Google Says They Are Committed To Supporting YouTube on Edge

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Google confirmed that the company is aware of the new YouTube not working with the Chromium Edge web browser and that it is committed to supporting Microsoft's browser.

Despite reports that the new Edge browser — the Dev and the Canary channels — is blocked by Google on purpose and its users are asked to install Google Chrome, a YouTube spokesperson told BleepingComputer that this is a known issue which will be fixed soon.

According to YouTube, "We're aware that users of a preview version of Chromium-based Edge are being redirected to the old version of YouTube. We’re working to address this issue. We're committed to supporting YouTube on Edge and apologize for any inconvenience this may be causing."


New YouTube saying that Chromium Edge is not supported

While Google did not provide details on what caused the issue, users found that switching the user agent in the new Chromium Edge browser to a Google Chrome agent would allow them to use the new YouTube.

This allows users to completely bypass the message saying that the new Edge is not supported and asking users to install Google's web browser, even though the same note says that the new YouTube comes with support for "the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Edge."

Chromium Edge previously not supported by other Google services

One month ago, the Google Docs online word processor was also displaying a notification that the Chromium Edge browser was not supported, asking users to upgrade to a supported browser.

Just like in this case, the issue was most probably caused by either Google forgetting to whitelist the Microsoft Edge User Agent string or by Microsoft changing the string and inadvertently "blacklisting" their new web browser.

The fact that the Google Meet enterprise messaging service also abruptly stopped working on the new Edge also seems to confirm that Google uses a User Agent string-based whitelist to allow browser access to their services.

While many might feel that Google has turned evil, and while some of their present and past actions may warrant that opinion, the Chromium Edge browser users being blocked from accessing the new YouTube definitely looks like an honest mistake.

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