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Microsoft Backs Down On Making IE8 Default At Upgrade
Barence writes "Internet Explorer 8 will no longer replace the default browser when a user selects the 'Use express settings' option during installation. Back in May, Mozilla and Opera accused Microsoft of force-feeding users Internet Explorer 8 through the Automatic Updates process. The object of their ire was the 'Use express settings' option which automatically sets Internet Explorer 8 as the default browser. The option was already ticked when Automatic Updates offered users the choice to upgrade their browser. 'We heard a lot of feedback from a lot of different people and groups and decided to make the user choice of the default browser even more explicit,' notes Microsoft in a blog post."
Mozilla can't complain, the last few times I installed Firefox it had an automatically checked box to make it default. Then again, they did complain with Opera, so some stupidity was due.
"They confiscated everything, even the stuff we didn't steal!"
That's been my plan thus far.
I've no idea what it'll do if I upgrade to it, so I'm sticking with IE6 on my PC, and IE7 on everyone else's.
By selecting "Express settings" the user is saying to the vendor: "Yes, I want to you use any settings you consider to be the best for me."
You give the vendor a blank statement. Microsoft wouldn't have to bother changing the default. They are actually quite kind to Mozilla, Opera and Safari there.
And then you just leave yourself with outdated and potentially bug-riddled software still installed on your machine. The better option would be to remove IE completely if you don't use it, but that's obviously not possible ;)
when installing a new system, be it server or my own machine, is to hide IE7+8 from the listed updates.
Of course with Windws 7 I've had no choice ;)
All my machines went to IE8, even though I use Firefox as my browser of choice. Three reasons:
1: Security. You always want stuff that handles protentially hostile code as updated as possible. IE6 was made for the security threats of 2001. IE8 is made for far more current threats. Nothing is perfect, but IE has gotten a lot better as times have gone on. It has decent clickjacking protection, and seems to have had done a good job in standing up to NSS Labs's security tests.
2: Features. Auto-zapping all history and cache, and InPrivate browsing make it decently usable for those sites which require IE, or don't work well with Firefox.
3: Compatibility mode. There are some sites which still assume that everyone is going to be using IE6 for the forseeable future.
If you don't use IE do not upgrade it and it won't change your default browser
Or you can update it and just be sure to uncheck the "default browser" option. I realize that not everyone knows how to do that but its not one of the harder things to change.
I do find it funny though that all of these companies are essentially fighting over the users ignorant of how to do such things. I suppose it makes sense in a way, if you can snag the majority of these people, you'll have them for ages AND you'll never have to give them new features because they won't understand how to use them anyways. They'll be endlessly happy with whatever you throw at them as long as it doesn't complicate things any more for them and still lets them access the internet.
Surely the problem was that the update changed the default browser, not that it upgraded the non-default one.
Usually Microsoft's actions are fairly transparent, but I really can't understand what they are trying to achieve with this policy
Good, I hate when installers and update utilities hide crap like that behind "express" or default settings. It's by no means a Microsoft-only trick though, the one I find most annoying is AIM's attempt to install all sorts of toolbar crap hidden behind a default checkbox so you have to uncheck two levels of things to stop it. Even Mozilla does this to some extent to set itself as default, the only difference is anyone who's installed Mozilla probably actually WANTS it to be default, whereas with IE you'll have it rather you want it or not.
Biggest OS retailer on PCs. Ignoring the notion that a mac isn't a PC (are modern 'PCs' any closer to an IBM PC than a wintel mac?), MS do have the vast bulk of the market on desktop and laptop personal computers.
This is where they have a monopoly. The issue, in general, though, is less that they have the monopoly than that they abuse the fact they have one.
In my experience it's far closer to 50%. But, again, I've no idea of the true figures.
...if it helps continue the death of IE6
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
I did a fresh install of 7 recently (June 10th) after some tweaking of my system rendered it unstable. (not the point of the post, just background on why I did the reinstall)
I did the Windows 7 clean install, loaded my drivers, and activated it.
Grabbed the normal updates and, during that process, I right clicked the automatic update entry for IE8 and selected "Hide Update" because I choose not to load the IE8 software.
Now with patches loaded, I go back to see if any of the patches needed patching. I go back to Windows update to get the latest round of patches and guess what the first entry on my Windows update page was...IE8! "critical", no less)
I went through the process to hide it again. I load the other patches
The next week MS released some more patches. I went to Windows Update to grab them and you wanna guess what the first "critical" patch was? IEfucking8!
I made a thread at the Windows 7 forum, http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itprovistaapps/thread/2d8a57f3-8904-49b8-a626-c6a5481ca9b4 asking them why they are trying to ram this program down my throat when I have specifically chosen not to use the program and, to date there have been 166 views of the thread, but no replies from MS...not that I expect a reply...
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
What the hell is this? A well structured, informative, and easily accessible statement of reasons why IE8 isn't rubbish? Clearly, you must be new here!
Kindly fall into line behind the blind F/OSS advocates to add your X to the list of people who think Microsoft is bad like the rest of the sheep without considering any alternate opinion! Your valid reasoning is not welcome here.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
How much were you paid for your post ? Seriously, the question of wether Microsoft is or isn't a Monopoly was put to rest 10 years ago.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
What Microsoft is doing wrong is abusing a monopoly in one market to gain dominance in another market. That is what is illegal. Just having a monopoly isn't illegal - it's the abuse of it that is wrong. Apple aren't abusing their monopoly on iPods to gain a market.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
In Windows 7, you can uninstall it.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
While neither a lover of Microsoft or Apple, calling Apple a monopoly is simply ludicrous. They hold about 3% of the global PC market (~7.7% in the US), 1% of the global cell phone market, and by some estimates about 23% of the Personal Digital Music Player market (Source: http://tinyurl.com/nm3m4n). Certainly not a monopoly in any of the markets. Microsoft on the other hand has ~90% global market share.
As far as why Apple is not abusing monopoly laws with their iTunes software as it relates to the iPod, for the same reason that Blackberry's and Palm's software does not abuse monopoly laws for connecting to their devices.
apple absolutely has used their "monopoly" on ipods to gain a market. In this case it's online distribution of music.
Apple and toyota seem to have a halo around them, they are still publicly traded corporations, and at their core are just the same as MS or any other business.
The problem with not upgrading is that something else may use the browser, and an old Microsoft browser will be buggy, probably.
... 'We heard a lot of feedback from a lot of different people and groups and decided to make the user choice of the default browser even more explicit,' notes Microsoft in a blog post."
Google: Don't do evil.
Microsoft: Evil for profit.
Google: It's finished, but we call it beta.
Microsoft: It's beta, but we call it finished. (All of our customers are part of our beta test team.)
"Internet Explorer 8 will no longer replace the default browser when a user selects the 'Use express settings' option during installation.
Translation: "We do as much evil as we can. But we are afraid of another anti-trust investigation."
All my opinion, but I'm not the only one.
1: Security.
QFT.
I am finding I'm running into many applications that use embedded IE to access the internet. Two off the top of my head are Steam and Darkfall Online - Steam of course uses it for its store, community pages, and in-game overlay's web browser, while Darkfall used a horribly implemented system for its journal, clan pages etc.
There are many others, and if you're using one which happens to stumble upon a compromised site you'd be better off with a newer IE, I'd think.
Ezekiel 23:20
Since the "whoosh" meme is a bit played out, I'll try a different one: ::Toooooooooooooot::
Hear that? That's the sound of you missing the boat.
I was excited to try IE8. About 20 minutes after install and use I wasn't excited anymore. When I open a new tab my whole system slows down until its finished loading. I haven't looked at the CPU usage but i'd assume its pegging it for the render engine. Just a thought.
And how many software writers for MP3 players, video players and graphic editors do the same thing when it comes to the long tick box of file extensions with most of them pre-ticked for you? At least with IE8 it's just one tick. I can think of a few software downloads that end up changing those familiar icons in Explorer to new programme icons. It's no big deal - other than the Windows Updater always wanting to download the product which I haven't got on my system. Heck, what's the point of a monopoly if you don't use it? :-)
Too late because it is already been five months later. How many more users were stolen from other browsers by this tactic?
I want to uninstall IE6 and IE7 before i install IE8 bloat.
IE8 crash more often then IE6 and IE7 put together. It's wrong
to force that on n00bs. They have hard time as it is.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Setup\7.0]
"DoNotAllowIE70"=dword:1
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Setup\8.0]
"DoNotAllowIE80"=dword:1
I'm temped to add 9.0 too to avoid future nag...
Things like these and WGA spyware is why i dont run WindowsUpdate.
I'm also thinking of redirecting IE shortcuts to Opera or Firefox.
Are you retarded, or a troll?
IE8 is included in Windows 7.
What the hell is this? A well structured, informative, and easily accessible statement of reasons why IE8 isn't rubbish? Clearly, you must be new here!
Nobody said IE8 isn't rubish. It's just better than IE6.
on wine AFAIK, you don't actually need to install IE to get steam working, there is some sort of hack to get it working using gecko! can this be done on windows? OFC if embedded IE uses IE6bugs then IE8 with compatibility mode is probably your only choice,
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Also, all the people I have helped by installing and defaulting to Firefox, are now wondering why they have 15 search bars and half an inch of actual browser window. These are the users microsoft wanted back.
"better ways of doing things eventually just replace the inferior things" - Linus Torvalds 09-08-07
Since IE8 was considered a critical update and service packs require ALL critical updates, users have no choice to get IE8 to be able to upgrade with a service pack via Windows Update in Vista. :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Except the iTunes Music Store isn't the only game and neither is the iPod. Amazon and Wal-mart have music stores that sell DRM-less music too. Also, the iPod isn't the only game in town either. There are tons of MP3 players in the market. Basically, Apple isn't stiffling competition in the Market, like Microsoft has done. It's not illegal to have a monopoly, it's illegal to abuse it.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Heck, I have applications on my machine that use IE as their display engine (I guess). So when IE gets upgraded, my scanner software stops working. Finally HP addressed it with a patch so it'd use IE 8 but it was annoying for a bit that I couldn't use the HP software to change the default settings.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
Remember "monopoly" does not mean "highest marketshare." per se. From dictionary.com:
MS has a monopoly (as determined by a US court) on OS for Intel X86 computers (PCs). The commodity is PCs. In this case, MS has control over the OS that runs on most PCs which are made by others. Apple only has control over the products that they created which isn't a monopoly.
It's not a fudge. The term "PC" means a very specific thing. PC does not mean anything with a computer in it. In the case of MS, they have a number of different businesses. They have a monopoly in OS for PCs not in their consumer products division.
This is not sound logic. A company can have a monopoly in their product. That's perfectly legal. Would you charge Dell with a monopoly on Inspiron PCs? It's their product.
Certainly Apple has the largest marketshare but one does Apple have exclusive control of the MP3 player market? Is it the only player? Do realistic alternatives exist? Are the barriers to market entry sufficiently high enough to prevent competition? One visit to BestBuy and you can see that there exists many different direct competitors to iPods. Also remember, Apple iPods play MP3s and AACs which can be played on any other player. Their DRM'ed Fairplay files from iTunes cannot be played; however, Apple gives customers the option to decide between DRM and non-DRM when purchasing music from iTunes. On the other hand, how many alternatives can you get for your OS at BestBuy if you buy a desktop? If you don't buy Apple, you only get Windows.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I wonder if MS fired the team responsible for that scandal (IE 8) that even their best buddies didn't like and the decision to pull a trick even Real Networks gave up.
"If user has installed me over automated windows update and has another browser selected by default, don't touch his settings".
How hard it is? It is really malicious and nothing else, the team, managers, all must be fired unless they publicly apologize.
Their action, while at court with EU could cost them millions if not billion. Yes, that childish action has potential to cost them. I am sure EU officials already added it to their files.
BTW MS, we noticed you hired some AC guys, tell them to post a bit later defending your actions. First 3-4 posts coming from fake AC accounts (paid accounts in fact) really shows too much.
I love how they gave it a KB number so poor user should think it is part of system functionality or some kind of something gets updated.
Oh, this just gave me an idea. Has anyone thought of creating a standard interface to speak to rendering engines for internal program use? This could rid us of a lot of pain if it caught on.
I would say that Apple is stifling competition pretty well. They have tied their iPod/iPhone to different markets like their music store, a media player, and cellular carrier. Yes, there are alternatives, but the alternatives make up such a small market share, that it effectively gives Apple monopoly wielding power.
Again - it's not having monopoly wielding power that's illegal, it's abusing it that's wrong. AFAIK Apple haven't abused any of their monopolies (although I don't think Apple really have a monopoly in any of their markets - there's decent alternatives to everything they sell). By the way, I'm not an Apple fan myself, I've never bought anything Apple as I think their stuff is overpriced.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
on wine AFAIK, you don't actually need to install IE to get steam working, there is some sort of hack to get it working using gecko! can this be done on windows?
There is a wrapper around Mozilla that exposes it via the same COM interfaces that IE provides for hosting purposes. It would be possible to use that, and write a simple stub DLL that would be registered for CLSID_WebBrowser (MSHTML), but would instead instantiate CLSID_MozillaBrowser (the wrapper). Once done, all applications on the system should pick the new engine. It would be somewhat more complicated to do this for specific apps only, but still possible if you intercept DLL calls using something like Detours, and look for and intercept any attempts to do CoCreateInstance(CLSID_WebBrowser). No idea if anyone actually tried, but it should be fairly trivial for anyone moderately proficient in Win32 development.
Using a monopoly in one domain to influence another is considered "abuse". As iPods (hardware) is influencing cellular carriers (AT&T), Media Players (iTunes), and music sales (iTunes store) they most certainly have been abusing their monopoly power.
It's pretty much indefensible behaviour on MS's part. I like a lot of the things they do (Windows Server 2003 - 2008, Windows 7, Visual Studio .Net etc) but I equally dislike their sometime's underhanded business practices. Backing down now just smacks of putting the cookies back in the jar after you've been caught.
You can actually do it on Windows. MSHTML.dll (the Trident rendering engine) is the default rendering engine on Windows, but it can be replaced - pretty sure it's just a registry key. Of course, anything that relies on it actually being Trident will break - Steam on Wine is good (although not perfect) but there are other, much more painful examples - but it's theoretically possible.
Wine implemented the Gecko "IE" feature because they needed *some* rendering engine, but they're working on a proper MSHTML implementation.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
3: Compatibility mode. There are some sites which still assume that everyone is going to be using IE6 for the forseeable future.
Short of rubbish sites that require ActiveX, I've found most sites made for IE6 render better in Firefox than IE8.
I suppose that's why there is a compatibility mode. But to me, this isn't a positive I'd go around boasting about.
I'm happy they finally got security "right". I'd lump it up there with Safari and Firefox. (though not Chrome or Opera, until it's proven itself for a while)
And being clueless, they're far more likely to click on an advertisement, thinking it's a legitimate search result. Which company wouldn't want them using their own browser!? ;D
Except iPods aren't in a monopoly situation. There is plenty of healthy competition in that market. The iPhone isn't either, nor is iTunes or the iTunes music store. In that scenario, it isn't illegal to leverage one product in order to make inroads in another market.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
What I'm asking is this: What makes it a monopoly?
Fuck off, if you are really interested in this there are numerous resources on the internet explaining it in great detail.
You might as well come here asking about the moon landing...
Go back to neowin...
Wow, an AC fighting against himself.
:D
Get out more!
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
$10 says it still uploads to your machine every time you do a windows update but asks if you want to upgrade to IE8. Then, if you say no, it deletes it from the temp directory so you can upload it over and over until you are tired of the massive upload every time you do a windows update.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
If you love the windows this post is not for you.
I don't see the big deal. If your windows VM wants to pump crap on its virtual drive let it. You have a 1T drive right? That is the cool thing about demoting jenky OS's to virtual machines. You can still use those outdated applications that haven't been fully replaced by a Linux/OSX version, not worry about it BSoD'ing your machine, and let it do all of it's BS updates it wants.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Wow, MS usually does the opposite of what they should do. IE7 blows REALLY bad, doesn't display web pages correctly and is much more insecure than IE8. Now MS is backing down on the default upgrade to IE8? Good job MS, once again, you've MISERABLY failed.