Why Microsoft's EU Ballot Screen Doesn't Measure Up

An anonymous reader writes "A lengthy interview on Groklaw discusses the EU's case against Microsoft. The case is supported by Opera, Google, Mozilla, ECIS, and the Free Software Foundation Europe. The EU has demanded that users be offered a 'ballot screen' to make it easier for users to select other browsers. Microsoft has responded by implementing the ballot screen as a web page inside IE. While this may nominally satisfy EU's demand, it is unlikely to satisfy users who prefer other browsers. In order to select another browser, users must be running IE. Also, users will be shown security warnings when choosing from the ballot. Microsoft's ability to charge patent fees in Europe is also discussed: why are they allowed to charge patent fees where software patents are not recognized?"

Comments

No more Outsuck Express

[Informative]

Maybe next will be a ballot for mail client.

Re:No more Outsuck Express

[Idiomatick]

The most hilarious part of that install.

"Do you want to make Bing your main search engine and make it so this is impossible for other search engines to change?"

Wtf?? Its like hey, want us to rootkit you?

Re:No more Outsuck Express

[AmiMoJo]

That's an excellent example of the schism between what ordinary people think of as a computer and how Microsoft sees it.

Ever noticed how OEMs are not allowed to change things like the Windows start-up sound? As far as Microsoft are concerned, their product is XP and your computer has it. As far as the consumer is concerned it's a Sony/HP/Dell/etc computer and it does what computers do. I reckon at least 50% of people don't even know what Windows is, or that Internet Explorer is a web browser and there are alternatives. All they see is a computer and an icon called Internet Explorer which is "the internet".

The problem for OEMs is that it's hard for them to sell a computer with Linux because people can't install The Sims 3 on it. ASUS did the world a massive favour with their Linux netbooks which demonstrated that as long as you don't have a slot to put Sims 3 discs in and your product otherwise looks similar to and does all the things that Windows does you need not pay the Microsoft tax. Google and Facebook are really helping too because now they are the "killer apps" most ordinary people want, all without an optical drive.

Re:I don't care about the screen...

[hedwards]

You can remove it, you just have to create a custom install disc, which is far more work than one should need to put in. Why MS can't conceive that people don't want a lot of that crap is beyond me.

Lynx

[symes]

Why can't we have Lynx as an option? Or better - why can't we have Lynx as the DEFAULT from which users make their browser choice?

Do evil to make money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only after the EU has spent millions in court.

Microsoft is an extremely adversarial company. It's past actions, like the top managers releasing Windows Vista when mid-level managers said it wasn't ready, show that it doesn't care about doing the right thing, in my opinion.

Who gets to be on the ballot?

[trickyD1ck]

Can i now start a browser company and get free advertisement from Microsoft?

The geek gone Socialist

[westlake]

a very limited number of known products, specific browsers which have been concluded by the European Commission should be included on the ballot screen.

Does anyone else find it really, really, strange that the allegedly libertarian geek would accept without protest - even demand - that the state bureaucracy give its stamp of approval before a browser can appear on the ballot?

Can't he see what a precedent this sets?

Surfing the political wave is treacherous - with dramatic shifts from left to right. FOSS and anti-trust can wipe-out.

Re:Enough is enough

[rumith]

Please see this post for clarification. In short: if we wake up tomorrow and ChromeOS is already the dominant operating system, would it be required of it to support installation of third party browsers, even if such a feature was never intended?

Re:I don't care about the screen...

[oakgrove]

When I'm working on someone's computer and they are having problems with IE that I know Firefox would solve, I usually first just ask them if they've heard of Firefox. About half the time they have, usually having used it on a friend's computer. Then I ask them what sites they usually visit. My mom's an avid Craigslist fan so I installed Firefox and added Greasemonkey with the Craigslist image script. The script automatically pulls the images from the ads and inserts them on the main page under each heading. Needless to say I made an instant believer out of my mother and she uses Firefox to this day.

No amount of whining or explaining is going to make most people switch browsers. Just show the strengths (adblock being a good standby) of the alternatives and they sell themselves.