https://medium.com/@jeremy.noring/did-google-cripple-edges-youtube-performance-ce5169d3e5f4 (via
https://www.thurrott.com/google/195632/no-virginia-google-didnt-undermine-microsoft-edge )
I’m a video engineer who has written a video player from scratch, and I have independently positioned a blank div on top of our video element. Here’s source code for disbelievers (apologies in advance for the Angular):
<div class=”ie-idiot-shield noselect” ng-if=”customSkinSupported” ng-click=”togglePlayPause($event)”></div>
…
// IE has these insane keypress handlers that totally steal *everything*, and do hideous things to all of our logic.
// So far I’ve found no way to disable the player when it has focus. So we use this shield to overlay a faux window
// on top of IE to prevent anyone from actually selecting it.
.ie-idiot-shield {
position: absolute;
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
background: rgba(0,0,0,0.0);
z-index: 3;
}
Here’s the git commit message (8/2015):
Finally, a fix for IE’s insane keypress logic
By overlaying an unselectable transparent element on top of my video element, I can effectively prevent someone ever from selecting it, and this avoids a huge amount of keypress nightmare logic that currently exists. I’ll clean up the other hacky crap in the html5 lib in a bit, but this should make my life way easier.
...a few things to keep in mind:
1. The statement by the MSFT intern smacks of someone who too quickly attributes malice where no such accusation is appropriate.
2. A “state of the art” rendering engine? Well, apparently it isn’t “state of the art” enough to handle a blatantly obvious test case. It can’t handle
something on top of it. That isn’t “state of the art.”
3. I’m sorry, what precisely is wrong with positioning another HTML element on top of a video element?
Come on. The whole point of the video element is it’s a legit part of the DOM instead of some mangy
<object> tag like we had prior to HTML5, and that comes with all of those considerations. It is 100% legit to put a blank div on top of the video element, or nearly any other element for that matter. Welcome to the web.
4. Why would the already dominant browser in the market go out of their way to cripple some minor player in the field? And to cripple them on a
single video streaming site (what about netflix, hulu, prime, etc.)? And knowing full well that 95% of web users honestly don’t give a shit? It’s not like Joe Sixpack is busting out a stopwatch while he’s watching reruns of Full House.
