Did Google Cripple Edge’s YouTube Performance?
medium.com
medium.com
> "Mozilla's Technical Program Manager has stated that YouTube's Polymer redesign relies heavily on the deprecated Shadow DOM v0 API, which is only available in Chrome." https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/07/25/1128225/google-has-...
Relying on a deprecated API, only available to Chrome, and forcing a slow polyfill on everyone else seems like a sure fire way to try to push people to use Chrome and make things slow for everyone else.
Whether or not this latest Edge / div debacle was malicious or not, the company has a history of doing stuff leaning that direction.
Oh and also, EdgeHTML might not have been the best engine but saying it "sucks shit" is a bit extreme.
And I think Microsoft did a genius move because Edge can be now the cool browser that rocks like Chrome but without the privacy issues it offers.
This is also the problem Mozilla confronts. Year after year they urged for open source and an open web and now that Microsoft opts for it, they feel betrayed.
Put another way: the rendering engine is a commodity while the intention you use it for is the real deal.
But either way, the platform is not really controlled by the community. Sure you can file issues and pull requests or even fork Chromium but ultimately, Google still controls what's merged into the global Chromium master, so it's not really decentralized power.
Also, you've missed the main point. The problem here isn't that we don't have enough free/open source browser engines, the problem is that we don't have enough _different_ browser engines. If there's only one dominant browser engine, then whoever maintains that engine can decide how the web works. And that's kinda scary.
My bet is that Microsoft will offer everything that google offers, AND some more extras that google probably won't want to offer to protect their business plan.
Also, my bet is that Microsoft will make kick-ass documentation for Chromium and kick-ass developer integration with the popular VSCode so web developers will reach for that first.
I'm not saying consumers shouldn't have choice. That isn't at all what I'm saying. What I am saying is: Chrome didn't arrive at its market share by some corporate scheme to enforce usage by vertical tying. Chrome arrived at that market share by making a great piece of software that most consumers like and are happy with.
And I take particular offense to a browser that is bundled with an operating system by default--as opposed to one a user has to go out of their way to download--as being some panacea to Google. Edge and Safari likely have meaningful market share for no reason beyond: they ship with Windows and macOS respectively.
Chrome certainly ships as the default on Chromebooks and Android, but you'd be remiss to ignore that Chrome is the most used browser on Windows, and second most common on macOS. Those are consumers making a choice. Yet so many people in programming and tech circles don't stop to ask themselves why consumers are opting for Chrome.
So maybe the final line in my post seems harsh, but here's the reality: Edge is only a thing because it ships with Windows. Beyond that I see no technical reason to favor it over Chrome or even Firefox. On Windows, consumers have already spoken: they like Chrome. Lastly, Edge is a pretty questionable argument in favor of "consumer choice", given it represents a choice no consumer actually made beyond "default browser in Windows."
The Chrome install base on Windows is not entirely due to user choice. Chrome is/was bundled and selected for installation by default with many other software products, including Adobe Reader, CCleaner, and Avast antivirus.
But I think your point stands.
I think this is a good case study of why some companies doesn't allow its employees to blog about their company or work without going through some sort of process.
Edit: It still reads to me as if you were the one who committed the div tag on youtube. I am not sure if I am the only one.
Safari is also a good browser. I don't need justifications here.
However, if everyone adapts a single solution (WebKit/V8) then the web will just gravitate towards that and neglect standards and other engines, making it harder for consumers to use those.
The quintessence here is: People shouldn't just look at the raw performace (or quality or whatever) of a product, they should also consider the implications of using it. If almost everyone's using one particular implementation of a standard, then the other implementations will be extinct and users of those other implementations will be forced to use that most prominent one, eliminating their choice.
I'd recommend you read up on "Windows Refund Day". It kinda fits here. Here's a good video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j9j-Ywjmbk
You should care. Part of the implicit criticism in the original post by the intern is that Google is so arrogant in its browser’s dominance that it breaks the web and doesn’t give a shit if anyone complains about it. The tone of your article is certainly doing nothing to help that impression.
This notion that some intern posts an unfounded assertion that attributes malicious behavior to Google, that has multiple other plausible explanations? That is rude--attributing malice where it is wholly unjustified.
So am I remorseful for my tone? Fuck no. My truth standards are such that I'm not about to settle for other people's BS if there isn't evidence to support it. Speculation isn't evidence.
Is there anything that a person who doesn't work at Google (like the author) can do to help that impression? Is there any reason why anybody who doesn't work at Google should even worry about helping that impression?
It's much more likely that Google was trying to improve their user experience by working around an IE bug, than deliberately harming their user experience for a PR article.
Didnt realize it was an intern (who probably lacks experience with the code) who made the false accusation in the first place. Even if that werent true, making baseless arguments do not sound like the new MSFT that HN tries to project.
This is the person who was directly called out for a specific action which broke one element of Edge functionality. His commits and comments have a very strong "well, fuck them" vibe to them.
I read the initial post that led to this blog reply. It accused google of not playing well with others. The engineer in question is in this thread saying he doesn't give a shit what people think about his tone and that he isn't diplomatic.
He is literally the criticism personified - the hubris made person.
No wonder people are talking about it.
And here's where I take umbrage with your response: I'm an engineer. I'm not here to sugar coat shit for people. There are a dozen different legitimate reasons someone may position some element over a video rendering window, and it is 100% MSFT's bad for not even considering this test case when they wrote their rendering engine.
And what really irks me is: thousands and thousands of people on the Internet seem to take this story by some MSFT intern as not only plausible but probable. And that's bullshit. Our standards for truth as engineers should be higher than that.
I'm a lawyer. I get paid a lot to communicate directly and precisely. While many people in our field are viewed as assholes, the best of us are able to be blunt while also being tactful. Being an engineer isn't an excuse for communicating poorly or having your tone override your message. Luckily this is a trait that can be worked on - I used to have the same issue and am getting better.
Let me take a deeper look at what's irking you: You state Google may have had a valid reason to do what it did. Okay. Let's conceed that. Despite that concession, does that actually address the problem you raised?
1) Google may have, despite having had a reason to do what it did, done it for the wrong reason. The timing of advertising which specifically required the negative effect of the change upon Edge's metrics certainly seems to point that way. You've described a plausible alterative rationale for their actions, but nothing more than that.
2) Incentivewise, Google has every desire in the world to maintain their browser marketshare numbers.
3) The full claim made by the intern is that this was one of an onslaught of changes made by Google to make their sites less performant on other browsers. Other people in the same thread indicated similar issues, and Google staff indicated that they were actually planning on resolving some of these issues in the future, an admission that the issues do, in fact, exist.
4) The intern further makes an allegation that the Edge team attempted to inform Google about the behavior, but did not receive any redress or explanation regarding the issue. One would expect that the Youtube team would have raised the issues you addressed regarding Edge's handling in a quick reply. They didn't.
Overall, if you were Google staff, your objection would deal with a number of these points I've raised, but as it stands that isn't the case.
I did appreciate the article's technical discussion, though, so thank you for that insight.
No, the intern called out Google, not this guy.
Sorry if I wasn't clear.
Not 'related' or 'similar' code, mind you. Maybe that's where I assumed he was part of the team.
If you're right and he doesn't work for the company the piece becomes pure speculation.
He says as much himself: "Here’s what I suspect happened at google:"
I still run Youtube Classic.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/01/google-maps-windows-...
What I would say, however is "rude" is attributing malice when there is a perfectly reasonable alternate explanation to a story.
That's really what I take umbrage with; our standards for truth should be higher than the insinuations of a MSFT intern with no clear evidence, and a total lack of the net community as a whole even to consider alternate possibilities.
I remember when I was doing Web programming in pre IE6 era, it was insanely frustrating. Pulling your hairs out trying to make the simplest thing to work across browsers. I didn't hate IE6 for Active X or its Standard forcing practice ( It is actually both good and bad ), but M$ unwilling to improve IE when there are lots of low hanging fruit, while actively stopping other browser from gaining ground.
Nearly 20 years passed, it still looks like a bloody mess. Yes it was a lot better than IE5 / 6 era, CSS still sucks, ( just less ), Cross browser handling of Keypress and Video still a mess? And we have now arrived to a point where Chrome/ Blink becomes a living reference implementation to test out ideas before it is "standardise". Web Pages that only works well in Chrome? ( I am not even talking about Web Apps which somehow 90% of the case we don't need but we still made it )
Was this what we envisioned the web 20 years ago?
It's puzzling why a modern browser uses far more CPU than a standalone app these days.
So our battery empties faster on appple devices.
Neither google is doing anything about it nor apple.
Google is pushing their own Chromebook and my friends who are pissed off at their YouTube performance in regard to battery switched to Chromebook.