About 10 years ago, YouTube launched a message to users of version 6 of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, warning them that the browser would be "phased out" soon.
That message appeared on all YouTube pages, while users of Internet Explorer 6 accounted for about 18% of the total YouTube users. Because this version of the browser was too old a number of YouTube users were frustrated, they decided to put a plan to eliminate it.
Now, after all these years, Chris Zacarias, a former Google and YouTube engineer, revealed what happened in a blog post. "We all started to imagine how we could take revenge on Internet Explorer 6," he said. "The plan was very simple. We will place a small banner at the top of the video player that will appear only for Internet Explorer 6 users. "
Then engineers started implementing their plan, realizing that most YouTube employees would not see the banner because they were using a Chrome browser. At the time, it was Google's acquisition of YouTube for a few years, and the video sharing site and its employees did not fully implement all of Google's policies.
At that time, YouTube engineers created a special set of permissions, called OldTuber, to bypass Google's policies to make direct changes to the source code for YouTube. Which allowed them to display the banner of Internet Explorer 6 with very little monitoring.
The sign began to appear in July 2009, but soon the technical media began to talk about Google wanting to end support for Internet Explorer 6 on YouTube. "The first person to come to our offices was the PR team leader," Zakarias said. Everyone was wondering why Internet Explorer 6 support ended, although the browser had a big market share.
"They told the public relations team eagerly about everything they did," Zakarias said. "They also gave them the information they should tell the media asking why the browser support was terminated.
The lawyer added that lawyers from Google's lawyers also wanted to know why YouTube introduced the banner, and asked to be removed immediately. The lawyers were concerned that the sign was trying to promote Chrome as an alternative to Internet Explorer 6, raising concerns that the EU would be perceived as anti-competitive behavior.
But Google engineers have reprogrammed the banner to expose a number of browsers as a substitute for Internet Explorer 6, including Firefox, Internet Explorer 8, and Opera. The lawyers' fears were thus eroded.
Other Google services engineers, such as Google Docs, are encouraging Google to display a similar banner warning against ending Internet Explorer 6 support. But the talk inside Google is then focused on what the Google Docs team did, The first to initiate and plan.
The result was a significant drop in traffic from Internet Explorer 6 to YouTube. "Within a month, YouTube's user base on Internet Explorer 6 shrunk by half, and global traffic on Internet Explorer dropped by more than 10 percent, while all other browsers increased in similar volumes," Zacarias said.
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