Slashdot Mirror
IE Not Faring Well In the EU Ballot
unixcrab writes "Most PC users hit the web using Internet Explorer by default, simply because that's what came along with Windows. Now, after antitrust investigations, European users get a choice of browser to install via ballot screen, and initial reports are not good for 'ol IE. According to Statcounter, IE use in France has dropped 2.5 percent since last month's implementation of the ballot, 1.3 percent in Italy, and 1 percent in Britain. It's still early days, and it'll take more than this to chip away from IE's 62 percent lead in the browser war, but it's certainly not a good trend for Microsoft. With that in mind, we're going to have to ask you to place your bets now."
But the way most people think is
-- Sorry, I can't think of anything funny to say here.
Hmm...so when given a choice, people sometimes choose different browsers? This is news? This sounds like the argument Netscape made back when they were suing Microsoft here in the USA...
Palm trees and 8
I guess most people don't care, and select one of the browser at random, or click the first one. Of course, given that IE has the biggest market share, it is going to drop.
For the statistics to mean anything, they should tell what percentage of the people choose which browser on the ballot, otherwise it's meaningless.
Even if most people are choosing IE, it is still likely for IE to fall. So where are the stats about what the users choose on the ballot itself?
1% drop? That's all?
I'm sorry but this does not seem as 'good news' for fans of IEs demise. You are saying that out of 62 of the users who are getting the ballot box, in the past month 61 have chosen IE and one has chosen to switch?
Nature journal lied in Britannica vs Wikipedia Ask to retrac
why would I care which browser is the most popular?
did you forget to take your meds?
This is what happens in a socialist paradise like Europe.
The "Evil Corporation's" web browser is forced to showcase it's rivals on an equal footing. The best product wins and free market capitalism dies a little.
Glenn Beck just urinated on his producer.
IE's share has been dropping for years. How much has it dropped in, say, North America during the same period, with no "ballot" to influence things? Wouldn't surprise me if it was about the same.
I installed the update but was never asked to choose a browser I guess this is because I already had firefox set as my default so the update never even started up on my PC to ask me the question!!
In a way, this will probably HELP microsoft because this means less malware infections, which will make their O/S look more secure.
Many people have no idea what any of these are.
"Oh. I search with Google. This must be what I use."
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
Now if there could just be a "Pick your OS" pull-down on first boot ...
With that in mind, we're going to have to ask you to place your bets now.
Ok, I bet on Microsoft.
If statistical results are quoted to tenths of a percent, e.g., "1.3 percent in Italy" and there is no backup data, including a statement on sample sizes or significance, then I dismiss it as the work of a marketing department hack.
For the statistics to mean anything, they should tell what percentage of the people choose which browser on the ballot, otherwise it's meaningless.
That'd certainly be an interesting number. Another interesting number might be the number of people exposed to the ballot screen---it tells you how much to trust the first number. Ask a statistician, or ask yourself this: if two people had been exposed, and both chose firefox, would you predict a 100% market share for firefox or would you think firefox got lucky and wait for more data to come in?
It might also be interesting to know how browser changes have happened historically---how do the switch rates develop over time? Should we expect to see more or less people leaving IE in the near and far future? How big are the gross and net switchovers? How big are they going to become?
"2.5 percent" is a really nice number. It sounds pleasant, like 2.4 children. But exactly, exactly what does it mean?
Germany showed a slight increase:
...so when given a choice, people sometimes choose different browsers? This is news? This sounds like the argument
Actually, the case was "United States v. Microsoft", which means that it was the government of the United States of America coming down on his Billness for actively and maliciously going out of his way to screw up the market.
Again, the browser ballot does not make any kind of remedy, not even a little, against the original complaint in the EU. MSIE is still bundled on Windows and even if you install Chromium or Firefox, MSIE is still there making botnets. Many regions have good environmental regulations and are able to prevent pollution. Windows can be treated the same way.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Many people have no idea what any of these are.
"Oh. I search with Google. This must be what I use."
There's "internet" in "Internet Explorer". And they recognize the icon.
I presume the summary means "bets on the winner".
I'm hoping for no winner: a heterogeneous market where people use one of a number of standards-compliant browsers, and I think it could actually be what happens.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
All the bullshit from here in the US and over in Europe, and god only knows how much tax money went to suing M$ for its evil ways
I think the two billion dollar in fines Microsoft has received so far covers those expenses nicely.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
You're linking to old articles, other one from 2007 and other one from beginning of 2009. Things have changed since then, like this ballot screen shows now.
The later article didn't explain what illegal tying, but did you know Google also pays people to tie their products in - almost all of Firefox revenue is coming from Google and in turn they set Google as the default search engine. Same thing for Opera and other browsers and even some manufacturers (I think HP)
That seems like an overly simple solution. Wouldn't whatever OS that takes its place present the same issues after people decide to try exploiting it? I know windows is far from being the perfect OS, but what would happen if say Ubuntu got 80% market share? Or are you advocating that nobody gets a majority share (which i suppose is the ideal way do to things)? But then you run into issues of compatibility between systems yadda yadda.
okay, beginning to get off topic. cutting myself off now.
The teachers will crack any minute, purple monkey dishwasher.
The ballot has 12 browsers organized into two groups. Each group is randomized amongst itself for purposes of display order. The first group is always displayed first and consists of: Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Firefox, and Opera The second group consists of: Maxthon, Avant Browser, AOL, K-Meleon, Flock, Sleipnir, and Slim
> billions would be save each quarter by avoiding the malware that is part and parcel of the Windows experience.
A somewhat ludicrous prediction. Firstly you have no idea if the malware would not become commonplace on the New Default Platform, whatever it may be. Second of all, I don't think anyone has an accurate idea of the actual costs of Malware right now, let alone in a highly hypothetical future. You can have opinions based on facts and figures, but this type of "koffiedik kijken" isn't exactly science, is it?
Quite frankly I don't see the issue. I got sick of the Windows experience, and bought two macs for the house. A lot of people still buy Windows because they don't want to shell out the cash for a mac and they don't know diddley about Linux/Unix. Let them. It keeps people like ourselves off the streets, and if it ever will change, it'll change. Nuffsaid.
What's the margin of error on their data? How much does it fluctuate from month to month? Did any governments do any major new deployments, or change their firewall settings to mask what kind of browser their users were connecting with? Until several agencies start reporting consistent numbers I will remain skeptical of anything over 0.5%
moox. for a new generation.
I'm not exactly sure what you're complaining about? Seems to me that it would be reasonable that if you already have another browser installed, there's no reason for Windows to bother you with a ballot screen to select another browser? I think I'd be kind of annoyed, really, if it did.
Why is Mozilla waiting until 30th before releasing the patch?
The beta patch is out now. Mozilla is waiting to upgrade the general public in order to make sure the patch doesn't introduce worse problems.
Who the hell was suggesting otherwise?
The teachers will crack any minute, purple monkey dishwasher.
{snip}it'll take more than this to chip away from IE's 62 percent lead in the browser war,{/snip}
Before we work on getting rid of the whole OS (good idea BTW ;) ), we should start by getting the effin' journalists to check their numbers and do some decent reporting - IE isn't even at 62%, much less @ a 62% lead over *any* other browser... The *only* thing IE leads in is, as you have pointed out, default installs.
"...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain
> So far, MSIE still is getting on 100% despite the 'browser ballot'
The technically correct solution to this problem would have been to go forward with the release of Windows 7e and add some kind of protection (keep an eye on the number of legs broken) to make sure OEMs were in no way influenced by Microsoft as to which browser the OEM choses to bundle. This way the OEMs choice of bundle would hopefully be related directly to what users actually want, and as a result selling more units for the OEM.
I'm not sure why this deal fell through. Up until the last minute it seemed like they were going to ship Windows 7e instead.
Canonical doesn't have it's own browser, how can they do the same? And the default browser, Firefox, is available in all major desktop OSes.
In fact, Ubuntu (like any other distro) is basically a collection of software from other organizations, so they have almost zero software tied to them. You can use almost any other distro and get the same software, only packaged in a different way.
Dilbert RSS feed
On one side, I understand how competition in the browser space is good for advancement, but the whole concept of why market share matters perplexes me. How do free browsers, which do nothing but display webpages, make ANY money whatsoever? They seem to be a gigantic money sink to me. The only thing I can think of is the default search bar generating ad revenue, but thats it. What the hell is the point of comparing "market share" of something like this? I don't see how this translates into anything benefiting the company in the lead.
what google's doing is not tying. What MS does, is indeed tying. I think you might want to try to understand legally what that means before you make such an incorrect statement.
It's one thing to pay someone to bundle, it's another to refuse someone from being able to unbundle (essentially the issue of illegal tying).
Ever tried to remove internet explorer from windows? Yeah, just a little bit of tying there. /sarcasm.
What you say makes sense, but I think my point is still valid. If Firefox, Opera, Chrome, etc, get a huge majority share, they will become the primary targets for malware.
The teachers will crack any minute, purple monkey dishwasher.
That was poorly worded. I meant if one of them get majority share.
The teachers will crack any minute, purple monkey dishwasher.
It's not only the fastest, best looking and best performing browser, it's also the one with low marketshare with loads of room to grow.
I'm recommending anyone that asks me what to choose, to try that. Simply because it's more secure and better than Firefox and does not have the privacy problems of Chrome, and Safari, is well just rubbish and doing what Opera did 5 years back.
You can remove IE in every Windows version after XP. mshtml.dll is usually left in the system because thousands of applications use its rendering engine and it would break all those programs. If you wish, you can delete that yourself too.
Many of us believe that a Linux distribution with a decent default configuration is inherently more secure and less exploitable than the average Windows system that ships with new PCs. There are several reasons for this. Access to source makes it easier to build binaries with protections against buffer overflows and other exploits. The wide variety of distributions combined with the extreme configurability of each, down to the ability to replace most core system components with alternative implementations, means that Linux tends to avoid the problems that come with a monoculture.
Centralized package managers make it much easier to keep all of your software up-to-date. Compare that to Windows where Windows Update can only service Microsoft software and all of your other programs are on their own. Also, Linux distributions are not known for abusing their update mechanisms by pushing WGA and other non-customer-friendly components. They have no "piracy" fears that would tempt them to do so.
I used to look at widespread Windows worms and wonder at the fact that so many of them exploit already-patched vulnerabilities. It amazed me that people weren't updating, and I think the lack of trust towards Microsoft has much to do with that. If those people did trust Microsoft to provide updates that are high-quality and only in the customers' interests, then there'd be no reason not to allow automatic Windows Updates. For these reasons, it's both easier to keep all software updated in Linux and more likely that users will do so.
It'd be nice if no single OS had an overwhelming majority of marketshare. I don't think there'd be compatibility issues. Bear in mind that you're posting to a Web site using ASCII and HTML and JavaScript, all of which are open standards usable on Windows, Macs, and *nix. Incompatibility is really just a synonym for "vendor lock-in". Right now, vendors like Microsoft can get away with that if they have enough marketshare. More diversity in OSs would just compel them to use open standards, otherwise their customers would find themselves on a network where everyone else can communicate and they cannot.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Someone remind me who that is?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
You have to realize that these anti-trust actions were lobbied for and designed to benefit competitors, not to help the consumer.
For example, Sun probably lived an extra year thanks to MS's settlement.
Glenn Beck has never denied urinating on his producer.
There. That's better...
1% drop? That's all?
Nope, it's not even a 1% drop. It's a 0% drop in marketshare, on Windows machines. MSIE still is getting on 100% of Windows machines sold in Europe (or elsewhere) despite the 'browser ballot' Yep ,that's 100%. Even though the antitrust complaint found that Microsoft was hurting Europe by using it monopoly on desktop OEMs and illegal tying to establish and maintain a monopoly on web browsers the remedy does not include addressing the original complaint.
The browser 'ballot' does not make any kind of remedy, not even a little, involving removal of MSIE from the desktop monopoly. MSIE is still bundled on Windows, even if you install Chromium, Firefox or one of the other extras. So, if you are a big enough asshole to still run Windows, your choices go like this
The illegal tying is still happening, and each and every instance of MS Windows makes the problem worse. Firefox ran a campaign a few years ago, "take back the web". To do that, MSIE has to go. To get rid of MSIE, Windows has to go. Germany, France and others have advocated dropping the problem. If every country made a push to get Windows off their networks, both public and private, billions would be save each quarter by avoiding the malware that is part and parcel of the Windows experience.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
As a UK resident and IT specialist I've seen the this silly browser ballot thing rather allot.
I've found that it just confuses users.
Its a great way to install other browsers, but it doesn't uninstall IE if you choose a different one.
Whats really stupid is the way that if you choose IE from the list it tries to download and install IE even if its already on your system.
I just tell folks who are happy with IE to delete it. If most people are doing this it would account for the low IE results.
Google is tying its search to AdWords. All ads that I see on the results page are served by Google. Google does not give me the option to choose another ad provider.
This works as well
$ rm -Rf C:\windows
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
This is still an on going process I would have thought that it would be too early to tell which browser is to become dominant.
Basically this week will get the ball rolling next week people will decide to switch to another or back again and we will only get to see a true picture when things settle down again.
True. Not being IE does not inherently make those browsers more secure. Security is a process, and to remain secure, browsers need to be able to adapt rapidly to new threats. Fortunately this is one of the advantages of open source development.
"The price of peace is eternal vigilance." - Leonard Henry Courtney.
(Interestingly, I have not received the ballot screen yet, although I set my standard browser to Internet Explorer before downloading the "browser choice" update. Maybe Windows realises I hardly ever use it and that I have already installed Chrome, Firefox and Opera?)
Access to source makes it easier to build binaries with protections against buffer overflows and other exploits.
For what's it worth, any Windows software built with VC++2005 and above with default settings is built with cookie-based stack buffer overflow protection.
It amazed me that people weren't updating, and I think the lack of trust towards Microsoft has much to do with that.
I suspect it has more to do with people not knowing nor caring about those updates, and treating all the dialogs and popups about "whether you'd like to update" the same way they treat any other dialogs & popups - as a nuisance which is best dealt with by clicking "Close" as fast as possible.
While you may not be able to choose, Google is opening its Adwords network to third parties.
We have launched a new capability in AdSense allowing Google-certified ad networks compete directly within AdSense, which means that advertisers from these third-party networks will be able to compete with AdWords advertisers to show on the Google Content Network.
Put identity in the browser.
I appreciate your post... mainly because you (1) did not refer to Microsoft as M$ and (2) I basically agree with you. However...
Many of us believe that a Linux distribution with a decent default configuration is inherently more secure and less exploitable than the average Windows system that ships with new PCs.
Most people don't care about that until they have problems because of it.
The wide variety of distributions combined with the extreme configurability of each, down to the ability to replace most core system components with alternative implementations, means that Linux tends to avoid the problems that come with a monoculture.
The wide variety is also a reason more people don't use Linux, IMO. It's not like there's just one "Linux" that people can use. And the configurability of each one can sometimes throw people off, as well. Plus, if they try a distro that is NOT as user friendly, they will view all Linux distros that way. "Oh, I tried Linux and it was too hard to use." I'm not making this up, I know people that have done this. Even computer-savvy people. "If you use Windows, everyone will be able to use it; if you use Linux, only you and some other geeky people will." It takes a while for people to change their views about something once they have that first impression, unfortunately.
Centralized package managers make it much easier to keep all of your software up-to-date.
Most people don't want to be bothered with this. Which is actually a plus on the Linux side, to some extent... but again; most people simply don't care, IMO.
Also, Linux distributions are not known for abusing their update mechanisms by pushing WGA and other non-customer-friendly components. They have no "piracy" fears that would tempt them to do so.
Most people I know do not think of WGA as an abuse.
It amazed me that people weren't updating, and I think the lack of trust towards Microsoft has much to do with that. If those people did trust Microsoft to provide updates that are high-quality and only in the customers' interests, then there'd be no reason not to allow automatic Windows Updates. For these reasons, it's both easier to keep all software updated in Linux and more likely that users will do so.
I disagree. I've found that most people have unpatched or unupdated machines because they simply don't care or don't even know what the risk is. They don't view their computers as it's own little ecosystem that needs to be updated and patched to keep it up-to-date with protections from the most recent vulnerabilities, security holes, attacks, etc... they view their computer as this machine, sorta like a typewriter, that they use to check their e-mail. Which is why they are always shocked that they got viruses, spyware, malware, or that their hard drive crashed. I have never talked to someone that mistrusts Microsoft any more than they mistrust any other corporation. More people mistrust Toyota FAR more right now than Microsoft, in my experience.
And the people I know that ARE afraid of updating would just as afraid of Linux updates... because they don't know why that dialog is popping up, not because they mistrust Microsoft or "Canonical."
It'd be nice if no single OS had an overwhelming majority of marketshare. I don't think there'd be compatibility issues.
Agreed... because then it'd be financially necessary to support all your competitors...
Unfortunately, and I say that honestly, I don't feel that Linux has gotten quite user friendly enough. There are still some bumps, IMO, that are major issues. Right now. Some of the main ones that I found when I last tried it out on some of my acquaintances were (1) input devices (the mouse was exceedingly sensitive and the settings didn't get saved for whatever strange reason), (2) sound devices (sometimes they just stopped
I am willing to bet that within the next year and a half, firefox or chrome will be in the lead. Opera may either be third or fourth and IE will have a definite shift in it's standings. Regarding the ballot itself how does it work? I'm a US resident as such I have not seen it. Is it just an internet window that pops up and suggests other browsers? Or is the ballot itself downloaded onto the machines along with the browsers? I am merely curious for memory issues and whether or not it takes up space.
>>>Why is Mozilla waiting
.
I always knew the reason Internet Explorer won the 1990s browser war was because it was the default install. NOT because it was superior (it wasn't - IE was shit compared to Netscape), but because newbies equated IE to internet without realizing alternatives like Mozilla or Netscape or Opera existed.
NOW that Explorer is not the default, it's losing ground as consumers are finally being told, "You have a choice". I expect within 3-4 years IE will drop below 50% in the EU. Although I'm currently using Opera for its Dialup Turbo compression, I've always preferred the "Mosaic" way of doing things:
- Mosaic (on my Amiga 500 and Quadra Mac)
- Netscape (developed by the Mosaic programmers) (on Quadra and PC)
- Mozilla
- Firefox or seaMonkey
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
You'd download a browser using the system package manager... Most linux distros work this way, with a single command or selection in a gui you can choose a browser and have it downloaded and installed for you.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Many of us believe that a Linux distribution with a decent default configuration is inherently more secure and less exploitable than the average Windows system that ships with new PCs.
That's where "many of you" have a serious misunderstanding of what security is.
"Security" is not a simple grayscale. Things aren't "more" or "less" secure. Security is a very complex concept that is based largely upon the skill and knowledge of the attackers.
A simple cardboard box is "secure" against a great many threats, such as mosquitos. But not secure against others, such as a human attacker. Despite this lack of security, we deem simple cardboard boxes "good enough" to secure billions of packages every year as thy move through various mail systems.
Many kinds of attacks that are common today, were thought to be "theoretical" and "impossible" 10 years ago. Systems that are vulnerable today, would not have been vulnerable 10 years ago. Conversely, that means systems that are "secure" today may well be insecure tomorrow, with nothing more than a bit of knowledge changing that status.
The point is, all it takes is knowledge to defeat security. If that's the case, was it ever really secure to begin with?
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
I always knew the reason Internet Explorer won the 1990s browser war was because it was the default install. NOT because it was superior (it wasn't - IE was shit compared to Netscape), but because newbies equated IE to internet without realizing alternatives like Mozilla or Netscape or Opera existed.
Yeah, except for the fact that Netscape 6 was a buggy piece of shit and almost universally panned. It's not at all amazing that it was at around it's release that IE surpassed it. So basically you're making up bullshit and reinventing history.
So, force MS to change their application installation management to satisfy this? That seems kinda extreme... now forcing companies to use a centralized package management system. Which everyone would complain about, because then MS is controlling what packages can be installed on the system... yeah, that'd go over well with the EU too ;)
Fortunately, this doesn't seem very likely. It's much more probable that each of them will end up with around 20% of the market share (plus or minus 10%). It's much harder for malware to spread in such an ecosystem.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
What is the margin of error on those browser stats? I doubt a 1% drop from one month to the next is statistically significant.
Even if it is, it was inevitable that there would be a drop. Only IE users get the choice screen and it would be incredible if they all chose IE, so some people are going to switch from IE to something else. A 1% drop sounds extremely small to me, but I'm not sure how far the choice screen has rolled out yet.
Isn't that a bit excessive?
Call me naive, but I simply don't know what exactly MS gains from users using IE instead of Firefox?
I was one of those people who kept downloading Netscape in spite of Internet Explorer. What did it for me was how you could resize a window in IE and the page would redraw right away, instead of waiting till the whole page loaded like Netscape. Something with the word "reflow" in it, I don't remember the name. I think I switched back to Mozilla after they added that.
How about a search engine "ballot window" in Firefox? And Opera too. Opera should be a fan of those things by now.
That could indeed get them off the hook. I'm not sure about the 'Google-certified' part though.
>>>Netscape 6 was a buggy piece of shit
(1) I said 1990s. That is not 1990s.
(2) Yes it was buggy because it was actually an America Online product (after AOL bought-out the nearly-bankrupt Netscape). It did eventually evolve into Firefox, so it wasn't complete crap - just released too early (2002).
(3) The *90s* versions of Netscape (4 and earlier) were superior to any IE product of the time. While IE was constantly crashing for me, Netscape 4 and earlier were rock steady, and offered lots of nifty features like frames and scripts. - So why did these superior products drop from the 1st place position they had held.
Because IE was on the desktop by default.
It held a monopoly anti-competitive position. Perhaps if the EU had made its "browser ballot" decision in the 90s, the browser war would have ended differently (with a 50-50 Netscape-IE split, or 33-33-33 NS/IE/Opera split).
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
My current stats for March on http://farnorthracing.com/
Firefox: 50%
IE: 32%
Chrome:9%
Safari: 8%
Opera: 2%
Numbers accurate to 1% due to rounding.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
These days, all the popular Linux package managers let you subscribe to third-party repositories, so as long as Microsoft made it easy to find and subscribe to the popular third-party repos, there would be no anti-trust problems.
A cohesive way to track installed programs, libraries, updates, and which files belong to which packages would be the biggest improvement to Windows since switching to the NT kernel, and it would make much easier to deal with many of the common security problems on Windows.
Have you ever tried to use an operating system without a built-in html renderer?
Get off my lawn, you little baby.
'rm' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
Many of us believe that a Linux distribution with a decent default configuration is inherently more secure and less exploitable than the average Windows system that ships with new PCs.
That's where "many of you" have a serious misunderstanding of what security is.
"Security" is not a simple grayscale. Things aren't "more" or "less" secure. Security is a very complex concept that is based largely upon the skill and knowledge of the attackers.
A simple cardboard box is "secure" against a great many threats, such as mosquitos. But not secure against others, such as a human attacker. Despite this lack of security, we deem simple cardboard boxes "good enough" to secure billions of packages every year as thy move through various mail systems.
Many kinds of attacks that are common today, were thought to be "theoretical" and "impossible" 10 years ago. Systems that are vulnerable today, would not have been vulnerable 10 years ago. Conversely, that means systems that are "secure" today may well be insecure tomorrow, with nothing more than a bit of knowledge changing that status.
The point is, all it takes is knowledge to defeat security. If that's the case, was it ever really secure to begin with?
I have a different take on this than you. I absolutely agree that there is no such thing as absolute security. But it's for precisely that reason that I use relative terms like "more secure" or "less secure". For your point about cardboard boxes and their ability to protect against mosquitoes but not humans, I view that as a need to define your threat model.
Perhaps I should have spelled it out, but the threat model I intended to imply involved insecure system system services, browser exploits, and e-mail client exploits. Currently, these are your standard "remotely exploitable vulnerabilities". These have facilitated botnets, and with those come spam, phishing, and all sorts of other forms of fraud. This class of vulnerabilities is currently causing the real problems. Therefore, I'm not advocating extreme security against a highly determined and highly skilled attacker who is targeting something personally, though that'd be nice. Instead, I'm advocating a basic level of security that is achievable and would remove much of the low-hanging fruit that currently makes large botnets possible.
I believe that can be done with both Linux and Windows, but is easier to accomplish on Linux. Further, the inherent diversity among various Linux systems mean that a single exploit is unlikely to work on all or even most of them, which further raises the effort it would take to build a botnet. It would be a welcome change from the situation now, where a single vulnerability in Windows and/or IE instantly means that millions of machines are exploitable.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Netscape 6.0 was based on Mozilla 0.6 (I remember it was starting to be usable by then, but definitely not for the faint of heart), Netscape 6.1 was based on Mozilla 0.9, so it is hardly surprising that is was buggy.
Mozilla 1.0 (June 2002) better than IE6 (August 2001). By the time Mozilla 1.4 came out (June 2003), there was no comparison.
Of course, that doesn't matter much, since the Browser Wars (round 1) where really lost in the Netscape 4.x/IE5.x era, due to a combination of "default browser" and IE 5.x being pretty good for the time.
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
Isn't it more likely that these small percentage of people are the only ones savvy, and risk taking enough to try something different? You could probably have a similar poll asking what their favorite beverage was, and if they'd consider switching to a list of items and still get similar results.
When the moderators are trolls, who moderates the moderators?!
Yes in 1999 it was effectively over. IE went above 50% and Netscape fell below 40% (with the remaining 10% being Mosaic, Opera, and other small browsers). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars#The_first_browser_war
IE won because it had been included, for free, with Windows 95 Plus and Windows 98. Many users didn't even realize their was an alternate choice, so Netscape gradually disappeared as people upgraded to this new OS and simply clicked on the icon marked "Internet".
And that was why Microsoft found itself drug before the U.S. DOJ for antitrust violations. If the DOJ had come-up with the "browser choice" window like the EU did, maybe Netscape would have survived the onslaught rather than going nearly-bankrupt, and becoming just another division of AOL.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Try installing these and add the directory to your path.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Don't forget that Netscape 4 wasn't much better.
The later article didn't explain what illegal tying, but did you know Google also pays people to tie their products in - almost all of Firefox revenue is coming from Google and in turn they set Google as the default search engine. Same thing for Opera and other browsers and even some manufacturers (I think HP)
Okay, just to clarify here. Illegal tying is when you take two products you make from separate markets and tie them together such that the second market benefits from the first market. The first market in this case must have overwhelming influence in the market (for purposes of discussion you can just say 70%).
The most common form of tying is bundling, so that a consumer buys one product and gets a second product included for "free". Grocers do this all the time, excepting that since neither of the products has overwhelming influence, it does not undermine the operation of the market.
An example of illegal bundling is that Ma Bell required consumers to rent a telephone set from them for exorbitant rates in order to purchase a telephone line, they bundled the two together so you had to buy them as a package. It was not until the courts intervened that telephone technology moved forward again, with touch tone, answering machines, hold, colors other than black, etc.
So MS was found guilty of bundling IE with the monopolized Windows desktop OS. Google may have overwhelming market share in online search advertising, but what do they bundle with that? In order to advertise with them, what is required? What do you allege they bundle with their online search advertising?
Continuing on, Opera has no overwhelming market share in any market. So they lack even the capability to illegally bundle if they wanted to. I guess what I'm saying is, I don't think you understand what illegal tying is and how it works or why it is illegal. If you do, please clarify by telling me what the two markets involved are and specifically what you allege constitutes illegal tying.
Touche for the joke anyways, but we're talking about replacing Windows XP, Vista, and 7 with Linux for a given random consumer. We're not talking about a system administrator in a production environment.
I use wget, I use ftp/sftp, ssh/scp, telnet, etc. But I don't expect the average consumer to have to know how to use those command line utilities just to browse the web on their shiny new computer.
That's the news article *I* want to see.
That seems like an overly simple solution. Wouldn't whatever OS that takes its place present the same issues after people decide to try exploiting it?
Monopolies undermine the free market by removing the basic incentive of the monopolist to cater to the needs of users via innovation. This is one of the main reasons they are considered poison to economies and are severely restricted by law. So, no if another OS had the largest market share it would not necessarily have the same problems as Windows with security. If no one OS had a huge market share, competition would let the free market solve the problem.
Moreover, OSS provides further incentive. No Linux OS maker can ever monopolize the OS because of the licensing (unless they can cripple the OSS license using patents or other legal shenanigans). So even if Linux took 99% of the market, since no one company controls Linux, forks that had better security would always appear and users would move to them because they addressed the need for security. Because the developers of Linux are also the users, they have direct incentive to solve user problems with security, just as Apple has direct incentive today to do the same. So long as one closed source OS is not hugely dominant, the problem more or less solves itself and OS's are developed with sufficient security to work for normal people in the real world.
My point was not that there's no such thing as absolute security. Of course there isn't. My point was that whether or not something is "secure" or not changes from day to day with the knowledge of the attackers.
You can setup your system any way you see fit, but you are only doing so within the bounds of what is known TODAY, and in some cases you can plan for what might be known tomorrow, but that is no guarantee. In the long run, all you can ever do is react to threats as they are known.
For example, you don't know if there will be a vulnerability in your email reader found tomorrow that will allow arbitrary code execution, nor do you know if there will also be a new local root vulnerability that will allow a local attacker (such as arbitrary code being run by your email program) to gain root privileges and install a rootkit. You can't plan for that. Just like many of the vulnerabilities in code written 10 years ago couldn't plan for some of the exploits today.
Security is a process, not a state of being.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
I'm over 18, and I used computers before HTML existed as well... but I was referring to current-day activities. I agree, my comment was ambiguous, but in the context of the discussion (consumer experience, web browsing), I'd say it should be fairly obvious what I was talking about... :)
I should have rephrased, but I still think my point is valid. Most consumers do not want an OS without a built-in HTML renderer... and most would find the OS unusable, depending on what they did to it, if it lacks said built-in HTML renderer...
As someone said, a package management system is certainly an answer, but forcing that on MS just because you don't like IE being built in would be even worse than what the EU did do, hehe.
Google is tying its search to AdWords. All ads that I see on the results page are served by Google. Google does not give me the option to choose another ad provider.
How so? When I advertise using adwords, I don't get Google search or have to use Google search. Google had in the high 60's of percentage in search last I looked, not enough to qualify as having monopoly influence, so supplying only their ads with that would not be illegal tying even if they were ruled separate markets, i.e. people are making a profit off searches not using ads.
Someone needs to google "abusing a monopoly".
Have you ever tried to use an operating system without a built-in html renderer? Or a built-in filesystem browser?
Why yes. For the last 13 years I have been using Linux. After the bare OS installs, without even a lynx or a links2, I install x11, then ...
apt-get install ... um will I try iceweasel or another browser? konqueror? that gnome browser thingy? links2???? Nothing is "built in". The OS couldn't care less whether I had a browser or not.
The OS doesn't need a browser. I happen to like them, so I install one from the Debian repository - you don't need a browser to pull one down from the web - apt does that quite well.
Browsers are not at all integrated into the OS. Plenty of servers at my work have no browser (or GUI) whatsoever. Why does a server _need_ a browser or GUI?
You seem to be caught up in the Windows monoculture.
I am anarch of all I survey.
Obviously, yes. And everybody will be complaining that MS is doing evil stuff, what is true, but is as informative as saying that IE share fluctuated on a month.
We've already had a couple of examples.
Rethinking email
Looks like vigourous enforcement of antitrust laws that have real teeth in them has finally brought the mighty Microsoft to its knees.
By contrast, America adopted the losertarian "let-the-market-decide" theology.
Hmm . . . guess which one works to, you know, actually promote things like competition and a truly free and open market?
If 90% of people use IE, companies won't give a heck to your OS/Browser combination. If you can browse all the web/do govt. things/shop with your own choice of browser, you gotta thank Firefox and its market share for it. If your cellphone browser (lets say Nokia browser) became usable with several m.example.com sites popping up lately, you can thank iPhone browsing fashion.
So, most popular doesn't matter too much but the fact that many popular browsers/engines exist really matters. Randomness created by this ballot even while most of people may choose IE can matter to a person who uses Firefox/Konqueror on FreeBSD.
Funny thing is, people tend to think MS is really unhappy to lose market share. mshtml.dll is what mattered, now it is impossible to think about a Windows OS without MShtml.dll, thousands including MS rivals linking to that dll as well as millions of intranets which can't function without IE/ActiveX.
MS already won, less end user desktop marketshare could be a good thing for them. Users already run their OS. If idiots in management figured this out back in 2003, their image would be a lot better.
60's? More like 80's. http://www.techwyse.com/blog/internet-marketing/search-engine-market-share-january-2010/ http://marketshare.hitslink.com/search-engine-market-share.aspx?qprid=4
When Google can force "content providers" to allow Google to redistribute their content for free, because Google is the only significant search engine, I call that abusing a monopoly.
your point is invalid.
Nobody said they mustn't have an HTML renderer. What we're saying is it doesn't have to be IE. If all that is automatically on the computer is the selection tool, which is an HTML renderer? That's acceptable.
Meanwhile, forcing IE as a built in HTML renderer? Do you actually understand why we're in the situation we're in?
why do you sidetrack? This isn't about ANY os. Whether windows or linux. This is about a browser. It has nothing to do with command line.
You can absolutely have a windows computer without a built in HTML renderer. MS has simply tied it into the core OS. How do you fail to understand this?
It's not like they're suddenly forced to stick to dos just because internet explorer isn't preinstalled.
content as you define it, is not something that has a cost to begin with. The problem you have here, is you probably don't understand the difference of what someone wants to charge vs the actual value of something.
content online's cost? 0. Value? depends on usefulness.
Could you please explain your example? Are you talking about the search engine itself (that is not redistribution of content, only listing). If that's the case, I think you now need to google (or altavista as it seems you may prefer) "redistribution" and "listing/indexing"...