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Neowin: Former Edge intern says Google sabotaged Microsoft's browser

hateradio

hateradio

Member
Oct 28, 2017
8,733
welcome, nowhere
GeoNeo said:
This site included.

I use Firefox on my high end PC and all google services are brute forced to run well, but run their services on a "normal" setup and you see Google's bullshit come through again and again.

On my rMBP I love Safari, but I do run into issues from time to time. New Gmail is utter trash.

MS choice to move to Blink just handed over the keys to Google to abuse their power even more.
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I actually started to disable JS on resetera because there's something not quite right. :/

However, I'm trying to figure out if it's an extension that's causing an issue.

I remember the days when I would work on IE, Fx, Ch, and Opera to make sure everything ran well on each of them. Those days are long gone for the most part.
 
Stephen Home

Stephen Home

Alt account
Banned
Dec 17, 2018
709
Pretty small potato compare to what MS did in the IE days.

I still have to deal with IE (6? 7?) daily because 2 in house apps use it and it will never get ported over. Microsoft can rot in hell.
 
spam musubi

spam musubi

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,380
whatsinaname said:
Interesting comment from a web dev who has previously written a video player from scratch.

https://medium.com/@jeremy.noring/did-google-cripple-edges-youtube-performance-ce5169d3e5f4

From what I understand, he claims the empty div mentioned in the OP is a common work around to correct for ... Internet Explorer's overzealous keypress handlers.
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Yeah unsurprisingly the reality is more complicated and there are a lot of workarounds for awkward compatibility issues and an intern who thinks they know it all just made some uninformed assumption that everyone for some reason is taking as fact. If you've ever worked at a large tech company stuff like this is pretty commonplace. Aka hacks for weird issues and interns who think they're John Carmack level programmers who have all the answers.
 
Trike

Trike

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Nov 6, 2017
2,391
I mean it sounds like MS sabotaged themselves. Their issues wouldn't be major issues if Edge updates weren't tied to Windows updates.
 
Pokemaniac

Pokemaniac

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,944
nynt9 said:
Yeah unsurprisingly the reality is more complicated and there are a lot of workarounds for awkward compatibility issues and an intern who thinks they know it all just made some uninformed assumption that everyone for some reason is taking as fact. If you've ever worked at a large tech company stuff like this is pretty commonplace. Aka hacks for weird issues and interns who think they're John Carmack level programmers who have all the answers.
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Google sabotaging things on other browsers was a realistic possibility though, because I can tell you from experience that it is very much a thing they do.

If you want a good example of this just try Google Image Search on Firefox for Android, then do it again on the exact same browser but with the Chrome User agent. It's like a completely different site.
 
TarpitCarnivore

TarpitCarnivore

Member
Oct 25, 2017
20,205
Stephen C said:
Pretty small potato compare to what MS did in the IE days.

I still have to deal with IE (6? 7?) daily because 2 in house apps use it and it will never get ported over. Microsoft can rot in hell.
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I get it, IE 6-9 are trash heaps but this is definitely more on your company and it's lack of desire to rebuild in a more stable (and secure) browser.
 
Mitchman1411

Mitchman1411

Member
Jul 28, 2018
635
Oslo, Norway
One interesting tidbit: All google services will, by default, warn that whatever browser you use (that is no Chrome) is inferior and Chrome is faster on their services. Even Chromium-based browsers get this by default. Browsers use various tactics to remove this banner. Vivaldi uses a Chrome user-agent string, Opera removes it through injected js (same method employed by the Presto-based Opera). There is no technical reason for this other than using their monopoly on search to push their middleware on people. It's not unlike MS in the 90s.
 
Mindwipe

Mindwipe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,197
London
Mitchman1411 said:
MS almost certainly is paying Netflix for having 4k exclusively in Edge. There is no real technical reason it couldn't be supported in other browsers.
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Yes there is (Windows only implements secure video paths for DRM via Modern framework apps, and mainstream PC hardware features only PlayReady SL3000 as a "good enough" DRM system for 4K content for the film studios).

MS are not paying Netflix.
 
Mitchman1411

Mitchman1411

Member
Jul 28, 2018
635
Oslo, Norway
Mindwipe said:
Yes there is (Windows only implements secure video paths for DRM via Modern framework apps, and mainstream PC hardware features only PlayReady SL3000 as a "good enough" DRM system for 4K content for the film studios).

MS are not paying Netflix.
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hmm, But Chrome and other browsers use widevine for DRM and I thought widevine offered the same DRM capabilities as PlayReady 3.0?
 
Mindwipe

Mindwipe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,197
London
Mitchman1411 said:
hmm, But Chrome and other browsers use widevine for DRM and I thought widevine offered the same DRM capabilities as PlayReady 3.0?
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They use Widevine Level 3. Not Level 1.

This is why you can record the screen in Netflix on Windows in Chrome but not in Edge. And why the resolution is capped accordingly.

The forthcoming Edge for Mac will possibly have the same issue in reverse.
 
julia crawford

julia crawford

Took the red AND the blue pills
Member
Oct 27, 2017
35,131
Google in general seems to be moving towards being the whole Internet. Especially with stuff like AMP.
 
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