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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?"
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
Yeah. In windows 8 you have to send in an email to microsoft, and they'll send back a list of possible clients.
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?
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 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