Google Now Forces Edge Preview Users to Use Chrome for the Modern YouTube

#1

Post by MikusR » Tue, May 28, 2019, 2:10 PM UTC

Google Now Forces Edge Preview Users to Use Chrome for the Modern YouTube
thurrott.com

Re: Google Now Forces Edge Preview Users to Use Chrome for the Modern YouTube

#2

Post by bovermyer » Tue, May 28, 2019, 2:20 PM UTC

I'm going to assume this is accidental, not intentional.

Re: Google Now Forces Edge Preview Users to Use Chrome for the Modern YouTube

#3

Post by Causality1 » Tue, May 28, 2019, 2:21 PM UTC

I hate this, though it is a kind of poetic justice for the way Windows 10 fights tooth and nail to keep you from switching your default browser away from Edge.

Re: Google Now Forces Edge Preview Users to Use Chrome for the Modern YouTube

#4

Post by tantalor » Tue, May 28, 2019, 2:21 PM UTC

> randomly disabled the modern YouTube experience

Sounds like an experiment designed to measure the effect of the new version vs. old version for the new browser.

> it’s very odd that Google would prevent users... from using the modern YouTube experience

Not odd; experimentation is very common.

> This is most likely an error on Google’s part

More likely author doesn't understand what they're talking about.

Re: Google Now Forces Edge Preview Users to Use Chrome for the Modern YouTube

#5

Post by dubcanada » Tue, May 28, 2019, 2:21 PM UTC

Basically Google doesn't allow development build Edge users to browse the preview YouTube?

Doesn't seem like someone at Google hates Edge, just looks like they didn't test their brand new YouTube on every browser yet so just limited it to heavy Chrome users.

Or am I wrong?

Re: Google Now Forces Edge Preview Users to Use Chrome for the Modern YouTube

#6

Post by Conlectus » Tue, May 28, 2019, 2:21 PM UTC

Almost certainly unintentional. They're likely confused by a new User-Agent string or some feature detection gone wrong.

Re: Google Now Forces Edge Preview Users to Use Chrome for the Modern YouTube

#7

Post by bad_good_guy » Tue, May 28, 2019, 2:22 PM UTC

The abuse by the Google Chrome team never ceases to amaze me. I feel trapped on chrome simply because of my reliance on Google drive/docs, which are handicapped on browsers like Firefox.

Re: Google Now Forces Edge Preview Users to Use Chrome for the Modern YouTube

#8

Post by jdmichal » Tue, May 28, 2019, 2:22 PM UTC

bovermyer wrote: post #2

I'm going to assume this is accidental, not intentional.

Given a comment on the article that user-agent switching seems to fix it, I'm going to assume the same. Just another overly-aggressive user-agent check, instead of using feature checks.

Re: Google Now Forces Edge Preview Users to Use Chrome for the Modern YouTube

#9

Post by judge2020 » Tue, May 28, 2019, 2:22 PM UTC

The polymer UI does seem to work perfectly if you set the user-agent to Chrome Windows in devtools -> network conditions.

Re: Google Now Forces Edge Preview Users to Use Chrome for the Modern YouTube

#10

Post by SmellyGeekBoy » Tue, May 28, 2019, 2:24 PM UTC

bad_good_guy wrote: post #7

The abuse by the Google Chrome team never ceases to amaze me. I feel trapped on chrome simply because of my reliance on Google drive/docs, which are handicapped on browsers like Firefox.

I have no problem at all using Google Drive and Docs on Firefox, what specific issues have you run into?