stupid video suggestion is 7 years old, or 2 days old. Give us a fucking date stamp, you bunch of stupid ass useless coders - who are so minimalists, it makes DOS 1982 software look like it has more features.
Oh and if you delete users videos, and my 'list' shows video deleted, tell me THE FUCKING ORIGINAL TITLE, idiots, i have to save my list to a drive document because you suck at coding.
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Pretty sure they are being malicious rather than incompetent.. That whole saying (Hanlon's Razor) is basically the opposite in the tech world. When Google/Microsoft are making a UI that they know millions of people will use every day, they are thinking 'fuck you' to a very specific set of people for a very specific reason. IMO, Google does it to control thought process and censor what doesn't fit their narrative. If they were transparent about videos they removed, they would include more information like yo
Re:Boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft has to learn how to make software like everyone else. You need to keep compatibility with the big fish, and not just do your own thing, and thinking everyone will switch to your method.
So much this. All the other browsers had to deal with these same changes to Google sites too. Why was it so much more painful to Microsoft? Well, I thought this piece from the article was pretty telling:
What's particularly interesting about this is that whether Google did this intentionally or not, Microsoft fell into a trap that it set for itself. When Bakita says, "we couldn't keep up", and goes on to say that the issue is fixed in the Windows 10 October 2018 Update, that's actually because Microsoft set a path for itself where it could only add new features to Edge with feature updates to Windows 10. That limits the company to twice per year.
I'm sorry, but this browser was doomed as soon as it arrived due to fundamental flaws in its design. Blaming Google is just focusing on the convenient obvious symptom instead of addressing the root problem.
To be fair, that's exactly the kind of mistake I'd expect to see an intern make.
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I had to code too many IE 6 workarounds and not put in new features due to having to keep IE 6 compatibility for so long, I have no sympathy to this Edge engineer.
Perhaps you could explain how two wrongs don't make a right squares with "don't be evil". Or perhaps the latter is no longer a thing.
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Hard to call Google's actions "evil"
It is a question of intent. If Google devs intended to break Edge's hardware acceleration then it is evil, plausible cover story notwithstanding.
Re:Boo hoo (Score:4, Insightful)
I give it a couple of years before everything but Search and YouTube requires Chrome
And 5 years for Search and YouTube.
Re: Boo hoo (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see Apple or Mozilla complaining. The whole issue is with Edge and how slow its update model is.
Re: Boo hoo (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Boo hoo (Score:4, Insightful)
Google now gets carte blanche for being just as evil? Wut?
If they're doing it to microsoft - yes, poetic justice.
If they're doing it to firefox etc, no.
If someone from mozilla or opera was making this complaint they would justifiably get some sympathy here, microsoft don't deserve any.
Re:Boo hoo (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yes, it sounds very much like Microsoft's "hardware acceleration fast-path" was a hack that relied on very specific HTML layout of the YouTube site, and when Google changed it (by adding an empty hidden div no less - something that should have absolutely no effect on a standards compliant layout engine not to mention the video hardware acceleration) it broke their precious benchmark cheat.
Exactly.
Edge is a completely useless piece of crap. It is so badly designed it makes you wonder if anyone at Microsoft even understands how computers and the Internet actually work.
Re: Boo hoo (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, and if an empty div changes anything of that, Edge got far bigger problems then I can imagine.
But the number of websites which works in Firefox and Chrome but not Edge, is so big, that I really think the issue is with Edge, and not Google.
Re:Boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah it's funny when Google is messing around with Microsoft and deliberately making Microsoft products run slower. Microsoft is simply getting a taste of its own medicine, as they used to deliberately make things broken in IE6 back when they had the dominant browser.
But it's not so funny when (or if) Google adds stuff that slows down Firefox or other open source competitors to Chrome.
Re:Boo hoo (Score:4, Interesting)
"YouTube ain't done till Firefox won't run". There's no way they'd stop at Edge.
The bizarre thing is Google isn't even doing this for money; this is evil for evil's sake.
Re:Boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
>"But it's not so funny when (or if) Google adds stuff that slows down Firefox or other open source competitors to Chrome."
Bingo. And if anyone thinks that isn't already happening or won't happen, they need a reality check. Chrome has decimated Firefox's market share- and most of it undeserved. Firefox is the last light in the "true" open-source, multi-platform, modern browser era. We will all absolutely be worse off if that light is extinguished.
Ask yourselves if there is really any good reason now to "automatically" install Chrome on machines or recommend it to friends and family. If not, consider making it Firefox. The painful redesign of the Firefox engine that lost some of the addons ended up making Firefox just as fast and more resource friendly while still being much more user-oriented and configurable than Chrome... and with a huge bonus of not being tied into all kinds of other incentives to do bad things with your data. (Looking at you, YouTube/Android/Gmail/Gmaps/Gwhatever users..).
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if anyone thinks that isn't already happening or won't happen, they need a reality check
Some of Google's tactics in pushing Chrome's market share over Firefox bear a strong resemblance to the tactics Microsoft used to suppress Netscape Navigator. It's hard to reach any other conclusion than that those smart Googlers studied Microsoft's tactics and emulated them.
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You're not wrong, and I'd like to like Firefox, but I don't really have the time and energy to keep figuring out where my extensions and plugins keep disappearing to.
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You omitted the most important thing. It's the _last_ prominent browser that is open to all adblockers.
Screw Google, screw Microsoft, screw Apple.
When and if they take last adblocker from my hand, the only website on the Internet I am going to visit will be my bank, my work and moonsighting.com (it is already infested with everything and looks like nightmare without blockers, but I will go there at least twice a year, no
Re:Boo hoo (Score:5, Interesting)
Google already downgrades search functionality for firefox mobile. Once I changed the user agent to chrome, all the missing features suddenly appeared and were working with no issues.
Make no mistake, Google is just as evil as Microsoft was in its day.
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I remember a few months ago when suddenly my nightly Firefox builds were getting the same mobile Google search as Chrome. And it was because Firefox devs decided to force the issue and just say Firefox was Chrome with a user-agent hack. Google quickly shat out some new slightly better inferior web search for Firefox, and in the spirit of cooperation, Mozilla took away their hack. Since then, that new Firefox experience is barely being paid lip service, while Google is busy pushing more crap onto their Chrom
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Failure of stupid users and coward media. Google claimed better battery life while watching Goodle videos and they fell for it. Is there any surprise here? What next? Will Chrome be declared as the only browser because it can view YouTube? The users should have realized that Google is using its own site to benchmark its own browser and that is fishy. But show me one site which questioned this?
Re: Boo hoo (Score:3)
Yes, we can imagine (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you imagine if all of a sudden ________ apps start performing better than anyone else's?
Yes we can. Ask the DR-DOS team.
Re:Yes, we can imagine (Score:4, Informative)
And speaking of trying out proprietary technologies in your own browser, we all remember Active X and IE HTML extensions and Frontpage server side extensions.
This whole thing is bollocks anyway. Google isn't breaking sites in other browsers like Microsoft did, the are just developing new tech that eventually they propose as a standard if it works out. And the YouTube "attack" on Edge sounds more like a bug, especially since they fixed it in an update. Likely the Edge code was brittle and heavily optimized to win battery benchmarks at the expense of compatibility, i.e. it was tuned to YouTube so specifically that the addition of an invisible div broke it.
Jog on Microsoft.
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Well, that's what the whole "living standard" malarky is all about.
It's the browser wars all over again, just with google as king of the hill this time. But they don't have the moral high ground, just like microsoft didn't when they fucked over ECMA and ISO for their "ooxml" abortion. So microsoft took a few risks too many with "edge". They aren't so great on code robustness seeing their problems on windows, anyway. So they're trying to get back at google by co-opting google's own source. Apart from the los
Re:Yes, we can imagine (Score:5, Insightful)
Attitudes like this are basically the reason people are going to pissed in about 10 more years when Google really is the new Microsoft. We have the chance to fix the issue now, but people like you are too obsessed with rubbing Microsoft's nose in the dirt over 15+ year old mistakes to realize you're enabling Google to do the exact same shit.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yes, we can imagine (Score:5, Insightful)
Fix what issue? Should Google stop developing new technology? A lot of the improvements to the standards have come from Google and other doing this kind of work. HTTP3 is based on Google technology that was pioneered with Chrome and Google sites, and it's excellent.
HTTP3 is Google wrestling control over the remaining part of the stack Google doesn't have full ownership over.
You might think pushing congestion control out to user space where Google has intentionally given themselves a 2x advantage over TCP is "excellent". When I look at that it's nothing more than a pure power grab for self-serving reasons actively harmful to everyone else.
There is nothing substantive HTTP3 brings to the table TFO+TLS 1.3 does not already provide.
Microsoft's stuff was closed source proprietary bug-ridden crap. Lack of support broke sites, while Google is careful to ensure that sites work fine in other browsers. Remember when you couldn't download stuff from Microsoft.com because it needed IE?
How is memory lane at all relevant to the issue at hand? Microsoft sucks or sucked or whatever therefore ... what? Google gets a pass?
What exactly has Google done wrong here?
*IF* the assertions are true Google intentionally leveraged it's monopoly position to intentionally sabotage other browsers to get more people to switch to Chrome.
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Re:Yes, we can imagine (Score:5, Informative)
"It's pretty clear we need to make sure Windows 3.1 only runs on top of MS DOS or an OEM version of it," and "The approach we will take is to detect dr 6 and refuse to load. The error message should be something like 'Invalid device driver interface.'" Microsoft had several methods of detecting and sabotaging the use of DR-DOS with Windows,
Allchin replied: "You should make sure it has problems in the future. :-)",
Silverberg replied: "What the guy is supposed to do is feel uncomfortable, and when he has bugs, suspect that the problem is dr-dos and then go out to buy ms-dos. or decide to not take the risk for the other machines he has to buy for in the office."
Re:Yes, we can imagine (Score:5, Informative)
Except that's not what actually happened.
When Windows 3.1 was in Beta, Microsoft put in some code that displayed an error message if you weren't running Microsoft's own MS-DOS. But all it did was display an error message. You could just ignore it and Win 3.1 would still run -- I was running DR-DOS at the time and it worked just fine.
A few beta testers were using DR-DOS and word got out that Microsoft had done something to prevent people from using anything other than MS-DOS. In the official retail release of Win 3.1 Microsoft changed the code and deactivated the error message. It was still in there but didn't display. You could activate it by using a hex editor to change a couple of bytes.
Re:Yes, we can imagine (Score:5, Informative)
I Believe It (Score:4, Interesting)
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I believe this 100%. Google Docs has basically become unusable unless you're using Chrome.
It is fairly unusable within Chrome - any document more than a few pages is ridiculously slow to navigate and enter text into.
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I use FireFox, both mobile and desktop, and google docs and spreadsheets work fine for me. Haven't tried Slides recently but it worked fine the last time I did.
Re:I Believe It (Score:5, Interesting)
I use FireFox, both mobile and desktop, and google docs and spreadsheets work fine for me. Haven't tried Slides recently but it worked fine the last time I did.
Open Google's image search in mobile Firefox.
Then do it in mobile Chrome.
See the difference in functionality?
Now change Firefox's user agent to masquerade as Chrome.
Suddenly the full functionality is back.
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Hehe amen... I use no "cloud" I hate that name btw, it's used like it's some "new" thing back when the name started being used everywhere... Network storage has existed since 60s... But I digress.
Personally I use freenas for backups at home and for off-site stuff I own a colocated server which I run nextcloud for me and a friend. Luckily I own the box that is colocated. But even if I didn't have a Colo, I'd use freenas and/or nextcloud at home. I have my freenas box on a vlan so my systems have access but t
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Embrace Extend Extinguish (Score:5, Interesting)
We may be seeing Microsoft getting a taste of its own medicine.
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We may be seeing Microsoft getting a taste of its own medicine.
Satisfying as that may be, it still change Google into a bunch of hymn singing angels.
Re:Embrace Extend Extinguish (Score:5, Insightful)
>"Satisfying as that may be, it still change Google into a bunch of hymn singing angels."
Exactly. Which is why it is more important than ever to support Mozilla Firefox. We absolutely do NOT want to end up with Google in control of everything.... any more than what we dealt with when Microsoft was ruining the web.
There was a time when Chrome pulled ahead of Firefox in performance. That time ended. It is a good time to switch to or switch back to Firefox. You will have web-standards-based browsing on all platforms, open source, open development team, just as many addons, but with more user control and customization.
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They already look like Chrome, and behave like Chrome
They are a rendering engine away from Chrome.
Which is why I stop using it after 56.
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Remember when Microsoft were so dominant no-one would try messing with them? Times have changed.
Re:Embrace Extend Extinguish (Score:5, Insightful)
We may be seeing Microsoft getting a taste of its own medicine.
So is it really okay if Google screws over other web browsers with Chrome-specific hacks, just because Microsoft did it a decade or so ago? Cuz in doing so, Google is also causing problems for people who aren't using Edge or Internet Explorer.
I think if it was evil when Microsoft did it, it's also evil if Google does it.
Re:Embrace Extend Extinguish (Score:5, Interesting)
No, but it's like seeing the previous dictator swinging on a rope, put there by the new dictator who is exactly the same. The state of the things didn't change, but the good feeling of "an asshole getting what was coming to them" is still there.
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So is it really okay if Google screws over other web browsers with Chrome-specific hacks
If by "chrome specific hacks" as used in this case, which actually means "valid html in an html page rendered perfectly fine by all browsers except edge" then yes, yes it is really ok.
You see, using HTML in a valid way, which all web browsers render fine, is called "doing the right thing"
Firefox can display youtube pages and accelerate them.
WebKit in Safari can display youtube pages and accelerate them on OS X. I suspect WebKit on iOS can too else we would be hearing about it by now.
If using valid html br
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We may be seeing Microsoft getting a taste of its own medicine.
Well whoop-de-doo.
I mean don't get me wrong. the old 90s era Micro$oft basher in me feels some sense of glee at them getting their comeuppance. But there's a bit of a problem here. While they are getting a taste of their own medicine, we're also getting a taste of their medicine all over again.
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Except I have not had any of these problems with other non-google browsers such as with Firefox.
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Ah, do tell how you got Google Earth working in FF.
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Man google really showed them. (Score:2)
Google site supported open standards, and its features were build around open standards. And not Microsoft specific features, that other browsers don't support.
Chrome is the new IE (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Nope. Wrong. (Score:3)
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 thei
Re:Nope. Wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not the point... Just because OSS is involved doesn't mean Google isn't asserting dominating control over the Internet.
This is not something to cheer on no matter how much irony there may be in Microsoft being the victim this time.
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But lets face it - between a couple of corporate behemoths fighting it out over standards that will eventually dictate how the web works, etc. I would much prefer for one of the players to be backing a F/OSS based standard/implementation. Better of course would be all backers being behind various F/OSS standards/implementations and letting the technical best win
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>"Chrome (Chromium) is FOSS."
Chromium is FOSS. Chrome is a binary blob with who-knows-what in it, which is based on Chromium to some mystery extent. And something like 99.9% of Chrom* users are Chrome users, not Chromium.
>"Everyone can use it [Chromium], everyone can fork it, everyone can deploy it to their platform."
Except nobody has... yet (that I am aware of). And if they did, rest assure that somehow it will never keep up with actual Chrome.
>"The technology [of Chrome/Chromium] and the core
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No, Chrome is great (Score:3)
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
NDA (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess Microsoft does't require interns to sign an NDA...
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Naturally he signed an NDA, and has now broken it. Very stupid. This guy shouldn't be blabbing, even if he thinks he's defending his team. Sometimes people have to learn the hard way not to spout what they know to the internet. He may very well face some consequences because of this, depending on how serious Microsoft takes this breach.
This is funny (Score:2, Insightful)
Time for Microsoft to get a taste of their own medicine perhaps? (i.e. DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run, etc)
-Miser
If true (Score:2)
How many IE's are still installed only to... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Let me get this straight... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Say what?! (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Maybe Edge just sucks in the first place? (Score:2)
That might be the #1 reason M$ is ditching their own engine ...
I find it hard to believe a company with 10's of thousands of software developers have a hard time overcoming an empty div. I'm old enough to regard anything coming out of Microsoft, regardless of the vehicle, as FUD.
Microsoft "Teams" sabotages Chrome (Score:5, Informative)
Firefox too (Score:2)
poor babies (Score:2)
the insuperable hidden empty div tax (Score:3)
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.
Microsoft set the web back over a decade with IE6 (Score:3)
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).
Anyone remember what MS tried with IE/JavaScript? (Score:3)
Douchebag behaviour from any monopolist but hearing MS browser devs bleat about being on the receiving end. on
MS still playing tricks (Score:3)
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.
Former Opera Developer here (Score:3)
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.
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Whoever wins... we lose.
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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.
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They are getting good at it.
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It is schadenfreude thou.
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Not an improvement.
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There are standards. If you page is writing with them, then you shouldn't need to do it.
I doubt even Google follows them on their sites. Just make it so Chrome works the best.