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Windows Browser Ballot Glitch Cost Firefox 6-9 Million Downloads
nk497 writes "Microsoft's failure to include the EU browser ballot in Windows 7 SP1 cost Mozilla as many as 9 million Firefox downloads, the organization's head of business affairs revealed. Harvey Anderson said daily downloads of Firefox fell by 63% to a low of 20,000 before the ballot was reinstated, and after the fix, downloads jumped by 150% to 50,000 a day. Over the 18 months the ballot was missing, that adds up to six to nine million downloads — although it's tough to tell if the difference has more to do with Chrome's success or the lack of advertising on Windows systems. The EU is currently investigating the 'glitch,' and Microsoft faces a massive fine for failing to include the screen, which offers download details for different browsers to European Windows users, as part of measures ordered by the EU to balance IE's dominance."
We're calculating lost downloads, now? And I thought lost sales due to piracy was a stupid metric...
As long as it's a monetary fine, M$ won't worry about it. If it's an actual, punative reaction the hire lawyers and drag it out for years while they go ahead with their scheme. Either way, they win.
Yeah and jf only that one woman hadn't refused to marry me 18 months ago I'd have 15 wives by now!
The title has the word ballot in it, but let us be perfectly clear that this story is not related to the United States Presidential elections next week,nor about the close race in Ohio or the latest Romney ad that claims Chrysler is shifting Jeep production to China.
It's a good thing that they demand this of Microsoft. I mean, without setting this precedent, how else could we be offered the chance to freely and without jumping over hurdles obtain Firefox (or Chrome, for that matter) on our iPhones?
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
If said car manufacturer had a monopoly on cars and was attempting a monopoly on perfume then the EU would say yes.
Shh! This is Slashdot, you're not allowed to do anything but push the Linux/OSS view that Microsoft the Great Evil of the world.
How do you explain something like this? Would you think with all the people Microsoft has in their employ they would assign the duty of EU Compliance Checklist Monitor to someone?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
1. You philistine, that is Art . Kudos to you, valiant troll on your glorious FP
2. If they're so dumb that they don't immediately use IE to download a better browser, does the Mozilla Foundation really want them as users?!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Hah! If you believe it was a glitch, then I have a bridge to sell you. Noone in Microsoft noticed this issue for over a year? No QA process found this?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Look at the whole French Newspaper/Google debacle that's going on right now. It's a direct symptom of socialism. That's what you get when everyone is entitled to a cut of everyone else's work.
The more you peeps post bashing socialism, the more it sounds like a good thing. It's like the corporations are so afraid of people turning to socialism, they go around reminding us that is what they are afraid of.
We get more people bashing socialism then we get people suggesting it. Maybe there is something to this socialism idea after all...
Be seeing you...
I was interviewed for changes that need to be made to slashdot, my number one annoyance is the idea that any slashdot comment would ever be shared. They're all stupid, none are worth being shared on any social network site and it makes the site look like crap. Well, I was hapy to see them dissapear thining that my input rang true to them, but now they're back. Bastards!
"It's a direct symptom of socialism. That's what you get when everyone is entitled to a cut of everyone else's work."
Socialism?
I do not think this word means what you think it means.
Where's my browser ballot on OSX? ios? lol...Damn that greedy Microsoft...
The "glitch" is a result of OEMs integrating the wrong version of service packs into their images.
When they integrate the non-EU version of a service pack then the image won't present the "ballot screen" to the user.
Whether you pefre Milton Friedman to the Fight Club school of economics or not, they both share one thing in common. The Chicago School of business (ethics) taught that there is only a simple cost/benefit calculation necessary to determine whether or not to follow the law. If the cost breaking the law is less than the cost of getting caught, you break the law.
In the Fight Club, Ed Norton's character extends this argument to an example a cost/benefit question regarding a potential automobile recall for a flaw resulting with potentially life/death consequences. It's a great example of the need to temper 'free market fundamentalism' with the understanding that there are moral and ethical questions which, if left to those who equate only $'s and market dominance to success.
Since market dominance is reinforces itself (i.e, "Nothing succedes like success."), if we want corporations to act ethically or morally, we need leadership from above. And after Hurrican Sandy, my faith that God will save us, or even inspire us, to address the brewing catastrophes ahead from the anthropomorphic effects we're creating on the planet, has 'dried up'.
But the EU is another story. My hope is that they fine Microsoft the maximum and realize that it's not enough, thereby changing their laws to increase the penalties for rigging the market. Perhaps that would give U.S. senators and representives a working model from which to address the corporate architecture of our society.
Nah... God is a better bet.
I still have a hard time understanding why Microsoft even plays along with this. I would be like "It's my OS, it will have my browser. Suck it or don't use it."
Oh the EU fined me? Knock knock. Who's there? Fuck off! (Trailer Park Boys)
Why isn't other companies like Apple forced to include a browser selection screen in OSX?
Firefox sucks. Long live Chrome!!!
Maybe if you would not only read your own comments, you'd find those which are not stupid.
That's what you get when everyone is entitled to a cut of everyone else's work
Yeah thats really horrible it should be that
only a few is entitled to a big cut of everyone else's work
I think it's some sort of demented, poorly-thought-out Time Cube parody.
IE isn't even the most popular browser in most EU countries any more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Countries_by_most_used_web_browser.svg&page=1
And according to Wikimedia usage stats, at least, it's not even leading in usage share any more, anyway:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers
Pundits are already predicting the end of Microsoft as a dominant player in the industry (which *is* a bit of an exaggeration, so far at least), yet they are still forced to adhere to an almost 10-year old anti-trust decision (an eternity in the industry). In other news, the EU is also considering sanctions against US Steel for their dominant control of the industry in 1955.
...there have been 6-9 million Firefox versions too...
So, does this mean that the only reason Firefox is getting those downloads, is because users are bored and pick a pretty icon from the list? :)
Cause even bing.com shows Firefox download page on the first page of "Firefox" query so I'm not sure I can believe in extra 50K people not being able to get Firefox if they want it.
I know users sometimes are not smart enough to find and download something, but this is ridiculous...
Hyperom.com
Businesses are getting the government to help them in a dispute with another business. Under what deranged libertarian spirit quest could that possibly be considered socialism? That sounds like a free market, where companies are using whatever tools they can to bash other companies.
For the OP: Microsoft is forced to advertise for a competitor's browser because they were convicted of using their power as a monopoly in one area (OSs) to destroy companies in other areas (in this case, web browsers). This is (in my opinion) the proper role of government: to make corporations compete on the basis of quality and price, and to keep the free market "free".
In that instance it strikes me more as protectionism than socialism - the French government are considering measures to aid their local businesses, at a cost to a foreign business which is muscling into their territory. Capitalist governments also take various protectionist measures to safeguard their home industries - often by disadvantaging foreign companies more directly through import duties, etc. For instance, the Conservative government in the UK moved to block EU laws that would have disadvantaged our highly capitalistic financial sector.
You could still argue that protectionism and socialism can be linked, for instance by choosing to protect certain home industries as a way of distributing wealth.
I imagine newspapers all over the world are lobbying their governments about Google. They might not succeed but a common part of big business does seem (sadly) to involve complaining to government about other businesses that seem threatening.
When is the EU going to go after Apple for some of these same things?
When I want something, like say Opera, I am smart enough to know how to download and install it. You use The Google, click on the first link, and just keep pressing either the biggest buttons visible or the 'next' and 'accept' buttons until it's been installed. Are nearly 10 million Firefox users too dumb to do this?
Participants in industry lobbying for strong copyright protection is a direct symptom of socialism now? I suppose that might be the case -- is some land of up-is-down, wet-is-dry, and day-is-night.
Well, its more what you get when copyright holders (not everyone) is entitled to a cut of any work that leverages the material on which they hold the copyright (not "everyone else's work" with no qualification), or, what you get with unbridled, strong-property-rights capitalism. Some aspects of the French economy may reflect the fact that, overall, the French mixed economy features more influence from socialism than the mixed economy in, for example, the U.S., but the particular copyright issue between French Newspapers and Google isn't one of them. You'd probably have a better case that the "fair use" limitation on private property rights in copyrights in U.S. law (the reason there isn't a similar big issue in the U.S. as there is a France and other parts of Europe) is a direct symptom of socialism and, particularly, the idea that "everyone is entitled to a cut of everyone else's work".
it wasn't to balance IE's dominance, it was the address MS's abuse of Windows' dominance. wasn't it?
NO. Slashdot does not need to define every little thing that someone, somewhere might not understand. You're already on the internet, any questions can be answered with a few clicks. If nothing else, anyone with a descent IQ can figure out it's a way to choose a browser from the context. Anyone who has been on Slashdot would know Europe made Microsoft do this to try and keep Microsoft from leveraging Windows to get people to use Internet Explorer.
Because this is what Microsoft agreed to.
Its not a decision, its an agreement they entered into to avoid a trial and a resulting decision. Its quite possible that an actual decision, rather than a negotiated settlement, would have involved greater up-front cost but less in terms of long-term, ongoing restrictions. Microsoft made a choice that they'd rather have what they are now subject to than take the risk of the kind of fines and other up-front consequences at risk in a trial. That may or may not have been a bad decision in retrospect, but it was Microsoft's decision.
It's the EU. They crack down hard on American Companies. They figure these will actually change behavior. They don't think about the fact that other companies can come up and bring down the top player.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Presumably when Apple first has a monopoly in some market, and then illegally leverages that monopoly to gain power in an existing, separate market, and then makes a settlement agreement like Microsoft made to resolve the anti-trust charges over that leveraging, and then violates that agreement the way Microsoft did that is at issue here.
They should develop a search engine to use to push their browser on people and then make the browser install the wrong place to avoid windows protections. If by-passing windows protections is good enough for private data stealing malware then it's good enough for a browser.
It's been six (6) days and still all Windows Live accounts can't change passwords and a lot have been deauthorized on the UW Seattle campus.
I mean, it's just a drive across the bridge from Redmond, and they can't be bothered?
Now THAT isn't a Glitch, it's a Feature
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I agree that they have the abuse part down pat though.
More like Dada. Keep that away from real art, lest they annihilate each other.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
That's because it is a good thing when done right. Most in US screaming about socialism being bad seem to fail to notice that socialism was one of the most powerful drivers behind the rise and staying power of the middle class. 60s and 70s, often hailed as the golden age of USA were the time when the country was very socialist. Taxes on the rich were extremely high and social security net was quite wide-reaching.
It's in fact a very interesting argument that shrinking of middle class is currently going hand in hand with cutting of socialism in favour of capitalism in many strata of society.
Because they themselves suggested it to the court. Both the idea and implementation of browser ballot were microsoft's own suggestions to the court.
Now those who read slashdot are in the minority and younger users have no quarrel googling chrome
Chrome owns everything you view through their browser. (no they didn't take that part out. hint: it's in their main EULA which all their others include). And they are certainly using everything everything you do for marketing purposes and probably sharing everything with the government (no warrant needed because you already gave away your data).
Most users are pretty dumb
Indeed.
9 million * Free Browser = $0
Mozilla should sue Microsoft for $0 worth of damages.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
I are badly informed, they crack down on EU companies too, no problem.
If you do business in the EU market and abuse your power as a business, you will be smacked.
New things are always on the horizon
And you don't know the difference between interpolation and extrapolation.
Extrapolation makes assumptions about future and they fail when something extraordinary happens in the future.
Interpolation makes assumptions about past - it's like assuming that missing numbers in 1 2 3 4 ... ... 7 8 9 should have been 5 and 6. Knowing that actual numbers there were 1 and 2 we can assume something out of ordinary happened. Like MS messing up the ballot, for example.
The graph shows an initial peak (when the ballot is introduced?), followed by a decline (and even a big drop in the start of 2011, before the ballot box debacle). Most of the decline in 2011 was quite steady. If they really claim the ballot box was the driving factor, shouldn't there be more of a discontinuity?
(I personally use FF and think the ballot is a good thing - I don't have to manually download FF from the Mozilla site. But when claiming a "loss", you need hard numbers to prove it. The graph, IMO, doesn't support that claim).
Just like capitalism/free markets, when done correctly it's great and absolutely vital to the welfare of the nation. It's when things are taken too far that we have problems.
I don't think people understand what socialism means. The police are a socialist instrument and yet no one complains about having to pay to solve other peoples crimes.
60s and 70s, often hailed as the golden age of USA were the time when the country was very socialist.
Wow. I guess some Slashtards don't really know what socialism is.
1. You philistine, that is Art . Kudos to you, valiant troll on your glorious FP
How dare you! This is not art.
Judging by the disconnected and nonsensical statements, this can only be Dinesh "gays are ruining traditional marriage" D'Souza practicing for how he's going to explain away his rather blatant and highly hypocritical adultery.
His mistress is probably right now going down on him. Doesn't mean he's not down on his luck. Show some respect.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
Just like capitalism/free markets, when done correctly it's great and absolutely vital to the welfare of the nation. It's when things are taken too far that we have problems.
Sorry, I don't understand. Would you be so kind as to provide an analogy in which slightest traces of either approach will be conflated with the worst excesses of either Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia (or both)? I think I'm not the only one requiring this service.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
angelo abarentos is bakla
As long as I have my choice to install what I want concerning browsers it shouldn't be an issue. If MS wants to install IE with its own OS go right a head. I can just go out and download Firefox or some other lame browser that everyone thinks will do something other than show you your internet crap. Yea, I think it does come down to people wanting something like a "cut" of the profits so they dream up these laws and polices to get a "cut". Come on, a Monopoly? If I still have a choice and can execute my choice as a consumer (which I can) then what else needs to be said? What's next...? I install Firefox but then find out that my Firefox toolbar has to give me a choice between Firefox's tool bar or Safari's tool bar? If I buy a 12 pack of Coke I don't want 11 cans of coke and 1 can of Pepsi... I can go get me that 1 can of Pepsi if I want it that bad. Sorry if I make this sound to simple for most of you awesome lawyer's out there. But arguing is what they all want then they can focus on screwing us.
Surprise, you thought right. Your thinking today, however, is a different matter. You do realize that it's impossible to discuss causal relationships in any meaningful way without projecting counterfactuals. Sometimes you have a projectable baseline, sometimes you don't. Many times the causes of things are a hazy guess. It's only regret that's 20-20.
The problem with the music industry's desire to claim every download as a "lost sale" is that there were a lot of download donkeys out there downloading every song on the planet just for the hell of it: adolescent hoarding behaviour to piss off The Man. Few of these people were prepared to pay $30 for a CD of any description, or a dollar a tune, or even a nickel.
I tend to keep a lot of my crappy photographs. It doesn't cost much to keep them around, and you never know if there might be something of value you don't realize until later. (Did we remember to rotate the tires? Oh hell, this old photo of the dog fetching a stick with the truck in the background tells me we didn't.) If a 1000 crappy photos cost me $5 a year to archive I'd probably dump the majority. Hoarding on the margin does not translate into giant revenue streams.
In the Mozilla situation, one might presume that anyone downloading Firefox as their initial default browser was at least going to give it a fair spin (this can be a short as two minutes, but probably averages at least an hour).
Unfortunately, given the proliferation of shovel-ware we can deduce that first encounters are sticky regardless of intrinsic worth or quality. In the real world we have special senses to determine when we've stepped in something we should scrape off our shoe at the first opportunity. On the net, people are forced to use their brains, with woefully uneven results. Ideally, people would gravitate to the best solution placing far less reliance on the first kiss, but that's not how most humans roll.
>That sounds like a free market, where companies are using whatever tools they can to bash other companies.
No. A free market consists of market activities such as buying and selling. In other words, peaceful, voluntary exchanges. Bashing with tools - whether the tools be simple wooden clubs, or a more complex apparatus employing armed thugs - is a non-market activity. Initiating antitrust litigation because someone outdoes you is a non-market activity.
>This is (in my opinion) the proper role of government: to make corporations compete on the basis of quality and price, and to keep the free market "free".
Free markets can sometimes result in all competitors to a given entity being eliminated, at least temporarily. It sounds like you want the market to be managed or balanced or regulated, not left free.
This leads to an interesting problem. A government itself is a kind of corporation, where this definition for corporation is used: "a group of persons regarded as united in one body". Now, if you think the government ought to make corporations compete, how should the government make sure that it itself competes with other would-be suppliers of government services?
For example, shouldn't the antitrust division of the DoJ sue itself and bust itself up? After all, no one else at present is allowed to supply anti-trust services to American consumers. The DoJ antitrust division is depriving consumers of choice. Their mandate is self-contradictory.
>[socialism] is a good thing when done right.
I think a gang mugging someone on the street is immoral. Likewise, one million people electing to take Bill Gates's wealth is immoral. For me, a good outcome is one where I don't end up as a thief.
>shrinking of middle class is currently going hand in hand with cutting of socialism in favour of capitalism
In many ways, the average person today lives better than kings did centuries ago. People don't see how capitalism has worked to float all boats with its tide; instead they jealously worry about how many times more wealth their neighbor has than them. They seek short-sighted ways to fix the "problem" that would end up plunging us all back into the natural state of grinding poverty.
>no one complains about having to pay [the police] to solve other peoples crimes.
Well, I'm complaining right now.
Rather than be forced to use monopoly services, I'd prefer to use entrepeneurial providers of security services who compete to provide the cheapest and best quality services. One famous example from history of an entrepeneurial provider would be the Pinkertons. The same market forces that bring us the amazing devices we are typing on right now could be brought to bear on issues like security and justice.
And if a poor person were victimized, say robbed, they might not be able to afford these kinds of services. But instead, the victim could sell their claim of having been wronged to the private prosecutor who pays the highest bid. This process is sometimes known as "champerty". There's no predicting what kinds of creative solutions independent, free market providers of security and justice could think up. And in the worst case, if one of these providers grows too large and forcibly and criminally puts the other ones out of business, it won't be much different from what we have right now!
Then explain, rather than criticise.... Be constructive...
Agreed, and while, due to my age, I have fond memories of the 70's, I seem to recall that there was, a "malaise" if you will. in fact, I remember TONS of unemployment and people going hungry, stealing gas, etc in the 70's. Not sure this socialist paradise was as nice as perhaps believed.
That's what I thought... of course it won't stop big government from using it as an excuse to take a handful out of a deep pocket.
But most of the current uplifting is done through technological progress. And with us clearly exhausting the low hanging fruit of it, we're seeing a very clear decline for young people.
If you look at predictions, while those young people who are still employed are well off, we're looking at the first generation that will on average have a worse life in terms of financial security then their parents. That means that technological progress is no longer able to outperform the stress caused on the system by social change in the society.
Socialism is not about taxing the rich and providing a security net. America, thank your stars, has never actually faced socialism. The golden period you describe was one of balance - between the rights of business owners and society at large. Your government wasn't over regulating in such a manner as to hamper business, nor was it the way it is now, entirely on the side of Wall Street.
If America was socialist, everything would've been nationalized. I can quote India as an example - the Congress party here ruled the country for about half a century, nationalized all the banks and notably Air India (which went from one of the best airlines in the 60s under its original owners, the Tata group, to the utter shambles it is in today) and you require a million licenses and permits to set up any sort of business.
The reforms of the 90s have been halted since the Congress returned to power in 2004, and they continue with idiotic taxpayer funded welfare programs. Tax payers are a minority here, and nobody ever raises the question of wasting taxpayer money on 'employment generation schemes' such as this.
Ironically despite sticking to socialism for so long, there's no equivalent of social security in India, nor, as in Europe, do we get to enjoy subsidized healthcare or education equally across society. The few government hospitals that exist are overstaffed, and government run schools prefer admitting children of govt. employees.
Robbing the electorally indifferent middle class to prop up welfare schemes for the masses of poor who actually vote - this has been the modus operandi since the country became independent.
The average middle class Indian has been screwed for so long s/he now accepts it as a part of life.
"..One hosts to look them up, one DNS to find them, and in the darkness BIND them."
er... many people have disproved your points about hosts files with well reasoned, factual arguments. You just chose not to listen and made it into some kind of bizarre crusade. And I'm not the timecube guy, just someone else who finds you intensely obnoxious and likes winding you up to waste your time.
Ah, but my posts are so much shorter than yours and therefore take up so much LESS of my time! Fiendish!
Are you mad? This post of yours is not shorter troll http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3222163&cid=41832417
Funny way to twist words when you don't like their meaning.
You see, we have the same thing here in Scandinavian countries now, and we actually call things by their own names. But if you want to call decently implemented socialism "balance", whatever helps you look in the mirror and not see a hypocrite is a good thing I guess.
So how does a system that respects entrepreneurship still get to be labelled socialist?
"..One hosts to look them up, one DNS to find them, and in the darkness BIND them."
You should perhaps ask the most wealthy, competitive, open and uncorrupt societies in the world? You know, ones that are openly socialist?