Details Emerge On EU-Only "Browser Choice" Screen For Windows

Simmeh writes "Microsoft have posted screenshots and details on their upcoming 'web browser choice screen.' Requirements include being in Europe, and having Internet Explorer set as your default browser. It comes with a few surprises, as the software automatically unpins Internet Explorer from your taskbar, and offers 11 alternative browsers."

Comments

Post-ballot data

[RightSaidFred99]

Be interesting to see if this has any effect on browser usage statistics. Would be hilariously funny if IE actually gains traction. I doubt it though, I don't think IE8 is bad at all but even I use Firefox.

Re:Post-ballot data

[Wintywasthere]

Based on the recent bad press that IE has had...I really doubt it'll gain anything. To be fair though the people that see this and then haven't already made a browser choice probably haven't seen many recent press releases about browsers. I'm guessing they'll go with the (probably well presented) Microsoft option..

Re:Post-ballot data

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems to present IE completely equitably with the other browsers. They show in random order with similar sized logos and all. In the Gizmodo screen shot, Google Chrome is first, followed by Firefox, then Safari, IE, and Opera. http://gizmodo.com/5475490/microsofts-impartial-antitrust+friendly-browser-ballot-screen. Doesn't seem like a slam dunk at all that people would choose IE from this.

Re:Post-ballot data

[Patik]

Except that most people think that blue E is literally "the internet", while the other logos (besides Google's name) will be somewhat alien to them.

Re:Post-ballot data

[moronoxyd]

Those Governments are unlikely to lose votes or support when they crush you (a foreigner) for misbehaving despite you trying to use some loophole.

Why do Americans think that the EU is only crushing American companies?
They apply the rules equaly to European companies as well.
Last year a German and a French energy company where fined half a billion Euros each for violating antitrust laws: http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/1099

Re:Post-ballot data

[B2382F29]

Why do Americans think that the EU is only crushing American companies?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projection_(psychology)

Re:Post-ballot data

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do Americans think that the EU is only crushing American companies?

Because America is built upon paranoia. Their government has convinced its people that everyone is against them and they must do everything to protect their paranoid delusions and self containment.

Re:Post-ballot data

[Spatial]

There are other reasons. In America, corporate fines happening in other countries are not generally reported in the news unless the fines are being applied to an American company. To the casual observer it creates the illusion that only those companies are being fined.

In short, be aware of just how insular the news is, or you will be severely mislead.

/.'d already?

[drachenstern]

The link isn't working, taking way too long... did we really /.-effect a Microsoft server? Too funny. Although, it's most likely not on the main Microsoft cloud.

11 browsers

[Anonymous Coward]

11 browsers? how many of them have >1%market penetration? This is going to confuse the less versed users and I bet one ballmer's chair this is intentional, divide et impera

Re:11 browsers

[CannonballHead]

Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, K-Meleon, Konqueror, SeaMonkey, IceWeasel, and that's about all I can name.

Of course, IceWeasel and SeaMonkey are forks of Firefox I guess. On the whole, I agree with the GP - offering 11 browsers is ridiculous. Unfortunately, that was probably the only way to be "fair" to everyone... except the end user.

I would have rather had the EU tell Microsoft "You can keep your browser but you have to get it up to current standards." THAT would have accomplished something good.

Re:11 browsers

[drachenstern]

http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2009/07/28/browser-ballot-screen-isn-t-just-for-windows-7.aspx

who has time to do that? I'll just point to something that's more than 6 months old (albeit this one mentions just 10, other sources shortly thereafter were mentioning 11 or more such as
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/12/18/0210240/How-Europes-Mandated-Browser-Ballot-Screen-Works
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9142416/FAQ_How_the_IE_ballot_screen_works
which listed:

The first five are Apple's Safari, Google's Chrome, Microsoft's IE, Mozilla's Firefox and Opera. On a second screen, the ballot will list AOL, Maxthon, K-Meleon, Flock, Avant Browser, Sleipnir and SlimBrowser.

so ...)

It also would appear as though Microsoft wanted to do a "top ten" http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/jul09/07-24statement.mspx so I believe that they are using the "top ten" plus IE8, thus making 11.

Also, it's important to note that three or four of these browsers (at a minimum) are rebranded IE experiences, using the IE rendering engine. A couple are rebranded Firefox builds.

Also:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/07/24/1927255/Microsoft-Agrees-To-EU-Browser-Ballot-Screen?from=rss

Re:11 browsers

[guyminuslife]

We are offering a choice of 11 different web browsers with new versions of Microsoft Windows, including:

Microsoft Browsers:
Internet Explorer 6
Internet Explorer 7
Internet Explorer 8

Non-Microsoft Browsers:
Lynx
w3m
Mosaic
Safari (Macintosh only)
Netscape Navigator 4.08
Image Xplorer
Emacs
The browser from the online tutorial code for beginning KDE programming

WARNING: If you choose any of the non-Microsoft browsers in the above list, please be aware that they are THIRD PARTY applications that are UNSUPPORTED by Microsoft Corp. Microsoft makes no guarantees as to the functionality or features of any non-Microsoft browser, and disclaims any responsibility for viruses or other malware that unsupported browsers may or may not contain.

Re:11 browsers

[Shimbo]

11 browsers? how many of them have >1%market penetration? This is going to confuse the less versed users

Well they say 11 but it's 5 + 6 really. That is, they are randomly placed but in two groups - the big 5: IE, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Firefox are the only ones visible without scrolling. Most people aren't going to look at the 'below the fold" browsers.

Mirror....

[ZiakII]

The site with the picture did not load for me, I found the image on The Register with story listed here.

Re:More to come

[iammani]

Actually OEMs should be forced to offer those, not Microsoft. Too bad it wont happen, as Apple will not take it up with EU. And Linux distors are not powerful enough to take it up.

11 Browsers?

[Hasney]

I honestly didn't know there were that many constantly update, up-to-spec browsers for Windows.

Please God don't let any of them be Netscape.

Re:11 Browsers?

[Nadaka]

Please God, let one of them be a telnet terminal.

Re:11 Browsers?

[martin-boundary]

I honestly didn't know there were that many constantly update, up-to-spec browsers for Windows.

See? That's the benefit of having a totally professional system with an ultra-stable, totally dependable and unchanging set of system DLLs, so the programmers can totally concentrate on the specs of their browsers.

Re:More to come

[shutdown -p now]

If you mandate OEMs to install it, should they also be mandated to support it?

Re:More to come

[RightSaidFred99]

Of course they should! Linux dweebs will help them with friendly, free online advise like "You're an idiot" and "Duuh, you don't know how to peruse /proc to find out which revision of your chipset you're using, you numbskull noob!?".

I can already anticipate the ignorant posts

[dave562]

Microsoft agreed to use Windows Update to provide a browser choice screen to Windows users in Europe who are running Internet Explorer as their default browser.

Who wants to bet we are going to see posts here after this feature is rolled out from users who don't have IE configured as their default browser? They will be complaining about not being presented with a choice of alternate browsers, even though they have already selected one.

Furthermore, the article states that the top browsers (Firefox, Opera, Chrome, IE) are going to be presented in random order. I can't wait for the whines from people who happen to see IE as the random first choice.

Here, I'll come up with one for you guys.

"Whaaaa!! IE was first on the SO CALLED RANDOM browser choice list. Obviously Microsoft weighted their algorithm to give preference to IE. My mom and third cousin also both had IE show up first. It's a conspiracy!"

Pointless

[Sir_Sri]

Lovely, so now a bunch of tech savvy people are going to be getting calls asking how to make these screens go away and never come back.

Users don't want choice, they don't want complexity, menus are complexity. Even that stupid setup menu on IE when you first install it scares the hell out of people and they just have to keep clicking 'not right now' or whatever it is EVERY time they start the application because they don't know how to make it go away. They want shit that does its thing that they don't have to think about and for whatever they're doing IE already does that. If you have enough know how to not use IE already, you don't. If you don't have the know how sticking some other choice for you there is just going to break stuff and confuse people. I feel bad for people who will accidentally choose google chrome or safari and then not have a clue how to use it, and not have a clue how to immediately revert the system to what they did have that let them do whatever they were doing.

Not a bad concept in the 'when it's installed' sense, and on purely legal basis it makes sense, but it's not the sort of thing you want to be pushing out to live OS's that people are actually using right now. Even then putting anything other than IE8 on tends to be risky, everything is designed to work in IE, less so with firefox and way less so with any other choice, that's going to hobble people who suddenly have a new browser and no idea how to make it work.

Re:Pointless

[mr_lizard13]

everything is designed to work in IE, less so with firefox and way less so with any other choice

Whilst I think that's not really the case these days (5 years ago perhaps), I really can't see how people will find a browser like Firefox, Chrome, Safari etc any more difficult to use than IE.

They all have navigation buttons, some sort of address/search bar, tabs, etc etc.

They all work very well. They all work with all the important plugins. And they all look and function more or less the same.

Some would argue that they function better than the leading browser, too.

I understand what you mean though about menus and choices adding complexity. But really, this ballot screen ain't that hard to figure out. Computers have to present the user with a choice from time to time. They're not appliances. At some point, the user will have to make a choice about something.

Not ideal, but better than letting IE get a free ride. The web gets better for everyone the more choice there is, even if that means confusing a few million people.

Re:Pointless

[headbulb]

While I agree that Microsoft's IE is bloated and shouldn't show that dialog on start. I strongly disagree that somehow users that chose another browser like Chrome or safari will be confused. Those two alternative options are much easier for a user then the default IE.

Re:Pointless

[Sir_Sri]

They all work very well... for people who know what address bars and tabs are.

Seriously, you're setting the bar way higher than the average user.

Plugins? What's a plugin? Why is this asking me to download something? How do I install something? Ever tried to install flash in firefox? You have to download and run an executable, it terrifies people, they don't know if the site they're getting it from might be hacked, the usually don't know how to find the file they've downloaded to run it. If it doesn't just run on it's own it's too hard for the average user.

Firefox and opera certainly function better on sites *I* visit than say my 70 year old father and his wife. The websites I visit are built for people with the assumption they might not use IE. But my dad's wife manages to find these odd flash game sites that never work right in anything other than IE. And they run their computer on a 20 inch monitor in 800x600 mode because well, it makes everything look bigger, so they can read it better. Good luck getting webpages designed for the young tech savy firefox user to behave nicely in 800x600 (except google).

To anyone capable of reading, the menu screen shouldn't be hard, but it is. It causes regular users to panic and look for a 'get me the fuck away from here' button. It's how all the phishing/internet security 2010 type attacks succeed unfortunately. People want appliances. They're scared of choices they aren't capable of making in an informed fashion.

Like I say, it's the sort of thing that makes sense on a new computer. People *expect* and accept that on a new computer they will have to learn a new of way of doing things and learn new stuff. On average even my first year university students panic when something shows up with different settings than they're used to. If they expect it to be the same they don't want new. And even then, when presented with the choice, they aren't going to want to rock the boat.

No longer true!

[MonTemplar]

Windows Update has been separated from IE in both Vista and Windows 7 - and apparently it will be backported to XP at some point in the future.

-MT.

Re:More to come

[shutdown -p now]

Support as in "computer doesn't work" phone support. OEMs provide first line of that for Windows on those PCs they sell at the moment.

Re:More to come

[Anonymous Coward]

I've only ever seen that attitude out of one community, the Fedora community. I've never seen it anywhere else, and I've been using Linux since about 1993.

The Slackware community is helpful. The Debian community is extremely helpful. The Ubuntu community is helpful, but there are lots of "noobs" there, so their advice isn't always correct. The OpenSUSE community is extremely professional and provide the best advice I've seen. The Gentoo community is always willing to provide help.

the 11 choices are

[rarel]

Mario

Luigi

Princess Peach

Wario

Yoshi

Toad

Donkey Kong

what...?

ooooh, browsers... ok, nevermind!

11 is a crafty choice by MS

[dalhamir]

There's a decent amount of research (although, somewhat controversial) suggesting that providing too many choices may actually impede our ability to make rational choices, and would be less likely to experiment with an unfamiliar browser. Overview of some of the research can be found on the Freakonomics blog: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/is-the-paradox-of-choice-not-so-paradoxical-after-all/

The link

[ivonic]

You could just visit the browser ballot page directly.

For reference, the browsers listed are IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Flock, FlashPeak, K-Meleon, Avant, Maxthon, Sleipnir & GreenBrowser

Re:Does IE "security" sabotage Firefox download?

[dan828]

IE on a server install is locked up tightly. You know, to let you know that you shouldn't be surfing the web on your server anyways, what with security issues and the like. Do a google search for "2008 server as a workstation" to find some helpful tutorials for turning that security off.

11 browsers?

[jc42]

My first thought was "Can I tell it to load all 11 of them?" If so, it could make the Windows box useful for real web testing.

I do most of my actual testing on my Macbook Pro, because I have 9 browsers installed there. I also have a linux box with 5 browsers installed. My wife has a Windows XP partition on her iMac that has 3 browsers. For most of these, we had to download them and install them ourselves. A working package of 11 browsers could be really handy, especially when it comes time to reformat and reinstall, which happens quite often with "lab" testing machines.

Anyone know if MS's browser installer has an "All of them" choice?

Re:Does IE "security" sabotage Firefox download?

[ashridah]

This is actually a feature, as other posters have pointed out. It's called Internet explorer Enhanced Security or somesuch. You can disable it as a feature in Win2k8/Win2k3 via various means if you really want to use win2k8 as a desktop. Basically, it's the server's way of telling you you shouldn't be browsing the web, and if you try to, it's going to pester you about everything you visit.

It's a reasonable "duh" saftey net, imho, and sufficiently annoying enough to remember to minimize the RDP session and use your desktop.

Re:More to come

[ZERO1ZERO]

The Gentoo community is always willing to provide help.

But unfortunately they are still waiting for it to compile, so although willing, are currently unable.

Missing Option

[rlp]

So where's Lynx?

Irrelevent

[pavon]

The 5 most popular are shown when the window first opens (in random order), you have to scroll over to see the rest. Furthermore, it can't be an evil scheme by Microsoft as it wasn't their choice - the idea, the criteria for browser selection, and the ordering of the browsers were forced on them by the EU

Re:Does IE "security" sabotage Firefox download?

[cbhacking]

I'm trying to figure out how he didn't see the Enhanced Security warning screen... you know, the one that pops up the first time you start IE (and subsequently, if you don't turn off the warning) and tells you various things (including that downloading is restricted and security settings are very high). It also tells you how to turn off this feature, if you want to...

Re:Try it out

[SoonerSkeene]

Why did it take Microsoft this long to create this choice page? It's 5 minutes of coding. The fact that this took this many months to be put together really shows how slow anything at Microsoft moves.

javascript randomness

[crispi]

random my ass!

only appears to be random if you have javascript working (thanks noscript!) - Otherwise IE8 appears first on the list, on the left.

Re:javascript randomness

[TheLink]

If you already have javascript disabled (partially or totally) and can actually see that page then:

a) You have already chosen a non-IE browser
b) You have javascript disabled and you know what you are doing (and have as many different browsers as you want)
c) The organization that provided you the computer system has already chosen the browser for you.
d) The organization that provided you the computer system has disabled javascript and you're not supposed to enable it, much less change the browser.
e) You're using the wrong computer - go use your own PC.
f) You're some really fringe corner case.

Re:More to come

[Anpheus]

What I've found is that the communities are exactly as helpful as your question's accuracy. So educated people asking pointed, informed questions will find the community delightful and helpful. Newbies to Linux will find the complete opposite. Most communities will cater to the former just fine, far fewer for the latter.

Just thought I'd add some of my own broad generalizations.

Re:Apple choice?

[DavidRawling]

No, because Apple is not a monopolist in that space. The fact that they force a browser on the device they sell (Safari) and didn't permit others, for a long time (has anyone seen competing browsers in the app store?) is completely different from Microsoft shipping their browser as part of the OS and the default browser, and permitting the user to install new browsers for the past 14 years.

Huh... the site's already online...

[netsharc]

I just noticed the URL in the screenshot: www.browserchoice.eu, and the site is already online!

On the first load, it gave me the choices in the order similar to the screenshot, interestingly enough.