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Google Releases Customized IE 7
narramissic writes "Google has released a customized version of Internet Explorer 7 that uses Google as the default search engine and provides users with the Google Toolbar and a Google homepage they can personalize. Perhaps not exactly what Microsoft intended when they released the Internet Explorer Administration Kit, which allows developers to customize IE."
Isn't this what Yahoo already did?
MS pwned by their own system. Nice! FP :D
>Perhaps not exactly what Microsoft intended when they released the Internet Explorer Administration Kit, which allows developers to customize IE.
Bullshit. Perhaps EXACTLY what Microsoft intended to help keep those pesky anti-trust lawsuits away.
In Soviet Russia, Microsoft is monopolized by you!
What about http://www.google.com/firefox
Did Google ever pick a side in the browser wars?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
The term "pwned" comes to mind.
That's my first reaction. Second reaction is... shouldn't Google be pushing anything but Internet Explorer to its customers? A certain browser named after a certain bushy animal comes to mind.
Um, actually that's *exactly* what they intended... Why must everyone suppose everything that comes out of Microsoft is evil? Only SOME things that come out of them are evil. Important distinction.
...But it's still a potentially broadened user base. Besides, haven't there been administrator tweaking kits for earlier versions of IE, too?
If Google pulls this off (as in, MS doesn't take them to court to take it off) do you know how many copy cats there are going to be? *giggles at the thought of Myspace IE7*
porno IE7! ALL PORN! all the time!
vaseline not included!
Yes, but the emanations that aren't evil are merely crap that doesn't work properly.
Does it still check for a ummm "proper" Windows XP?
I wonder - does this version still require dealing with the WGA droid?
The lack of desire to keep proving that my Windows is genuine is one of the main reasons so far I'm not upgrading IE. The other is the fear that it's another huge slow monster - I don't want to imagine how much disk space it takes...
The #1 thing that has kept me liking Google is their lack of using force as a way to get consumers to adopt their products. Microsoft and AOL are very aggressive in promoting their products and try to shape their users' habits to their profit rather than catering to consumer needs to gain profit. Google, on the other hand, just comes out with wild stuff that is just so good that people flock to it. Gmail blew away Hotmail and Yahoo for a little while with the 1-gigabyte of storage space. Google maps with the Flash-based interface was just awesome. Nothing was ever forced on me. I use Google's products only because I want to.
I don't use Microsoft's products because I want to. I use them (on occasion) because I'm forced to by the standards of others (Word documents, argh) that Microsoft has carefully crafted. I don't have to use Google maps or Froogle or anything at work. But if it's the best out there, I use it!
I sincerely hope that this does not change. Preinstalling Google toolbar on computers is a little pushing it, in my opinion.
Microsoft should do the needful, and change the license. All those fooling around with their browser (including Google) would be stopped in their tracks. Mission accomplished - period.
...so did Yahoo!, but that never gets mentioned on Slashdot.
And of course, the fact that Google's IE download page was a direct ripoff of Yahoo! also somehow doesn't seem be mentioned anywhere.
Can you say plagiarism?
Yeah I'm sure the Microsoft folks will be devastated if a lot of people download and use their software....
Is everyone here this dumb?? This is exactly what was intended when the Administration kit was made. Microsoft would want everyone out there(Amazon, eBay, Apple for gods sakes) to be pushing out a customized version of IE7. Dont u get it??
How is this news? The IE has been around for years and years. I remember using it to customize IE 5.5. It may have been around even earlier than that. And as to Microsoft somehow being upset, please look past the knee-jerk reaction and notice that the IE Blog, from Microsoft, actually praises the Google release, and links to their download page. This is what people are SUPPOSED to do with the IEAK. The article is really trying to make a big deal about something that's not...
-James
How exactly is this not what Microsoft intended by making that? What retarded definition of the word "customize" would not include this?
I'm just a bit puzzled by the need to stretch an "egg on Microsoft's face HA!" out of this.
Does no one remember all the branded versions of IE 5.5?
Comcast had one, SBC DSL had one, I'm sure there were hundreds.
I don't see why Microsoft would get upset at this; this is why they released the kit in the first place.
A company is more likely to distribute a browser if they can brand it and what does Microsoft want? You got it, more people using IE7.
Only a select few morons are going to mistake a Google branded IE7 as "Google's internet browser". Everyone else will continue to know that it is Microsoft's Internet Explorer but Google is happy to get its name in all the places it can.
Now that there are way more exploits than expected surfacing for Internet Explorer 7, anyone who values security is much better off with Firefox anyway.
Nothing to see here, move along...
e ak7/default.mspx
IEAK is old, old, old news. It's been available since the 16 bit IE for Windows 3.1, for crying out loud.
The most interesting part about this is that Google qualifies as every type of organization that can use the
IEAK, according to the IEAK home page. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/ie/i
With their wireless offering, they're an ISP. As a search engine, news aggregator and portal site, they're an ICP (Internet Content Provider), and with their various software, they're an ISV (Independent Software Vendor). There is absolutely nothing at all surprising about their usage of the IEAK.
If anything, this is a feather in MSFT's cap, because Google's customization of IE7 amounts to no less than a tacit endorsement of the browser. I view this as more of a virtual atta-boy for MSFT finally releasing a browser that isn't completely sucktastic.
I'd be interested to know (but too lazy to find out) if Google customized the user-agent string. This, combined with all of their internet advertising, could yield them some interesting data-mining opportunities.
You people missed the point of Google doing this. I am sure Google still fully supports Firefox movement.
Google released a customized IE7 for the sake of brand recognition. And it really doesn't help Microsoft either. It just gives MS bragging rights and no profit. This customized version of IE7 will get people using Google homepage and search engine. Which in return will boost revenue for Google. And with that boost, it will support Google's efforts in the Google Foundation and open source applications with the higher revenue.
In the end, It is a win-win for the open source community. And a loosing situation for Microsoft. No one uses their precious Windows Live or MSN search. A small loss in revenue for Microsoft.
\
Clearly this was intentional. I don't see how anyone can take this as anything less than a joke at MS and Yahoo's expense, probably an internal joke that got slipped under the nose of a manager by a software team.
MS has made this possible for many years. Heck, I did it for the last company I worked for. In fact, I'm sort of suprised google wasted their time doing it. Whats the point? If MS really wanted to lock down the browser, they could do it. They could DRM It seven ways to sunday. But, everynow and then someone there remebers that the company really grew due their embrace of an "open" platform Wintel ( MS OS, Intel Hardware, anyone's name on the box, anyone's software inside).
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
... Alexa released the only Image Search where you can specifically look for porn. That's what we all really wanted anyway, right?
Unlike Firefox, Microsoft made IE7's search engine to be customizable by anyone. Basically if you can return the word 'Test' in the address bar after doing a search for the word 'Test', you can add it into the search engine. Then you can make it your default one. You don't need to be a developer at all.
That is a most logical possibility.
Hivemind harvest in progress..
Why is it that when this same story came out for Yahoo, everyone declared that Yahoo was "pushing IE7 on Firefox users?" People were even claiming that Yahoo was trying to leverage monopolistic practices. Now that Google has done exactly the same thing, people are claiming that this somehow diminishes Microsoft's original intentions (though I don't understand how having a popular search engine endorse your web browser would be a bad thing). How is Google's decision to use this strategy any different from Yahoo's? I'm just curious to know what sort of BS /. will provide in order to prove how Google's plan is so different and ethically superior to Yahoo's.
"Is not a sentence" is not a sentence. Well damn.
Mute = myoot. As in unable to speak.
Moot = moot. Little practical value or meaning.
It's one of those things like "another words" / "in other words".
~ Leilah
Mozilla and Firefox first so one can leverage XUL.
Otherwise pure W3C.
If the vendor doesn't follow standards, too bad. I've better things to do than tweak stylesheets and generate inefficient image formats to get around browsers that don't display a transparent PNG background.
Guess what? Proper W3C HTML usually renders the same in any browser I've used. Some just lag in supporting standards and end up a bit ugly, but still function fine.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Microsoft created the IE admin pack for exactly this reason, I'm sure they are not thrilled about Google's release of a branded "product", however it fits the business model of creating custom browsers. I'm sure the intention of this package is for individual manufactors to customize the products on their computer products and google has just as much a right to do this as Yahoo, HP, Dell, or any other manufacturer. Then again I'm sure Microsoft is not happy that their tools are being used to advance googles agenda, but Google is a smart business model and they saturate the market with their brand name (google is practically a verb).
My two cents at least.
Actually I am pretty sure that this is -exactly- the sort of thing they intended. Third party websites pushing both their website and IE7.
All this will do is get people who likely would have been using Google anyway to upgrade to IE7 as well. Both companies stand to gain from this.
This submission might not have been accepted without the snarky comment about how Google was using MS's own features against them though.
When will google make a customized version of IE7 to run on Linux (with wine or whatever)?
From Microsoft's Page regarding Advantages for Content Providers .
So no, it's EXACTLY what Microsoft intended. And the very fact that it's being offered by Google is actually a boon to Microsoft. They may be competitors in some areas, but this has obvious benefits for both.
Most are also conveniently ignoring the fact that IE7 simply imports your IE6 settings. If you already had the Google search hooks set (either by the Google toolbar or doing it manually), IE7 adopts those settings. My IE7 installation has defaulted to Google searching since day 1 and has never even tried to override it with Live settings.
If you've never tried to setup IE to use Google search before, there's no reason a new IE install from Microsoft.com should point you that direction. If you've already done that work or are bothering to install Google's modified IE, MS isn't getting in your way.
"Optimized for Slashdot"
Pretty much covered all the bases with that post.
Bill: Uh, Steve?
Steve: Oh, uh.... YYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAA!!!! DAMN STRAIGHT! YAAAAAAARRRRRRR!
Bill: STEVE!
Steve: Right, whew. Just got a bit excited there... *twitch* YYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAA *toss*
Bill: So, I'll expect your next TPS report to have a new cover sheet, and go ahead and make sure you get a copy of that memo. Mmmmkay?
Expect the usual: some update that breaks Google version, and an ever more bloated EULA on the next release.
threadeds blog
The parent even replied and admitted that this is not the case. Why must we desperatly seek out any excuse that will keep google from looking bad? Whenever MS does something bad and it gets posted here people dont make unfounded speculation to try to justify it. (well ok, some do but they are usually modded down)
So when Google will provide firefox v2.0 ? like in pack, adsense, ... That's more important.
Music is the sedative for mind...
This may be a dumb question, but what's the big news with this? If you just click to the right of the search bar in IE7, you can choose Google as your default search engine. You can even remove live.
Subject says it all.
Fight hunger. Filet a politician and send him to a 3rd world country of your choice.
Oops, I modded the parent down accidentally. I'm just posting to negate my modding.
Instead of downloading Google's IE I just set the default search engine to Google and made my own existing customized Google home page to default in IE and as I don't care much about the Google toolbar I was done in 10 seconds.
I imagine it may be usefull for people who don't know how to do this, but honestly.. how hard is it and does it justify a Google version of IE 7?
Supporting MS products doesn't mean you have to like them.
Malware replaces the default search all the time.
On a typical Windows PC, there will be many different pieces of malware fighting over this. The malware also fights over your home page and numerous other things.