Google's playing the closed-open game again, this time with HTML5

#1

Post by mrsebastian » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 3:20 PM UTC

Google's playing the closed-open game again, this time with HTML5
extremetech.com

Re: Google's playing the closed-open game again, this time with HTML5

#2

Post by jawns » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 3:52 PM UTC

I tried to trick it with User Agent Switcher, but no go. It's not just examining the user agent -- it's looking for window.chrome, too.

Having watched the video and the word-spelling at the end, there's nothing about this sort of content that strikes me as stuff that can't be done in other browsers. And isn't that supposed to be the point of experiments like this?

Google should be showing us stuff that can't be done in any browser but Chrome because of those other browsers' technical limitations or deficiencies ... not just because they have the wrong user agent.

Re: Google's playing the closed-open game again, this time with HTML5

#3

Post by andybak » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 4:15 PM UTC

It's quite possible that there's a valid technical reason for this. Codec usage? Something bleeding edge to do with HTML5 Audio?

A slightly crappy but plausible reason is that they didn't want the extra hassle of cross-browser testing and pool of browsers capable of running this was pretty small.

Re: Google's playing the closed-open game again, this time with HTML5

#4

Post by rufo » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 4:16 PM UTC

I found this especially odd, since the Rome music video gave a similar warning, but let you continue and worked fine in Firefox 5.

Re: Google's playing the closed-open game again, this time with HTML5

#5

Post by jarin » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 4:29 PM UTC

andybak wrote: post #3

It's quite possible that there's a valid technical reason for this. Codec usage? Something bleeding edge to do with HTML5 Audio? A slightly crappy but plausible reason is that they didn't want the extra hassle of cross-browser testing and pool of browsers capable of running this was pretty small.

Or the simplest explanation is that they wanted people to install Chrome to be able to see it.

Re: Google's playing the closed-open game again, this time with HTML5

#6

Post by Funnnny » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 5:19 PM UTC

jawns wrote: post #2

I tried to trick it with User Agent Switcher, but no go. It's not just examining the user agent -- it's looking for window.chrome, too. Having watched the video and the word-spelling at the end, there's nothing about this sort of content that strikes me as stuff that can't be done in other browsers. And isn't that supposed to be the point of experiments like this? Google should be showing us stuff that can't be done…

Google showed that this is Chrome showcase, a Chrome experiment, isn't that clear ?

Re: Google's playing the closed-open game again, this time with HTML5

#7

Post by cowboyhero » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 5:21 PM UTC

Eh. They did a vanity site to promote a product.

When Goog starts adding /marquee/ tags and VBScript to their browser, I'll start getting worried about "openness."

Re: Google's playing the closed-open game again, this time with HTML5

#8

Post by tomlin » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 5:23 PM UTC

  This is precisely the same kind of trickery Apple 
  pulled with its HTML5 Showcase for Safari, which 
  locked out other more compliant browsers in order 
  to make Safari shine line a beacon of hope for open 
  web standards. But Google isn’t building these 
  experiences to make the web look good: it’s building 
  them to make Chrome look good.

I don't get this bit. Isn't Google doing the same as Apple, then?

Re: Google's playing the closed-open game again, this time with HTML5

#9

Post by mvzink » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 5:27 PM UTC

Useless article. This has nothing to do with "openness", just marketing: what is Google's incentive to building the site in the first place if they can't make people download Chrome to view it? That said, they could at least add a "Try it anyway" button for other browsers.

Re: Google's playing the closed-open game again, this time with HTML5

#10

Post by mrpollo » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 5:28 PM UTC

It is clear to me that this is a Google Chrome Experiment, from their labs, and that they did not had any intention of it working on any other browser but i got curious...

i was doing some research on it and they appear to be using sync xhr calls which causes FF to hiccup even after all this time.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=383304 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=313646

they are marked as resolved but i just confirmed the xhr sync calls dont work in some cases.

google is using the sync calls here http://www.allisnotlo.st/static/js/API.js

Here you can try this to try and play the video on FF https://gist.github.com/1109890

you will notice your console throws some errors around line 42 of that file, if anyone knows what else is wrong here please let me know.