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IE8 Update Forces IE As Default Browser
We discussed Microsoft making IE8 a critical update a while back; but then the indication was that the update gave users a chance to choose whether or not to install it. Now I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes in with word that the update not only does not ask, but it makes IE the default browser. "Microsoft has a new tactic in the browser wars. They're having the 'critical' IE8 update make IE the default browser without asking. Yes, you can change it back, but it doesn't ask you if you want IE8 or if you want it as the default browser, it makes the decisions for you. Opera might have a few more complaints to make to the EU antitrust board after this, but Microsoft will probably be able to drag out the proceedings for years, only to end up paying a small fine. If you have anyone you've set up with a more secure alternative browser, you might want to help check their settings after this."
Here's to the end of IE 6 and all the hacks needed for site to render correctly!
IE remains the biggest security problem in Windows (besides user stupidity).
If webpages can override the render engine in IE8 then IE8 is only as secure as the worst render engine.
Why doesn't that surprise me a bit at all?
There's nothing wrong with this tactic. Firefox does the same thing to me in Linux.
i updated IE8 manually on like 20 machines yesterday. it asked every time. it didn't kill my default browser selection.
it there something i'm overlooking, like does automatic updates apply it and not ask you? am i missing something from TFA?
If you have anyone you've set up with a more secure alternative browser
Is it not a bit early to be deciding which browsers are more secure than IE8?
I installed IE8 through windows update in Vista and it asked me if I wanted to set it as the default browser. I clicked no and Firefox is still my default. If you use the full auto install it will make it the default browser. Of course, if you do the full auto install with any Microsoft product you deserve any pain that results.
If you let the IE install do it's thing automatically then it sets itself as default.
Anyone not choosing to customize IE's install deserves to have it supplant their settings.
Just checked to make sure -- Firefox is still my default. No surreptitious shenanigans.
Is this an XP thing? TFA didn't say which OS he was running.
I have several machines, all running several versions of Windows (XP & Vista in both 32- and 64-bit varieties) and I have not seen IE8 automagically installed through Windows Update on them. I have Windows Update set to automatically install updates without asking and the result is exactly what happens with IE7 when you get it off of Windows Update: An installer screen pops up asking if you'd like to install IE8 now, would like to wait, or don't want to install it at all, ever. All have updated to Office 2007 SP2, which was released to Windows Update the same day.
However, I can't speak to what happens when you have IE6 installed on your XP machine and this update comes across the wire. I dropped IE6 over a year ago. Still, I doubt such an upgrade would be forced like this. Also, when I did choose to install IE8 on a machine that has Firefox as the default browser, after the restart, Firefox was still the default. This article is simply FUD. Furthermore, what's wrong with replacing a less standards compliant browser with a more standards compliant browser? Provided you don't change the default browser of course.
Service packs for Visual Studio are no longer available on our WSUS server for this reason [after some hard political battles and beating Security over the head with a clue bat]. Visual Studio service packs change all your file associations from non-VS applications to Visual Studio. The Computer Science 101 students' heads all exploded when foo.java opened in Visual Studio 2005 instead of Notepad++.
Microsoft has a long history of forcibly breaking your operating environment.
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
I was actually "released" from the IE8 team for precisely my opposition to this action.
The day I found out I no longer had to show up to Redmond, the sun was low in the sky and the light mist that always seems to hover over the Puget Sound area was turning into a cold drizzle. The drizzle would eventually become snow and we'd have two days straight of spring snow.
I pulled my Fiat into the parking lot and was met by two of my teammates. They were waiting to warn me of the incoming news of which they had only heard the very basics. I was to be fired and marched out. It was to make an example of me and to impress on the remaining team members not to rock the boat. IE8 would take over as default browser, no matter what any ruggedly handsome senior developer thought.
My manager met me in my office and handed me 6 cardboard boxes. He thanked me for the years of work I had put in, and was sorry that things had reached this point. The my sentence was handed down from above, and he had done his best to lobby on my behalf. But he didn't share my feelings about the default browser action.
I took down my patent cubes and unopened boxes of shipped products. My books were packed up into the cardboard boxes and I took a few paper clips and pens as mementos. My final official act was to grab two bottles of Talking Rain. Raspberry and Lemon Lime. And with these, I walked with my manager and security guard to my tiny, snow-covered car.
The decision to do this with IE8 came as a product of much deliberation. It is no accident. They took action against me personally because I had the audacity to speak out. I always heard about their anti-competitiveness, but didn't really understand its reality until that snowy day.
IE6 is a plague on the internet development world. If it gets rid of that, wonderful. Making it the default browser, that's classic Microsoft. Actually, that's the new, desperate to hang on to market share in the face of shrinking revenue Microsoft.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Not that I saw. I remember seeing an explicit "Make IE8 your default browser?" dialogue show up. I'm not sure about XP, but on Vista 64, it behaived exactly as I expected it to and did not change any settings that I didn't tell it explicitly to do.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I'm yet another person who installed IE 8 via Windows Update and it did NOT forcibly set itself as the default browser.
Seriously Slashdot, do you even bother to vet your troll articles anymore? Do you realize how embarrassingly pathetic this one significant site in the tech world has become?
I'm holding back installing it as there's still a bug (apparantly) that stops media sharing working with WMP11 when you install IE8 on Vista.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Have them drag the issue on in the EU. It may take a while but the sums are slightly over average in size.
On a default install on Windows, Firefox also makes itself the default browser without asking. Very annoying, particularly as I use Seamonkey as my main browser.
It asks you in the damn installation wizard if you'd like it to be the default browser. I know the Slashdot crowd is all anti-Microsoft, but can we please not fight FUD with FUD?
If it were actually true that MS forced you to switch to IE8, even temporarily until you switch back to FF, that would be major news! But as seems to be the case here, the author is just making shit up.
While I agree that making it default _without asking_ is a shady move on Microsoft's part, I'm sure what the payoff is for them versus the negative response many people will have. Those users who have a non-IE browser as default will notice the switch and will switch it back, these are the users who are actively choosing which browser to use anyway. The people who don't care what browser they are using, are probably already using IE. So what do they accomplish, other than reaffirming to the non-IE people the rightness of their choice?
...we know that most people (sadly) are using some version of IE currently; ergo, if they install IE8 and it makes itself the default, this is good for a variety of reasons entirely related to security (and good for the rest of us as the last thing I need is more zombies out there spamming me night and day.)
Now, most people who have an alternative browser installed do so because they are 'aware' of the realities of modern web surfing and make an intelligent choice accordingly. These people are being inconvenienced by this because they've got to set their browser back to being the default (often this is simply a case, using Mozilla as an example, of starting up their favorite browser and it saying "Hey, don't you want to use me all the time" and they choose "yes, make yourself my default browser." Inconvenient, annoying, suspicious, yes - a real problem for these people? No...
The last group are the (imho) very small minority of web users who've been lucky enough to have an informed web user install an IE alternative for them, but they themselves do not know what the fuss is about. These are the people actually getting screwed by this. They may end up with IE8 until their good Samaritan revisits them to right this terrible wrong.
Ignoring whatever the actual motives for this decision at Micro$oft was, I personally think the good outweighs the bad. It would still be nice to smack the guy who green lighted this in the face though, wouldn't it? :)
Loading...
On a WinXP SP3 box here at work.
Best Slashdot Co
When I looked at my XP box the other day, there was a bubble notifying me of available updates. I checked to see what it was and all there was was IE8. So I unchecked the box, told it never to ask again, and that was the end of that. So why the FUD ? Can't you even configure windows properly ? Please stay away from Linux.
I just allowed a handful of computer at work to install the update. All of them asked before installing and none of them changed the default away from Firefox.
Somebody needs to explain this.
Actually it was a major $%^$ing pain in the butt to change firefox back to the default browser after IE8 hijacked it.
cd pub
more beer
Yes, you can change it back, but it doesn't ask you if you want IE8 or if you want it as the default browser, it makes the decisions for you.
This is not entirely true. When you install IE8, it asks you whether you'd like to do an Easy install or if you'd rather do a custom install. The Easy install does indeed set IE8 as the system's default browser, without asking. However, if you do the custom install, it does ask, and it honors what you tell the installer to do.
Even if your default browser setting does get hijacked, the very next time you launch Firefox, it'll let you know it's not set as your default browser, and it's one click to change it back. Not a big deal at all, other than if you're running unattended installs on critical systems which require Firefox to be the default browser for some reason.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
...to be able to put their preferred browser back to the default browser because IE8 has forced itself in its place are probably too stupid to keep their virus checkers and anti-spyware software updated as well. Therefore the fact that IE8 is possibly less secure than Firefox, Opera, etc. is a moot point.
I suggest those same people focus on getting a little less stupid and learning a bit more about their computers - by default Firefox will tell you if it's no longer the default browser (I don't use Opera or any other browser so can't comment on those) so if IE8 makes itself the default, then just start Firefox up and answer the "Do you want Firefox to be your default browser?" question with a "Yes".
Wake up people - big companies want you to buy and use their stuff! So get some common sense...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Installed IE8 via Automatic Updates and it is not my default browser.
Slashdot has become a sensationalist tech news site. Sorry Slashdot: I've got no time for jibba-jabba.
I allowed the install of IE8 on 2 of my personal machines yesterday. Both of the still have Firefox as the default browser. Vista and XP. Who is complaining that its switching their default browser? What's the setup?
I reject your reality
How much browsing is done through the "default browser" setting anyway? Maybe the occasional click of an email link. Surely most of the time, however, browsers are invoked directly by double-clicking the icon of your usual browser, rather than through invoking the Windows default browser setting. And most browsers have an automatic pop-up asking you if you want to set them as your default browser, with "yes" pre-checked (as well as "run this check every time"), so most non-techy users would very quickly end right up back with their old browser setting again, just through their habit of saying OK without thinking very much.
I have an XP virtual machine (SP3) that I use to VPN into work.
Just yesterday I installed the update with IE8 on it.
Firefox 3 was still my default browser after the update.
When I opened up IE8, it did ask me if I wanted to change IE8 to be my new default, but it did so in a totally clear manner that made it easy to decline.
It seems that Microsoft takes the heat for forcing its products to be the default browser/media player/whatever, but whenever I get an iTunes/QuickTime update, QuickTime doesn't give me the option of choosing whether or not it is the default media player and proceeds to take over my machine. Furthermore I, like many posters before me, was given the option during IE8's install process of whether or not I wanted it to be the default browser. Of course I do custom/manual Windows updates. Perhaps those who use Express update are met with a different result?
I think the guy who posted this thread is a MS employee - goading us to install IE8 by trying to get our backs up ;)
It's conceivable that it only makes itself the default under certain circumstances. Maybe if you have auto-updates "fully" turned on (where it doesn't even ask, it just installs), it'll make it the default.
I don't want to sound troll-ish but it's likely that people who have auto-update set to "download-and-install-automatically" aren't the more savvy set, and therefor MS thought they could get away with it (I almost added "and I don't want to sound like a conspiracy-theorist", but this is MS, it's *expected*).
I can even see MS apologists taking their side here, something like: "look, you probably installed Firefox on your parent's computer to protect them from IE hacks, not because of usability, but IE8 makes very significant improvements and you know that it will be kept patched on a system that automatically installs updates from MS"
To me this seems to be a designed tactic.
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
Because I downloaded & installed the update yesterday on my Vista laptop and it did ask, and honor my answer (no).
Your head a splode
Someone is fibbin' here. And it aint Microsoft.
This update is still not required. I bypassed it this morning as usual.
Ok now even I'm not going to let this one slip, what's going on /.?
- Dan
It did throw a chair at me when I said to leave me default as Firefox.
As far as I recall correctly IE7 was supposed to be forced on Windows (XP) as well and was IIRC shipped with Windows Vista.
Now IE8 is forced by Windows Update
Now how is this going to change ANYTHING at all if millions and millions (okay, not that many, but you get my point) of pirated (and even not pirated) copies of Windows XP will not be updated...ever.
Remember the near uprising when windows 98 was not supported anymore. While I was "what, you still use that" thousand of people still were "Hey, I am using this...it just works...I never touched it".
Why is this different?
And in turn by the third. Apparently I am the first one smart enough to do so anonymously.
...that had IE8 listed as "important" rather than critical? And the install ASKED me if I wanted to make IE my default browser?
There you go confusing slashdot with penthouse again.
Why do you give "I don't believe in Imaginary Property" credit? He doesn't believe in copyright.
Never mind, I was waiting to be Bel-Aired.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
The "editors" are either too lazy, stupid or dishonest to fact-check.
Actually it's true. The last batch of updates on my XP laptop included IE8. I have updates set to notify me before installing, but if I was using the default settings I would have had IE8 thrust upon me without so much as a buy-or-leave. (I declined, as it happens - I have IE8 on my other machine, so might as well keep a native IE7 for test purposes.)
Installed on Vista 64.
I think what TFA actually means to say is:
"I got really click happy and just blindly clicked my way through the IE8 install without looking and it made itself my default browser, how dare it!"
This is against the settlement. It has to ask before setting its self as default. More Microsoft bullshit.
Why do people continue to use windows! If we all switched to a unix based OS we wouldn't have to deal with microsoft at all. I say this as I am using the forced, only choice IE7 browser at the college I am working at. Even if I hack the password to install FireFox they reimage the machines every week or so.
Schools and colleges need to break away from the microsoft corportate machine and start using free software (as in speech).
First, while ie8 is a critical update, it does not "force itself" onto one's system. Like all previous incantations, it asks before it actually installs, with the general eula that you have to agree to to install, and options. Second, after restart, firefox was still my default browser on all four of the odes I tried (two vistas on two different machines, two xps on another two machines) launching ie8 gives you configuration options, one of which is to import favorites from other browsers, to set as default browser, etc. On none of the systems did I take over as default browser, and all were installed through microsoft updates.
Thanks once again, slashdot, for publishing untrue microsoft banter.
I call bullshit. I just installed the IE8 push from windows update this morning. On first launch one of the questions was "do you want to make internet explorer your default browser". I said no. A quick test just now by clicking a link in an email and also opening a local html file shows that FIREFOX is still my default browser.
I find it likely that some moron just clicked through the screens and didn't read them. The default answer to the default browser question is of course "yes". Failure to read the screen is not a sign of a vast conspiracy to take over your internet experience...
If you read the options while installing IE 8 offers quick setup or custom
With the custom setup you can uncheck the option of using it as default browser.
I did that, and keep using firefox as my default browser
the funny thing is. IE8 has "do you want to make internet explorer your default browser" as a huge glaring option in the middle of the screen when you install it.
firefox hides it away in the bottom corner and tries to make it look like a branding logo, and defaults it to on. yet nobody says anything about that.
I don't know who is being forced to get IE8 without windows "asking", but it asked me this week, and I declined with no problems.
I have automatic updates (critical only) turned on, and it didn't download automatically. I ran a manual "Windows Update" two days ago to see if there were any optional driver updates for me and it listed IE8 in the "critical" section, but I was able to untick the check box right there. It simply warned me that I might be at risk if I don't download critical updates, but went ahead and skipped it with no other complaints.
I just did a fresh install of XP SP1 (adding SP2 & 3 myself) on a system last night and I have run Windows update several times. Once I was current, IE8 did show up as a critical update, but with it's own install routine (just like IE7 did). I was asked in the first dialog if I wanted to help improve IE8 by sending data back to MS. On this opening dialog of the install routine was a "Do Not Install" button. The next page of the dialog was the click through license, which I also could have rejected. After rebooting the system my default browser was still FF, not the new IE8. Once I ran IE8 there was a first run wizard and the third page of that was "Choose Your Settings" and IF I selected "Express Settings" there was a list of things that would be done, one of those was make IE8 my default browser, another was something called "Smart Filter". This option was not selected by default, neither was the "Custom Settings" option. I chose the custom settings and one of those was to change my default browser. Again, NOTHING was selected by default, there was no "click through", I had to make a choice in order to proceed. Did they want to be my default, yes, but the options were not forced on me, preselected or concealed in a sneaky manner, it was all spelled out in plain simple language. The only way to get your browser switched against your will is to ignore the short list of things that will be done in the "Express Settings" option.
Just to make sure I was remembering correctly I ran Windows Update on another system this morning, and got the same exact experience. I also note there is a small download to block IE8 from being installed, it is at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=21687628-5806-4ba6-9e4e-8e224ec6dd8c.
I'll continue to use FF as my browser, but I know my phone will start ringing soon and I want to be ready for questions from my non-geek friends, so I'll take the new browser on my personal system and see what the new features are. As for the headline of this article, it does not match up with my two experiences in the last 24 hours. Maybe I'll set up another XP box and let the browser get pushed to me via automatic updates, but I bet the install routine is the same...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Actually, as a part-time web developer, I can tell you that I constantly have to model sites and re-code portions of things done by other developers to be compatible with IE6.
There are enough people out there still running IE 6 for it to matter to most companies that want web content generated that it be compatible with IE6 and old versions of Outlook (if it is HTML E-mail) like 2003 and earlier.
I despise this, and look forward to the day I don't have to convert PNG's back to JPG so that the colors look right in IE 6. But this isn't the answer. You can easily uncheck the option to install IE8. I did. I refuse to even see the icon for IE on my computers (I disable it in "Program Access and Defaults").
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
I didn't experience any issues updating to IE8 but I did experience MS hijacking my firefox search and homepage when I installed their Live stuff.
I restarted my computer after installing the latest updates including the Live stuff and when I restarted Firefox, the addons window popped up with something called "Microsoft Choice Guard." With a name like "choice guard" it sounded like spyware to me and I was basically right.
It turns out that if you aren't paying attention MS will install this http://help.live.com/help.aspx?market=en-us&project=wlinstallerv3&querytype=keyword&query=draug_eciohc
This isn't going to win MS any friends...
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
In the lab at work, I updated one of the machines to IE8 and noticed the forceful change of my default browser.(I hate changes without any interaction like this.) Then when i went to access our Outlook Exchange server via IE8, what do you know...Almost every time I try and create a new email it logs me out. Just annoying.
no, it does not make itself default if you uncheck the box during install. just like firefox.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
I'm working on a project where some of the customers, major companies, insist that we deliver the extranet IE6-compatible, because that's what they use. Even if it's a big turd, even if it's basically not supported anymore. We have to spend a lot of time and money on supporting this complete crap.
Browser Version Market Share
IE 7 44.5%
IE 6 17.5%
IE 8 4.3%
IE 5 0.04%
IE 5.5 0.03%
Firefox 3.0 20%
Firefox 2.0 1.8%
Firefox 3.1 0.18%
Firefox 1.5 0.15%
Firefox 1.0 0.06%
Firefox 3.5 0.01%
So call it 50% of the web for IE 7 and IE 8.
Net Applications tracks hits to e-commerce and other mass market websites.
It's not looking at techies. It's looking at guy who watches Fox News and does his shopping at K-Mart.
The geek lives in a bubble.
He believes what he wants to believe.
Your claim is retarded and demonstrably false.
Yet you fail to present anything to support your own claims. Name calling doesn't count, by the way.
If Slashdot is such a shithole then why do you waste your time here?
...shit. When I installed the update, it asked me if I wanted to make it my default browser, which I chose not to do.
Please get your facts straight before you bash MS, that most hated of companies.
Even if you choose the Express Settings option, it does tell you that it's going to change the default: http://www.geeksmack.net/uploads/ie8_screens/wizard_settings.jpg Notice "Default browser: Internet Explorer" under the list of default options that will be selected.
Fourth anonymous idiot you mean
Haven't installed IE8, but I do know that they like to make sure that their icons are where they want them to be. I changed the name of my Quick Launch icon for Outlook to "email". After i did that, almost every time i do a Windows Update, i get an extra icon in my Quick Launch bar for Outlook -- with the words that they want to be on it (i forget what they are). i guess they can't tell that i already have an icon for Outlook ...
...and couldn't surf afterword. Borked Chrome too, but Firefox is OK. Hell if I know what happened. I'm still connected to the network, settings didn't change, but can't get out with IE8 or Chrome now. Windows rocks! ;-)
This might be a "new tactic" in reference to browsers, specifically, but its hardly new to Microsoft. I've frequently had Windows updates switch default associations back to Windows bundled components (Media Player most recently).
As long as it means the end of support for IE6 and IE7 then I don't care what the hell they set as the default browser, Firefox and Opera are going to check on startup anyway so Microsoft's tactics aren't going to last long.
You know what I don't get? Why is Microsoft being slapped with all sorts of antitrust lawsuits for IE, but Apple that not only "bundles" Safari with every system they sell but also has little support for competition, is in the clear? Someone sue them!
Bow before me, for I am root.
IE8 is more secure. Unless you have actually removed all traces of IE from your system (99.9999% have not), even if you don't use IE at all it would still be wise to update.
As for the default browser... A bit annoying, but it's not a big deal.
*Opens Firefox*
"Firefox is not set as your default browser. Would you like to make this your default browser?"
*clicks yes*
Done.
Every time you install any new software it takes default over certain file types why is a browser any different. if you don't want IE8, next time you open your previously default browser it will check this and you can set it back. Even my mom knows to click the orange fox instead of the blue E when she wants to "get on google"
I just updated to IE8 this morning, and Firefox is still my default. Perhaps this was a minor glitch that was corrected between the original poster's update and now?
I installed the updates on my two pc's and on neither did the standard browser change. I'm still happily using Opera 9.64. :)
By those numbers, only 6.5% of IE users are running the latest version. Even if you include IE7 you get that only 73.5% of IE users have upgraded to a browser released in the last three years.
On the otherhand, 91.4% of Firefox users are running the latest stable version or a beta version. And if you include FF2 (released the same month as IE7) 99.5% of firefox users have upgraded to a browser released in the last three years.
Firefox users are far more likely to upgrade to the newest version than Internet Explorer users are, which is what he was claiming.
Is there anyway to filter stories by submitter? I know you can exclude stories by particlar editors, but don't know about submitters. This is the third story that 'I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property' has posted that has been not just inflammatory but a flat-out lie.
I have not experienced this alteration in default browser.
I just updated a little-used laptop with about three months' worth of patches and upgrades, including IE8.
The default browser is still firefox. Obviously, there's something wrong with my configuration.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
This probably reflects that a lot of IE installs are on managed desktops where IT picks when the browser is updated. Firefox doesn't play in that market.
I imagine that consumers with IE installed upgrade at a rate a lot closer to the Firefox rate.
It's probably more an issue of the IE number capturing from two big demographics, while Firefox only frone ones of those.
Were Firefox to ever get big in the enterprise, it'd only get updated on the standard corporate image refresh cycles too.
My video compression blog
first post
You must have Windows auto-update turned off...
who cares, it's not the end of the world, if this is all you can find at fault, get a life!!! All you need to do revert your old browser back. Idiotic no life fool.
Disable iexplore.exe and install it in a sandbox: xenocode
As many have probably discovered by now; this is false. You can choose during install if you wish IE 8 to assume control as the default browser, or not. Of course you must also choose the installation for those who are curious about what is actually happening.
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
i upgraded ie7 to ie8 via windows update. the default browser (firefox3) never changed.
> Microsoft has a new tactic in the browser wars. They're
> having the 'critical' IE8 update make IE the default
> browser without asking.
From my perspective, that was not unexpected - not least because Microsoft is not interested in taking into account how its customers want to use their own computer(s); but also because Microsoft has a history of nasty business tactics, not delivering what it promises, and even lying to its own staff.
Do you in all seriousness think that Microsoft is trustworthy?
They have obviously given up on winning the users hearts and minds. The only option left is brute monopoly force.
I work in an IT dept and we noticed this the other day when we were pushing out updated for our users. We are instructed to avoid the new browser until we can guarantee that everything we use is compatible with it but with Microsoft making this recent change it is likely that users will upgrade without knowing anyway.
wtf, I cant make Firefox my default browser at all now, it keeps switching to IE8 ARGHH!!!!!