An incredible story that speaks of Youtube's secret war against IE6, made her appearance through a former Google and YouTube engineer.
Nearly 10 years ago, YouTube began displaying a banner to Internet Explorer 6 users, warning them that Microsoft browser support would be removed soon.
It was a message that appeared on all YouTube pages and anyone using IE6, at a time when IE6 users accounted for about 18% of access to YouTube. Frustrated with the old browser, a team YouTube engineers had conceived a plan to oust Internet Explorer 6.
This incredible story was told by a former Google and YouTube engineer of Greek descent named Chris Zacharias. Chris Zacharias published an article on his personal page at YCombinator, on May 1, 2019, where he states:
"We started collectively trying to imagine how we could unleash our revenge on IE6. The design was very simple. We would place a small banner above the video player that would only appear to IE6 users. A team of engineers applied this banner, knowing that most YouTube employees using the site's trial environment would not even see it. of Google ”.
YouTube engineers have created a special set of permissions called "OldTuber" to bypass Google's code enforcement policies and make changes directly to YouTube's master code. Christos Zacharias and some other engineers obtained the OldTuber license, allowing themselves to place the banner without any supervision.
"We saw an opportunity before us to permanently infect IE6 so that it would never come back," Zacharias admits.
The YouTube banner vs. IE6, appeared in July 2009 and the articles on news websites at the time, believed that Google wanted to stop supporting Internet Explorer 6 on YouTube.
"Every major tech site has been asking why YouTube was threatening to stop supporting IE6, at a time when the browser was still frequently used. We told the PR Team, which first appeared in our office, about what we started and helped them understand the reasons, so that they could spread the story ".
Two Google lawyers also wanted to know why YouTube had this banner. "They asked us to remove the banner immediately", reveals Zacharias. Lawyers feared that Chrome was being promoted as the first alternative browser, and feared the EU regulator, which was pursuing anti-competitive behavior. But YouTube engineers had programmed the banner to display random browsers such as Firefox, Internet Explorer 8, Opera, and showed it to lawyers. "Satisfied with the demonstration, Google lawyers went back to their office without any further worries," said Zacharias.
The banner spread to other Google programs as well. The Google Docs added a similar warning message, about IE6 support. "One of their engineers testing IE6 noticed the YouTube ad very quickly from the moment it went live and immediately took it to their manager as evidence that they should do the same," explains Zacharias.
The internal chatter at Google focused on the Google Docs team, which added a corresponding banner for IE6, so the original secret YouTube engineering team "sort of bypassed the search inside Google, about who are the creators of the IE6 banner".
The result was a huge drop in Internet Explorer 6 traffic on YouTube. "Within a month, the base χρηστών του IE6 στο YouTube μειώθηκε κατά το ήμισυ και επίσης μειώθηκε πάνω από το 10% της παγκόσμιας κυκλοφορίας του IE6, ενώ όλα τα άλλα προγράμματα περιήγησης αυξήθηκαν σε αντίστοιχα ποσοστά”, αναφέρει ο Ζαχαρίας. “Τα αποτελέσματα ήταν πολύ better than the banner development team had imagined".
YouTube's engineering management finally realized what had happened, but it was too late. The "revolutionary" engineers of YouTube succeeded in their secret plan to "kill" Internet Explorer 6 and in April 2012 the use of IE6 fell below one percent in the US. Even Microsoft celebrated the death of IE6.
Η complete story by Chris Zacharias It's really worth reading in all its detail about this unusual plot against IE6.
