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posted by chromas on Tuesday December 18 2018, @08:08AM   Printer-friendly
from the yes dept.

Google isn't the company that we should have handed the Web over to

Back in 2009, Google introduced SPDY, a proprietary replacement for HTTP that addressed what Google saw as certain performance issues with existing HTTP/1.1. Google wasn't exactly wrong in its assessments, but SPDY was something of a unilateral act, with Google responsible for the design and functionality. SPDY was adopted by other browsers and Web servers over the next few years, and Google's protocol became widespread.

[...] The same story is repeating with HTTP/3. In 2012, Google announced a new experimental protocol, QUIC, intended again to address performance issues with existing HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2. Google deployed QUIC, and Chrome would use QUIC when communicating with Google properties. Again, QUIC became the basis for IETF's HTTP development, and HTTP/3 uses a derivative of QUIC that's modified from and incompatible with Google's initial work.

It's not just HTTP that Google has repeatedly worked to replace. Google AMP ("Accelerated Mobile Pages") is a cut-down HTML combined with Google-supplied JavaScript designed to make mobile Web content load faster. This year, Google said that it would try to build AMP with Web standards and introduced a new governance model that gave the project much wider industry oversight.

A person claiming to be a former Microsoft Edge developer has written about a tactic Google supposedly used to harm the competing browser's performance:

A person claiming to be a former Edge developer has today described one such action. For no obvious reason, Google changed YouTube to add a hidden, empty HTML element that overlaid each video. This element disabled Edge's fastest, most efficient hardware accelerated video decoding. It hurt Edge's battery-life performance and took it below Chrome's. The change didn't improve Chrome's performance and didn't appear to serve any real purpose; it just hurt Edge, allowing Google to claim that Chrome's battery life was actually superior to Edge's. Microsoft asked Google if the company could remove the element, to no avail.

The latest version of Edge addresses the YouTube issue and reinstated Edge's performance. But when the company talks of having to do extra work to ensure EdgeHTML is compatible with the Web, this is the kind of thing that Microsoft has been forced to do.

See also: Ex Edge developer blames Google tricks in part for move to Chromium

Related: HTTP/2 on its Way In, SPDY on its Way Out
Google Touts QUIC Protocol
Google Attempting to Standardize Features of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
Google AMP Can Go To Hell
The Next Version of HTTP Won't be Using TCP
HTTP/3 Explained: A Work in Progress
Microsoft Reportedly Building a Chromium-Based Web Browser to Replace Edge, and "Windows Lite" OS
Mozilla CEO Warns Microsoft's Switch to Chromium Will Give More Control of the Web to Google


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday December 18 2018, @03:04PM (1 child)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 18 2018, @03:04PM (#775847) Journal

    Google changed YouTube to add a hidden, empty HTML element that overlaid each video. This element disabled Edge's fastest, most efficient hardware accelerated video decoding. It hurt Edge's battery-life performance and took it below Chrome's. The change didn't improve Chrome's performance and didn't appear to serve any real purpose; it just hurt Edge, allowing Google to claim that Chrome's battery life was actually superior to Edge's. Microsoft asked Google if the company could remove the element, to no avail.

    I've got to laugh out loud.

    Dear Microsoft: it couldn't happen to a nicer company.

    After all the dirty tricks and underhanded things Microsoft has done, now they cry about this? Especially dirty tricks with IE, IIS and FrontPage trying to "Microsoftize" the internet back in the 90's. Destroying Netscape because of the thread of web based applications that make the OS become irrelevant. Their efforts to destroy and/or undermine Linux.

    The depths of my anguish could fill a thimble and my heart just bleeds for poor Microsoft.

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    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @03:57PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 18 2018, @03:57PM (#775871)

    Ditto. I laughed when I read this:

    "A person claiming to be a former Microsoft Edge developer"

    If they want to talk about proprietary formats on the WWW, I've only got one thing to say about that: "PNG Transparency". This was a standard that everybody else complied with, except MS. Hell, probably half of the CSS on the web wouldn't be there if they had honored it. And it was broken for a decade, and probably still is, though I haven't tested it in Edge.

    Microsoft has corrupted government officials just to break other peoples standards. And there have been hundreds of working systems mamed and broken by their antics over the years. Notably their fuckage very often introduces architecture problems that led to years of recuring security issues. Their war on open standards has harmed millions of bystanders. Yes Google does a lot of douchy things on the Internet. But pissing in Microsofts cornflakes... That's just quid pro quo. Unfortunately there is no hope for peace. Microsofts war on open standards has gone on for so long, and is so pervasive that they simply have no credibility on the subject. It may be true, but it doesn't matter considering the source of the complaint.

    Asking Microsoft about open standards compliance, is like asking a nazi about world peace.