A Conspiracy to Kill IE6 (2019)
a day ago
- #IE6
- #web-development
- #YouTube
- A team of YouTube web developers conspired to kill IE6 by displaying a banner urging users to upgrade.
- The banner was designed to be subtle and only visible to IE6 users, with no defined timeline for deprecation.
- The team used 'OldTuber' status to bypass Google's code review process and deploy the banner.
- The PR team was initially caught off guard but leveraged the media's positive narrative about modernizing the web.
- Lawyers raised concerns about anti-competitive behavior but were satisfied after seeing the randomized browser order.
- Other Google teams, like Google Docs, followed suit with their own IE6 banners, accelerating IE6's decline.
- Within a month, IE6 usage on YouTube dropped by half, and global IE6 traffic decreased by over 10%.
- The team faced no serious repercussions, and their boss jokingly made them promise not to do it again.