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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?"
Maybe next will be a ballot for mail client.
I just want to be able to DELETE IE completely.
So far the best you can do is break it so it doesnt ever work.
Promoting competitor's product sounds very ridiculous to me already, if somebodies want Microsoft to pre-install Firefox/ Safari/ Opera and display the ballot screen... I can't imagine what is going on with those people.
What about ballot screen on Safari to promote IE/ Opera/ Firefox?
What about Pepsi coupon attached on Coca Cola can?
But if this stupid solution makes the even stupider socialists happy, then so be it.
The MS haters wont stop their screeching until the regulators are forcing Linux or Mac down everyone's throat.
As long as some losers want to force the market into a direction it does not want to go, we will have stupid outcomes like some ballot.
This is what happens when you try to legislate against gravity, which is all these stupid laws accomplish.
And any of the free software/open source types that support this kind of crap lose any legitimacy they have. The legitimate ideas in this movement get brushed aside when you hook your cart to such toolish outcomes.
Thanks Microsoft. How considerate of you to dirty-up my Windoze with Innerweb Exploder, just so I can download an alternative like Opera or Firefox or Safari.
I'm sure Microsoft could include a small FTP program in the "choose your browser" screen to go retrieve the browsers directly, but of course they don't want to do that. They want IE on there in hopes you'll use it someday.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Congratulations on your purchase of a brand new nigger! If handled properly, your apeman will give years of valuable, if reluctant, service.
INSTALLING YOUR NIGGER.
You should install your nigger differently according to whether you have purchased the field or house model. Field niggers work best in a serial configuration, i.e. chained together. Chain your nigger to another nigger immediately after unpacking it, and don't even think about taking that chain off, ever. Many niggers start singing as soon as you put a chain on them. This habit can usually be thrashed out of them if nipped in the bud. House niggers work best as standalone units, but should be hobbled or hamstrung to prevent attempts at escape. At this stage, your nigger can also be given a name. Most owners use the same names over and over, since niggers become confused by too much data. Rufus, Rastus, Remus, Toby, Carslisle, Carlton, Hey-You!-Yes-you!, Yeller, Blackstar, and Sambo are all effective names for your new buck nigger. If your nigger is a ho, it should be called Latrelle, L'Tanya, or Jemima. Some owners call their nigger hoes Latrine for a joke. Pearl, Blossom, and Ivory are also righteous names for nigger hoes. These names go straight over your nigger's head, by the way.
CONFIGURING YOUR NIGGER
Owing to a design error, your nigger comes equipped with a tongue and vocal chords. Most niggers can master only a few basic human phrases with this apparatus - "muh dick" being the most popular. However, others make barking, yelping, yapping noises and appear to be in some pain, so you should probably call a vet and have him remove your nigger's tongue. Once de-tongued your nigger will be a lot happier - at least, you won't hear it complaining anywhere near as much. Niggers have nothing interesting to say, anyway. Many owners also castrate their niggers for health reasons (yours, mine, and that of women, not the nigger's). This is strongly recommended, and frankly, it's a mystery why this is not done on the boat
HOUSING YOUR NIGGER.
Your nigger can be accommodated in cages with stout iron bars. Make sure, however, that the bars are wide enough to push pieces of nigger food through. The rule of thumb is, four niggers per square yard of cage. So a fifteen foot by thirty foot nigger cage can accommodate two hundred niggers. You can site a nigger cage anywhere, even on soft ground. Don't worry about your nigger fashioning makeshift shovels out of odd pieces of wood and digging an escape tunnel under the bars of the cage. Niggers never invented the shovel before and they're not about to now. In any case, your nigger is certainly too lazy to attempt escape. As long as the free food holds out, your nigger is living better than it did in Africa, so it will stay put. Buck niggers and hoe niggers can be safely accommodated in the same cage, as bucks never attempt sex with black hoes.
FEEDING YOUR NIGGER.
Your Nigger likes fried chicken, corn bread, and watermelon. You should therefore give it none of these things because its lazy ass almost certainly doesn't deserve it. Instead, feed it on porridge with salt, and creek water. Your nigger will supplement its diet with whatever it finds in the fields, other niggers, etc. Experienced nigger owners sometimes push watermelon slices through the bars of the nigger cage at the end of the day as a treat, but only if all niggers have worked well and nothing has been stolen that day. Mike of the Old Ranch Plantation reports that this last one is a killer, since all niggers steal something almost every single day of their lives. He reports he doesn't have to spend much on free watermelon for his niggers as a result. You should never allow your nigger meal breaks while at work, since if it stops work for more than ten minutes it will need to be retrained. You would be surprised how long it takes to teach a nigger to pick cotton. You really would. Coffee beans? Don't ask. You have no idea.
MAKING YOUR NIGGER WORK.
Niggers are very, very averse to work of any kind. The nigger's most
Are you kidding me? They will be running IE for a grand total of 30 seconds, rendering a local web page, until they choose their prefered browser. Maybe this will help. Don't think of it as IE. Instead, think of it as an HTML rendering engine. Give me a break. Maybe we should make MS write the ballot screen in assembly language so they can't push their development tools down our throats. Or better yet, make them install a virtual machine running Linux, and then have the ballot application (written in Java of course) running inside the Linux VM.
And from the article:
Here is the fallacy in Groklaw's argument. People who have a preferred browser will not be scared off by that "strange stuff that might come from the internet". They would only have a prefered browser if they knew something about computers and browsers, and so it would not frighten them. Sure, I *suppose* that people who know nothing about computers *might* be hesitant to switch browsers since they have no way of knowing which one to select. But those folks would not change no matter which browser they were running. So, they would never even get to the "scary stuff".
I think the only way to truly satisfy Groklaw (other than euthanizing Microsoft) would be to have the browser selection be random at startup. Then everyone would be on an equal footing. The novice computer users would end up with whatever browser was selected. Of course when they try to exchange tips with their other novice friends they won't be able to be cause they will all be running different browsers. This will make it much harder for the novice to become more proficient. And knowledgable users would very likely be forced to change browsers every time they logged onto a new machine. We would all be annoyed of course, but isn't that the ultimate goal of the "fairness" crowd?
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
sense of humour! This is a pretty big "fuck you" to the EU.
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?
Almost nobody cares about browser choice on Windows. Sure, it's hard to really get rid of IE, but installing another browser has never been a problem. Same goes for media players, mail clients and IM clients. .doc, .xls, MAPI. These are cases of true monopoly that truly hinder competetitors from entering the market.
I think the EU should go after closed formats that have become de facto standards.
Freeing these formats would actually mean something. Going for a browser ballot is nothing more than a symbolic gesture to show that we're willing to stand up to big companies. I bet Microsoft loves this, they get some practise in this kind of legal battle, learn how far they can go and perhaps even gain some credit if they comply. And complying is easy because a ballot box doesn't hurt them at all.
Error 001
Security Scan and Virus Detection do not work with your operating system.
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.
Why IE? Why not create a windows app that provides ballot screen which ftp the browser behind the scenes after user selection. If MS wants to do this there are ways to do it without using IE. But hey EU is satisfied with MS. I think this should be sufficient too. What next, provide ballot screens to select Windowing too.
First off, I like alternatives as much as the other guy, I use firefox and opera as my main browsers. However, this complaint is just stupid. Are some of you so jaded that you can't stand the fact that you will be in IE for all of 30 seconds while you choose something else? You don't even have to manually go find your browser of choice, for the vast majority of us our choice is among the ones listed. This whole browser ballot thing is just an inconvenience for about 90% of the population out there.
It's not like IE is being removed from Windows anyway. There's other things that use it no matter what your default browser is.
This is just whining for the sake of whining.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
it just doesn't
So from the standpoint of fairness, why isn't the EU requiring Apple to have a similar ballot screen for Safari? Or iTunes for that matter.
Opera and Google are freaking hypocrites. Just look at Firefox and Opera browsers, they all use google search by default when you first install them. Opera doesn't even offer to switch to Bing. Unlike Microsoft which offers to switch to google right there on their first "select a search engine" page.
...how and to what extent this "ballot screen" is going to be forced on people. I manage a lot of Windows computers at work and the last thing I want is an automatic update suddenly presenting my users with the invitation to choose a new browser, which they won't be able to take up anyway because they lack the administrative privileges to install one.
Here's hoping there's a quick and easy way to disable this with group policy or registry tweaks. What makes sense for Joe Sixpack or Granny Crabapple is not necessarily wanted in a corporate/managed environment.
Microsoft has responded by implementing the ballot screen as a web page inside IE.
Oh fuck off Microsoft. This is just taunting.
I am the lawn!
With a browser installed by default the user can go online and compare the home pages of other browsers.
He can - if he chooses - seek out independent reviews.
The more technically minded might be attracted to resources like Secunia: Vulnerability Report: Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.x
He is not limited to a screen shot and a paragraph or two of description -
which will inevitably be fretted and fussed over word-by-word by the anal-retentive geek and EU bureaucrat.
There is no screenshot or scenario in the article, so I think the whole IE thing is overblown. What I think Microsoft was intending to do is have the ballot screen as part of their OOBE, along with other little things like registration. As it happens, that uses the Trident rendering engine (and has done so since at least Windows Me) which Groklaw misconstrues as using IE. Which is false, it's just the rendering engine, which by the way is installed anyway, even if the user would never browse the web, because it's needed by the help system, a lot of third-party apps that render HTML at some point, and some other internal Windows utilities. You can't reasonably (although I must admit the EU hasn't been very reasonable about the entire case) ask Microsoft to delete that, just like you can't ask the KDE team to nix the ioslave that makes their help system work. If Microsoft wants to do the OOBE or ballot in HTML, let them. It's an implementation detail and it won't affect the user in any way.
Can i now start a browser company and get free advertisement from Microsoft?
Do you guys want any features in Windows? Did it ever occur to you that people can not go on the internet without a web browser installed by default? How am I supposed to download your favorite browser if I can't even connect to a website? What about Windows Media Player? Should Microsoft kill that as well?
After all people could end up using that and not a competitors product. But then again how would some people play some of their media?
Not everyone is a tech savant like the people on this site. People want features built into the OS, so they don't have to go searching for the right software to accomplish things. Is Microsoft's software the best within Windows? No, but it's also not their job to take features out just so others can sell third party software. You guys are asking a car company to not build in a cd player, because it's "anti-competitive" to after market cd players, and plus you will be installing a new one anyway. It's fine to want to use your own equipment, but the majority of people will look for a cd player when buying a car. Just because you like a particular Alpine unit at Best Buy, doesn't mean a car manufacturer should omit the player.
I will agree with you guys on one thing. What's wrong is Microsoft constantly asking if you want to change your default browser back to IE. This process is anti-competitive. By having access to the OS all the time, Microsoft is forcing their product on you. Just having a feature built in, is not forcing you to use it.
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.
But it sounds stupid.
Are you advising that the eu attempt to force MS to publish details of it's file formats?
That will never happen.
The eu will become an IT ghetto before anyone is forced legislatively to open up closed source.
... there isn't a single car company with a 90% market share.
So seeing as how microsoft is forced to include other web browsers, why is nobody going after apple, i mean they only include Safari, giving no option of Firefox or others. iMail or wtv is called is the default mail client, why no thunderbird option when i install the computer. itunes is installed be default, what if i want to use VLC. See where im going with this? Either stop going after M$ or start going after apple, or be called a hypocrite. Seriously Apple is doing the same thing, why hasnt anybody noticed/cared?
How considerate of you to dirty-up my Windoze with Innerweb Exploder
It's talk like this that has me siding with the fullback who stuffs the dork in his locker.
isn't the Union going after Apple too? Their OS only has 1 browser in it too.
The more you know...
then it's oh-so-richly deserved.
I've seen more clueless crap emanate from the eu than any hick state in the US.
The real problem is not that the IE8 is installed by default. The problem is that Microsoft does not want the Internet at all.
Why should they? Web-applications threaten their core business: OS and MS Office. And money talk.
So they use the Internet Explorer as, speaking figuratively, the Internet's tombstone.
It is slow, it is incompatible, its interface is extremely confusing. I spend a lot of time to find a command in its convoluted menus; what about less technical users then?
Microsoft is trying to win time, to make the web-applications and web-OSs experience as bad as legally and humanly possible for as many users as they can.
I do not blame them. They are to pay salaries to 100000 employees. In their shoes I would do probably the same.
Using the monopoly levers they do can bury the Internet. And as a result we will have rich office documents communicating from Windows silos via a MS-network.
Either you're twelve, or having been living in a cave.
Win95's success was built almost entirely on the fact that you suddenly had native connectivity to the internet, instead of having to cobble together a daisy chain of utilities oneself.
If people stopped using the internet tomorrow, PC sales would dry up, taking windows licensing sales along with it.
They'd still survive, but would take a HUGE hit financially.
I may have seen a post as completely ignorant as your at some time in the past, but I honestly can't recall it.
Nerds will download their own browser possibly as the only thing they ever do on IE.
Most regular people will buy from Dell or some such and never ever see this ballot screen anyways. So how does this help?? I think if they wanted to change what software came with computers they should go to the prefab guys and ban windows taxing. Maybe force them to throw in a ubuntu, FF and openoffice radio button. Seems like it would have way more of an effect than this ever would.
That said, windows has balls almost spitting in the eu rulings face by having warnings popup when you install other browsers, kind of amazing.
Call me clueless, I'm sure you will. It just seems to me that the tie between IE and Windows is viewed with logic that doesn't persist elsewhere.
Example: Gvoice doesn't have to follow certain rules because it is free. In a sense, there is no 'browser market' because they are all free.
Example: Recent reviews of the Palm Pre lauded the fact that the search function of the device spanned web and local content simultaneously. How the heck do you do that unless the OS has some sort of baseline web engine?
Is this all still the aftermath of IE v Netscape? Yes, I'm not a fan of what MS did there. Still, if you started with a blank sheet of paper to build an OS today, would you limit yourself to local files and hardware, or would you make the Internet an integral part of the OS? Chrome OS? Palm Pre? It's not a substantively bad idea. It's just an idea in MS's case that was conceived and executed in a manner that used their OS monopoly not only to kill a competitor, but realistically to kill a market itself. That history of bad behavior doesn't mean that an OS should be Web-neutered. Having a baseline web capability if key. If folks want a different browser, then absolutely give them every means to choose one. I happen to prefer Firefox.
So start the name calling. I just don't see how people who are so passionately against MS really care all that much about the persistence of IE components behind the scenes, even when they are free to choose Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, etc. Honestly, with that much passion it's time to leave Windows altogether. There are great alternatives. Macs are awesome. There are lots of excellent Linux distros available. And please, I have heard the argument about how a browser shouldn't be tied to or an integral part of the OS. Well, perhaps Explorer shouldn't be an integral part of the OS either, and MS should adopt a modular desktop technology as well. Why can't MS make those architectural decisions, and leave the customer to make the purchase decisions?
Let Microsoft install IE... let the user connect to the internet and download any (and all) browser they want.
Who fucking cares which browser it comes with - the user has full opportunity to use any they want.
One of the biggest problems I've had with the browser selection idea is that it sounds like it contains a lot of static parts. A set list, a certain set of installables on the system to choose from. It just creates the same problem we've had since IE was included at install only with multiple browsers.
An App Store style system would add tons of flexibility for browser choice instead of just the top 4. Let the browser developers maintain the version present in the Store and you'll always have current browsers being deployed. Users win, browser developers win, and Microsoft can spin it to make some money off of it.
If only there were some existing example of a repository that allows for software distribution through packages. I'm sure it would take lots of innovation and patents on Microsoft's part.
If Ballmer would just suck PJ's dick this would all go away.
Users have to have some kind of medium to install other browsers through. If not IE, then what? What could Microsoft offer that isn't Microsoft-Something? Would people be more comfortable having Microsoft tangle with the GPL?
I hate Microsoft but I'm calling a duck a duck... This isn't a motivation to open Microsoft up more, it's one more excuse to grill them for all the things they've already done.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
MS install an Operating System, that includes their default browser. You can't really get rid of IE from within Windows as even if you're not using it to browse the net, a lot of developers use embedded IE controls in their apps.
So, IE is already installed on Windows when you first boot, so why not use IE for the task of selecting if you want an alternate browser.
This is just like if you install another desktop OS like, say, Ubuntu, and you end up with Firefox pre-installed. Should Ubuntu devs include another separate app that launches when you first boot asking what browser you want? Should Apple do the same as well with Safari?
Who really cares if IE is launched once when you first boot your Windows machine and it asks you what browser you want to use and provides a list to chose from? The current situation is that when you install Windows, one of the first things you do is go to mozilla.com and grab Firefox - this will just make it easier.
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
ftp releases.mozilla.org
High-traffic release files will get 403'd in ftp.*
Crap. What did the new CSS do with the "Post anonymously" option??
Also, users will be shown security warnings when choosing from the ballot.
Isn't that already how you Americans make your decision at the ballot?
Look, I'm not a big fan of MS, and I know most of you aren't either...but, this whole browser shebang is stupid beyond all belief. Is it really that bad that Windows comes packaged with Internet Explorer? I mean, I know IE is TERRIBLE at being a browser, but is it that bad to bundle it with the OS from the company that makes it? Firefox comes standard on most Linux distros, Konqueror comes with KDE, Safari comes with EVERY mac out there, but no one is up in arms over this.
Oh, they offer a web page in IE to select your browser? OH NOS! Geez, you guys are lame. If you don't have a web browser, how do you get a new one???? I certainly don't keep a list of Mozilla's FTP addresses handy. And the security warnings? Well, I don't want to jump to conclusions, but isn't that how most browsers and OSes work? Granted, OS X brings up the security warning, not Safari, when opening downloaded applications, but its still there. This doesn't sound like IE is just targeting the browser choice and saying "HEY! You want to use something that isn't IE, so I'm gonna nag you about it." It sounds like IE/Windows is taking the same security steps that would be taken for any downloaded application.
Get off your fucking duffs and stop masturbating to hating Microsoft and be glad they give you a choice - I can say less for most other operating systems out there.
Of course one must first have a browser to download other browsers. Of course I used I.E. to download Firefox. But I've little used it since.
Cranky educator.