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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.
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?
Firefox makes IE 8 your default browser in Linux? That's kinda odd.
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 sure it was accidental. Nobody at Microsoft would notice this because they all use IE (by law).
No sig today...
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
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? :)
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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.
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!
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.
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?
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.
It did throw a chair at me when I said to leave me default as Firefox.
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!"
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
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.
I let Vista install all 300MB of collective updates last night, including IE8, and it did not change my default from Chrome.
My debut novel AMITY now available: http://jeremydbrooks.c
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.