So yesterday afternoon I received an email from Google saying they were incorporating my change into the next release of Google Analytics. The ga.js file always point's to google's servers, so this should fix the problem fairly immediately once the change goes live.

I also want to address the following two "issues" brought up:

Issue #1: Is Microsoft to blame? Is Google to blame? Why did I say "you should know better" to Google?

Of course Microsoft is to blame for the root problem. They made a crummy web browser and this has made every web developer's life difficult ever since.

However, Google encourages webmasters to put a tiny snippet of javascript on the bottom of every single page on their site, which in turn references a centralized javascript file. This one file is referenced on millions of pages! Any change they make to this file affects these pages immediately! (Well... as soon as people's cache runs out)

Call me what you want, but I think this puts the burden on Google to make sure their stuff really works. It's their job to make sure that Google Analytics stays out of everyone's way and doesn't create any new problems on the web. Even if it means working around Microsoft issues. Any changes to ga.js should be tested in every way on every type of page before being pushed live. It simply affects too many pages not to. They should know better.

Issue #2: Apparently I was being sensationalistic and think that I never make mistakes.

Sorry?

I found a fairly serious problem in a javascript file referenced by millions of pages and I got excited about it. I found a solution and wanted to get it to google to get it fixed.

The only reason I know so much about these memory leaks is that I am often fixing them. It's a pain in the neck, but you learn what to look for after a while.

Someday I'll make a mistake. I'll write a sweet-ass blog entry when it happens.