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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?"
Why MS can't conceive that people don't want a lot of that crap is beyond me.
I dont think "normal people" care that much though. They dont see the difference between IE being still installed but hidden and IE being completely removed from the system. They get to choose another browser tho.
Microsoft has responded by implementing the ballot screen as a web page inside IE.
I wonder how they've could had done it differently. If you provided the install exes along with OS setup, they would be outdated (bad bad thing in browsers). They could had made another protocol that tells the setup what browsers to show for the user and setup then downloads it, but whats the point. When it's an actual webpage, there's much more control in updating it, and it would had been pretty useless for MS to develop completely new rendering engine and browser just for that (and MS browser would still had been there). The security warnings are stupid however.
Even better: Windows 7 doesn't come with a mail client.
Go somewhere random
We would all be annoyed of course, but isn't that the ultimate goal of the "fairness" crowd?
Historically, most attempts by government (any government) to promote "fairness" almost always result in increased inequity.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
You're right. And when the U.S. DOJ fined the record companies for telling Walmart, Kmart, Target, and other stores, "You must sell these CDs are $12 or more, or else be cutoff from future supplies," the DOJ was wrong there too. Companies should be free to treat their customers and stores like ____, and do whatever is necessary to "win" and kill off the competition via monopolistic practices. Yes technically the record companies violated anti-cartel and price-fixing laws, but who what?
Heck the government shouldn't even be regulating monopolies like Baltimore Gas & Electric, or Bell Telephone. Let them charge the customers whatever they want. Yes they hold a monopoly but so what? It's their market and their right to do whatever they want.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Windows 7 no longer includes Windows Mail (the program that replaced Outlook Express in Vista).
If you want a mail client, you have to download Windows Live Mail or your choice of client.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
You really need to think your troll/ridiculously stupid posts through. It would be trivial to have an MSXML/text/MSSQL file contain a list of browsers,icons,download locations and then have an app show that list (in a nice GUI with icons and all), complete with misleading warnings.
or to put it another way "I'd create a GUI interface using visual basic to see if I can install the browser people want"
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
I don't think any FTP program producers will complain about hidden command line ftp commands being used. You do know about command line programs do you ? I don't see anybody complaining that the windows embedded FTP client interferes with GUI based FTP programs. Not to mention that FTP standards are more rigorously adhered to, or it wouldn't work. MS doesn't break http it breaks html. There is no equivalent in FTP.
Yeah. In windows 8 you have to send in an email to microsoft, and they'll send back a list of possible clients.
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.
You, uh, are aware that there are better alternatives to the shitheap that is outlook express, right? Thunderbird, just to pick the popular one, doesn't have any hoops at all. Why would you jump through the MS hoops for a piece of low-grade quasi-free software?
Just another "DOJ fascist authoritarian totalitarian bootlicker" -- Zeio
Next motherfucker that uses the term 'lappy' gets punched in their internet face.
Grub?
then it's oh-so-richly deserved.
I've seen more clueless crap emanate from the eu than any hick state in the US.
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.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
That's in response to those asshat toolbars like "WebSearch" which fool less than computer literate people into installing them. They switch all your search preferences to their own spyware option automagically.
The Bing option you mention would require you to manually change it, so it can't get hijacked.
In other words, it's not a bad thing.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
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.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC