Yesterday, users noticed that the new YouTube.com interface had stopped working in Edge Insider builds, replaced instead with a warning to switch to Google Chrome. The site had worked on Edge Insider previously, and a bit of sleuthing showed that a new flag in the YouTube JavaScript pushed the new Chromium based Edge into a blacklisted state:
Things I enjoy seeing on https://t.co/ZxEZpO95zj when loading using Microsoft Edge Canary:
html5_vp9_live_blacklist_edge=true
you would think an unsupported browser wouldn't get proper detection on the javascript code itself and also not get dedicated feature flags (see pic) pic.twitter.com/PyBgshO58A
— Gustave Monce (@gus33000) May 28, 2019
Changing the user agent string to something other than “edg” was a temporary workaround, but now today an Engineering Manager at Google Chrome notes that a fix is coming shortly:
The fix for this working in the new Edge should be in production for all users shortly. Kudos to @wanderview for bringing this to YouTube's attention. pic.twitter.com/In6g6L87pA
— Addy Osmani (@addyosmani) May 29, 2019
Why Google needed it brought to their attention something that at least seems intentional we’ll leave for another day, but for now, you’ll soon be able to check out your favorite YouTube videos using the latest interface once again on Edge Insider.
