The Easiest Way to Bypass Google’s “Bug” and Use New YouTube in Microsoft Edge

Microsoft is moving from EdgeHTML to Chromium for its very own Microsoft Edge browser, and this transition would bring the app not only to Windows 10, but also to previous Windows versions and macOS.

While you’d think that embracing Google Chrome’s engine would convince Google it’s time to show some love for Microsoft’s services, this isn’t really happening, and living proof is a recent block that the company has put in place on YouTube.

Google has recently released another overhaul of the YouTube user interface, and you can try it out by heading over to youtube.com right now. Just don’t use the new Chromium-based Microsoft Edge because it’s not going to work.

What you’ll see, on the other hand, is an error message telling you Edge is not supported, despite being based on the same engine as Google Chrome.

While at some level it makes sense for Microsoft Edge not to be allowed to load all websites because it’s still in preview stage, this is a limitation that’s exclusive to Microsoft’s application, as all the other beta browsers out there can connect to the new YouTube just fine.

NOTE: Google has already responded to claims of intentionally blocking Microsoft Edge on the new YouTube, explaining that it all happened accidentally because of a bug.

“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,” Google says.

Meanwhile, you can easily bypass Google’s restriction with a simple settings change in Microsoft Edge.

Because Google blocked access to YouTube at user agent level, preventing Microsoft’s browser from loading the new YouTube with a filter on the “Edg” string, you can easily instruct the browser to ignore it by switching to the Google Chrome agent.

Learn here how to change the user agent in the Chromium Microsoft Edge browser.

But the easiest way to get around Google’s block is actually an extension that was specifically created with this goal in mind.

Simply called “New YouTube Design for Edge Dev,” this extension modifies the user agent only for the new YouTube, leaving all the other settings untouched. In other words, browsing other sites won’t be impacted, and you should be able to load the new YouTube just fine.

Because Microsoft Edge is now based on the Chromium engine, it’s pretty easy to install the extension.

Simply head over to the extension page linked above and then click the Add to Chrome button. You also need to manually enable extensions from other sources in Microsoft Edge.

To do this, fire up the browser and then follow this path:

To remove the extension, you can look for the YouTube icon in the toolbar in Microsoft Edge, right-click it, and then click the Remove button.

While Google says that a fix is on its way, there’s no ETA as to when it could land. Microsoft Edge preview is currently available only for Windows 10 and macOS. The Windows 10 installers can also be used on older versions of Windows, albeit not everything might be working as expected.

Microsoft hasn’t yet provided any release date for the stable version of the browser.