Microsoft's new Chromium-based Edge browser has been in public testing for about two and a half weeks now. Unsurprisingly, it's a lot like Chrome, and that was the point. Using the same rendering engine as the most popular browser on the market was supposed to help with compatibility.
Users started finding yesterday, however, that Google Meet no longer works in Microsoft's Chromium-based browser, in both Dev and Canary builds. Moreover, as spotted by the folks at Windows Central, changing the User Agent to 'Chrome - Windows' makes the page work just fine. To be fair, the same trick works in regular Edge.
Microsoft does use a different User Agent in Edge Chromium than it does in Edge proper, which means that Google would have had to specifically block this one. Naturally, it's unclear what Google's motives would have been here, and we've reached out to the company for comment. It could be something as simple as Google not wanting to let beta software access a business service, or it could be an accident.
The message that's displayed does show an option to run it in Chrome or Firefox, so Google isn't exactly pushing Chrome here. On top of that, Google Meet seems to work in other Chromium-based browsers like Vivaldi.
Usually, when things like this happen, Google ends up saying it was a mistake and switching off whatever blocked it. Presumably, Google Meet will be back up and running for Edge users soon.
Update: As it turns out, Google will be supporting the new Edge with Meet, and the issue was due to Microsoft changing the User Agent string. The new User Agent string wasn't included on Google's allowed list, as there is no actual block list. A Google spokesperson said the following in a statement to Neowin:
"We view the increased adoption of Chromium and WebRTC as positive for the entire Unified Communications industry. With the recent release of developer previews for Edge, we are thrilled to be able to offer a new preview experience of Hangouts Meet, and we plan to officially support it once it becomes generally available"
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