Saturday, October 23, 2010

Google Pranks HTML5 Users on YouTube


I love this one. HTML5 is a new web standard that Google is pushing for the Internet. One of the on-going projects they have for it is an HTML5 version of YouTube. The project is currently undergoing opt-in trials. You can turn on HTML5 for YouTube here

I signed-up for the trials earlier this year. I really haven't felt any difference between viewing videos in Flash and HTML5. That's great news as when HTML5 finally becomes widespread, that's one less buggy plug-in to worry about (i.e. Flash) in your browser. Imagine my surprise when I was viewing a video on YouTube and right clicked it to find a..... "Save Video As" option! That's great! No more using extensions and/or plug-ins for downloading videos on YouTube! 


It's always been an unspoken rule to make downloading videos online just difficult enough so that the average Internet user is unable to do it easily due to copyright issues. So this was really, I thought, a bold feature to have on YouTube. YouTube of all places! The standard example of people harking copyright infringement! Well, imagine my reaction when I clicked on that "Save Video As" option and I got this (click on the link). 

Well, I gotta give whoever is responsible props for it. But still, you break my heart YouTube. You break my heart.