Is Google hobbling YouTube on rival browsers?

[DaMoot]

No differences noted between FF and Chrome, but Chrome is my primary 'disposable' browser and basically just lives on my second monitor for YT and research. I suspect this only affects a very very tiny portion of old computers.

Hasn't affected my first gen i3 media pc either; all we use is FireFox there. No slowdowns.

[scaryjim]

The thing is this is their own API, that they published the spec for whilst saying it's dead, don't use it. ...

Ah, I'd missed that Polymer was google-developed. Not that that really changes my point.

Polymer 1 released in June 2015.

Polymer 2 released in March 2017.

That's ~ 21 months as a live API, in which browsers could have created a native Shadow DOM v0 implementation.

Public testing of YouTube's Polymer redesign started in early May 2017 - i.e. less than 2 months after Polymer v2 was released.

Anyone seriously think the Polymer redesign of YouTube was completed to public testing status in 2 months!?

Shadow DOM v0 in Chrome is scheduled for deprecation in April 2018, and removal in April 2019: https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/4507242028072960

So by April 2019 Chrome won't have a native implementation of Shadow DOM v0 either, and I'd put a large pile of money on YouTube having been updated to Polymer v2 or v3 by then.


As an aside to FriesianSam - Opera* has a native implementation of Shadow DOM v0...

*edit: which is unsurprising, because Opera uses the same layout engine as Chrome, of course....!

[Corky34]

Polymer 1 was released in 2015 but the specific web competent (Shadow DOM polyfill) only reached version 1 sixteen months ago (March 3rd 2017) and that was a release candidate, the finalised version was released last year, almost to the day.

It's a bit IE6'ish if you ask me as Google are developing their own web standards, designing sites that use those standards, and then expecting everyone else to either implement the new standard in short time or suffer. They published new designs that used the standard 2 months after it reached a final version, even for them it was obviously a bit rushed as their new design used V0 instead of V1.

[scaryjim]

... expecting everyone else to ... implement the new standard in short time ...

21 months is not that short a time - as you say, Shadow DOM v1 has only been around for a year yet the competing browsers all have native implementations of that...?!

What I find more curious is that this *must* have been the case since May 2017, yet it's taken almost 15 months for anyone to either notice or care....?!

[Corky34]

I think it's a case of no one noticing or caring, maybe it's just my own perception but it always seems Mozilla is the one to call out other browsers, storm in a Mozilla teacup.

[albert89]

Googles been fined in the EU for its
anticompetitive practices and it appears
they'll exploit any opportunity. Just like
what Zuckerburg did to Facebook members.