Microsoft Giving Rival Browsers a Lift 272
gollum123 tips an article at the NY Times on the progress of the European Windows browser choice screen that we have been discussing recently. "Rivals of Microsoft's market-leading Web browser have attracted a flurry of interest since the company, fulfilling a regulatory requirement, started making it easier for European users of its Windows operating system to switch. Mozilla, whose Firefox browser is the strongest competitor to Microsoft's Internet Explorer worldwide, said that more than 50,000 people had downloaded Firefox via a 'choice screen' that has been popping up on Windows-equipped computers in Europe since the end of last month. ... Opera Software, based in Oslo, said downloads of its browser in Belgium, France, Britain, Poland, and Spain had tripled since the screen began to appear. Microsoft said it was too early to tell whether the choice screen might prompt significant numbers of users to change. The digital ballot is being delivered over the Internet with software updates, and it is expected to take until mid-May to complete the process. The browser choice will also be presented to buyers of new Windows computers across the European Union for five years."
Opera downloads tripled (Score:3, Funny)
So now that makes six Opera users. And they'll all be crowing that this was all due to a complaint raised first by Opera!
Re:Opera with or without ads? (Score:5, Funny)
From my understanding it is the pages fault and not Operas.
It's the page's fault the same way it's the river's fault that my car isn't a boat.
Re:So? (Score:3, Funny)
They're all sane.
No they're not, IE is included in the list.
Re:Just a thought (Score:5, Funny)
> Just a thought, how many people would use Internet Explorer if it didn't
> come with Windows?
Thousands. Probably even some who don't work for Microsoft.
Re:Awareness is the best result. (Score:2, Funny)
"Firefox? I think I saw that in a popup once. It was anoying, so I just clicked Internet. Stupid Microsoft"
Re:Opera with or without ads? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Opera with or without ads? (Score:1, Funny)
That's cool. Other browswers seem to be full of them.
Guess we can't use Opera at Ars though.
Re:Awareness is the best result. (Score:3, Funny)
If I choose not to invest my time in automotive research, should I have the government come down and force the largest automobile manufacturer to hand out a 'these are your automotive options' because I am unwilling to do the research?
Ooh, a car analogy! Let me play!
If every car had incompatible steering wheels, engines you weren't allowed to look at or touch, took different manufacturer-specific brands of petrol, and the largest one came free (and was in fact mandatory - you couldn't get from the kitchen to the bathroom without using the car) with every house bought from the #1 house manufacturer, and came with a special set of patented wheels which could also drive down a special railway line owned by the same company, which was actively lobbying shopping malls to install these special lines (and was also a large real estate developer and the owner of the #2 or #3 shopping mall complex)... and no other car could use those patented wheels or lines... and people buying houses were for the most part unaware that they could get for free another car which came with ordinary wheels...
Oh, and meanwhile, roving Mafia gangs are stealing cars while they're driving, which happens especially on those 'special' lines because they're built very shoddily, and hijack those cars to smash into banks and steal cash, and the only way to stop this is to visit the manufacturer every month and have them bolt mysterious black boxes into the engine, which you can't look at, and sometimes make your car only drive to certain shopping malls, but people still get their cars hijacked to rob banks all the time regardless...
Yes, if something like that were to happen I'd expect there might be some backlash from an 'open wheels not private rails!'' movement and government might be convinced to step in and at least make that car company give out a free pamphlet... if not even a slap on the wrist with a damp celery, though that might be going a bit far.