Microsoft Giving Rival Browsers a Lift

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."

informed decisions?

[bsDaemon]

Not being from Europe, and also having no intention to use Windows 7 any time in the near future, I haven't seen this "choice screen" until I just searched for a screen shot of it. There appear to be little one-line descriptions, but nothing really substantive from which to base a choice upon if you didn't already know the differences between the browsers to some degree anyway (in which case, you'd have probably downloaded whichever one you want to use separately regardless of this court-mandated action). So, to my question: is there any way to measure how many of these downloads were due to users making an informed choice rather than just "clicking something" like they do with the "next" button on most graphical installers? And what happens if you just click "select later?" Does it still install IE and default to that?

Overreach.

[cosm]

I am aware Microsoft has been a little overreaching with their software practices in the past, but damn if it isn't contributing to the combined lack of intelligence of the computer illiterate populace when organizations like the EU force things like this on Microsoft.

EU: "Hey Microsoft, people are too ignorant to do research and realize there exist alternatives to IE"
M$: "So what."
EU: "Give them the option to use third party software options other than the installed feature built into your OS, or else pay up!"
M$: "Ok, we'll buckle, we don't need any more bad press waxing possible monopolist practices."

What if I started a class action suit against Apple because Itunes is installed by default, and that is a "monopoly" on digital music storefronts? Would Apple have to install a Media Player Choice(TM) screen, allowing customers to choose Windows Media Player for OSX, RealPlayer, or WinAmp because they are too ignorant to do the research themselves? Yes Microsoft is huge. Yes they are the main provider of consumer level OS's to the big-box retailers. So let them package and run by default the software of their choosing. People don't have to buy M$. This would be like forcing a leading car manufacturer to offer brakes from 3rd party companies, because the buyers are complacent enough to accept their shitty factory brakes, but litigation hungry enough to file complaints about them.

What the fuck is society coming to.

Awareness is the best result.

[headkase]

The best outcome of this in light of Microsoft's monopoly position is that it breaks how they got there: many people use Internet Explorer simply because they are unaware of alternatives. This puts that front-and-center. No longer will a more experienced user get strange looks when they mention another browser with a funny name. Instead quite a few people will have seen the ballot screen and especially initially it will raise the talk about them. Long-term it is good as well, once people become aware they have a choice in browsers they may also as well begin to wonder if they have choices elsewhere.

Re:Awareness is the best result.

[cosm]

It is a shame it takes this sort of spelling out to make people understand. Instead of spreading computer literacy, lets just continually dumb down our systems. Idiocracy, here we come!

Re:BTW

[biryokumaru]

I have to wonder, why would a brand new installation of Windows have javascript turned off?

Re:Opera with or without ads?

[amicusNYCL]

I wonder how much money they ever made from ads, and if they regret it, given that 5 years on they're still trying to lose the bad aroma it produced?

Given that Opera has not had ads for nearly 5 years, it would probably be fair to say that many Opera users today have never used a version that did have ads. In fact, Opera has been ad-free for long enough that I'm genuinely surprised when I see someone (like the OP) who still thinks it's ad-supported. I would think that anyone who would have been using Opera 5 years ago would at least be up to date enough to know that it doesn't have ads anymore. But, apparently, I would be wrong, as the OP appears to be one of those people. Sort of makes me wonder if the browser he's using is branded "Phoenix" or "Firebird".

Some things, you need to 'force'.

[unity100]

the food health standards are forced too. despite most of the populace knowing no shit about them. but, it is necessary.

same thing here.

Re:Opera with or without ads?

[glwtta]

I would think that anyone who would have been using Opera 5 years ago would at least be up to date enough to know that it doesn't have ads anymore.

I don't know, I haven't used Opera in years and I did have a vague Opera-"ad supported" association in the back of my mind. People will naturally expend only so much effort keeping up with marginal web browsers, and first impressions can stick with you for a while. I couldn't, for example, tell you if Konqueror has stopped sucking in the last 5 years (not to pick on Konqueror in particular - just an example).

And yes, I remember the Firebird fiasco, too - six years is not that long a time.

Re:Opera with or without ads?

[amicusNYCL]

Right, my point is that 18-25 year olds using their Wii or Nokia phone have probably never even heard that Opera was ad-supported. Kids in high school now who sort of "came online" as Firefox was gaining popularity may hear about Opera at some point online (such as.. here) and would be hearing about what it's doing now, not what it was doing in 2005. The only mentions of Opera using ads, like here, also point out how it hasn't been doing that for 5 years.

The old guys? Even though I would expect most of us to know that Opera doesn't use ads, I can expect there to be a group of people who probably hate them for ever advertising in the first place. I don't think that's a very large group, though. There are other, more worthy corporations to focus our hate on now, such as Sony and Apple.

Re:Overreach.

[LordLucless]

There isn't a problem with being a monopoly. There is a problem with abusing a monopoly. Monopolies are dangerous things in a market economy. Ideally, they shouldn't exist. If you are have a monopoly, there are some legal restrictions on things you can do with it. One of the things which is illegal is using your monopoly presence to squeeze competitors out of adjacent markets. Microsoft did this with Netscape. They used their desktop OS monopoly to squeeze Netscape out of the browser monopoly. This was illegal; they are now being punished.

Your car analogy is even worse than such things usually are. This isn't about "market leaders". This is about "monopolies". Windows is a monopoly. Mac OSX isn't a competitor - a Mac is a piece of hardware. If you want an OS for your commodity x86 hardware, you can't go buy OSX. Brakes are also not a good example, as they are an integral part of a car, and always have been. Back when the browser bundling occurred, browsers were "aftermarket" components of operating systems.

A more apt analogy would be if Holden was the only manufacturer of cars. There exists a market for car MP3 players. Holden starts manufacturing their own MP3 players, installs them in all their cars, and bakes the cost of them into the price of the car. All the third party MP3 players then go out of business, because the only cars people can buy all come with MP3 players. Holden now has an additional monopoly in car MP3 players, not because they have a best-of-breed product, but because they leveraged their existing monopoly. It would be entirely appropriate to force Holden to make MP3 players optional extras, and restore the market.

Note this doesn't apply if Holden is "the largest car manufacturer"; it applies if they are "the only car manufacturer".

Re:How is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

The dialog pops-up: "CHOOSE THY BROWSER".
Reaction: "What the hell is a browser? Choose? I just want to 'surf' the 'internet'. Hell, this one with the shiny colors and the fancy name should be good, I'll click it. [double-clicks instead of single-clicking]."

Funny that you say this. Even as informed techies we are humans still reacting this exact in daily life. The way our procedural minds handle a completely uninformed choice process is what sets us appart from Joe Sixpack.

I had an itch and bought a random Gundam game without any prior review or series info other than having watched a 10 year old part of their universe (Gundam Wing.) That put me in a real-life position of having a desire, like "I just want to '[shoot mechs and have fun on my 3D console.]' I was met with surprise when I first ran the game... they just said "CHOOSE THY [CHARACTER]" and gave me 5 or 6 different pilots, so you see the parallel with giving someone browsers they have no idea about.

I made a random guess based on looks the first time around. I can see that people feel this exact way when presented a browser screen on a new PC. I would later end checking on wikipedia and realizing that Gundam has so many characters and YEARLY new installments of their universe, that a newbie would have little chance of knowing the backstory and playing with the one guy they like most first. What my geek self did is play a few sessions with each character, feel their weaknesses, strengths, backstory and mech's cool factor, and then try the others more or less systematically.

An average person in this situation (where it not a game you'll play through with a choice to make a change of choice) is just going to pick one and stick to it unless the experience is really bad. So, let me ask you this... is there a way to "try" before you keep on this whole ballot screen business? It sounds like a "set it and forget it" thing from the news we've read so far.

Re:Opera with or without ads?

[Mistlefoot]

and his point is that he, like me, hasn't had a problem with Real Player crashing my machine in years.

Because I won't install Real Player on my machine after past issues.

There are many browser options, as this article is about. The OP does not owe Opera the opportunity to be installed on his machine when such quality choices exist.

Re:Some things, you need to 'force'.

[icebraining]

Don't you get it? It's not for the benefit of the clueless users, it's for our benefit, by having an internet less dominated by IE. Maybe its market share will drop enough to justify the usage of technologies like HTML5 which IE doesn't support.

Re:Overreach.

[randallman]

A little? They've used their monopoly to dominate the browser, office software and corporate email. They go out of their way to avoid interoperability with their protocols and file formats and use vertical integration in addition to lock users into the Microsoft world of software. They have a history of unethical practices and continue today (OOXML, Linux patent threats). Many of their offerings have superior alternatives, but fitting them in with Microsoft's closed ecosystem is too difficult so people just do the easy thing and buy they stuff that works with their Active Directory, Exchange and Desktops.

In the browser market, Microsoft has clearly shown abuse of their Desktop monopoly with their lack of standards compliance and proprietary extensions. Tell me why MS can't build a standards compliant browser with their resources. Even today, they're trying to push Siverlight to hold the keys to the web's multimedia and with MS holding patents, there will always be a cloud over compatible implementations like Mono. And don't say they won't play that card. They already did it with their Linux patent threats. They've been anti-competitive with I.E. They deserve this.

Re:How is this news?

[kiddygrinder]

it actually explains what a browser is and does not actually uninstall ie, it just removes it from the shortcuts bar. to be honest i don't see the down side, user clicks a blatantly obvious browser picker screen to choose their browser, which includes the friendly old ie "e for internet" logo, and microsoft get's one less place to abuse their monopoly.

Re:informed decisions?

[Gadget_Guy]

That would be the reason why the change was necessary. MS doesn't do a particularly responsible job of supporting IE, and way too many people think that IE is the internet and Outlook is email.

But why should they care how they access the web. If they think that IE is the internet, then how is tricking them into loading another browser going to help them?

The browser choice system is designed to help the other browser makers like Mozilla and Opera. It is designed to help the website designers who bitch about CSS support in IE. It is not designed to help the people who actually own the computers that are being forced to re-choose their software.

The thing that everyone has forgotten here is what is best for the general public - the ones who aren't interested in tinkering with their computer and who just want to get onto the web. They don't care that there are other options out there, because they just want to use what they already know. They don't care if writing a website for IE is more work for the webmasters, because they don't see any of that and all they know is that all the websites that they want just work.

Re:Overreach.

[jmac_the_man]

What if the thing they had the monopoly on was a hardware device of some sort, and they were using the hardware device to promote the use of iTunes?

Re:informed decisions?

[shutdown -p now]

The thing that everyone has forgotten here is what is best for the general public - the ones who aren't interested in tinkering with their computer and who just want to get onto the web. They don't care that there are other options out there, because they just want to use what they already know.

"What is best for the general public" is a very subjective goal, anyway. One could argue that, in long-term, awareness that one can even choose a browser (or, in more extreme cases, awareness of what a "browser" even is, as a class of applications) is more beneficial for the society as a whole than just "using what they already know".

You know, teach the man to fish, and all that.

Re:Some things, you need to 'force'.

[mirix]

And people would die in the process. Some things need to be regulated.

Re:informed decisions?

[Gadget_Guy]

One could argue that, in long-term, awareness that one can even choose a browser (or, in more extreme cases, awareness of what a "browser" even is, as a class of applications) is more beneficial for the society as a whole than just "using what they already know".

Feel free to make that argument. I would be interested in what the benefits are. But I maintain that people just want to use their computer as an appliance to get the job done. They don't care about the subtle differences between software, anymore than they would care about whether they used NTFS or ext4 for their file system. People like us might care, but other people have other priorities.

If they need to know about this stuff, then we developers have not done our job properly.

Re:Some things, you need to 'force'.

[clarkkent09]

It may or may not be the case that the FDA is needed, but one can argue about it, it's not nearly as clear cut as your post suggests. For example, google Milton Friedman and FDA. But the reason I am replying is this idea that the moment government stops regulating something, it becomes an anarchy in which anyone can do whatever they like. In a free market every incentive is for food producers to provide safe products. The moment a food company kills somebody through neglect, that company is finished just through the damage to its reputation, never mind the lawsuits. The elaborate and costly safety procedures mandated by law don't necessarily make the food safer, but they do make it more expensive which means that the poorest people can only afford the cheapest and lowest quality foods which also causes health problems. In case of drugs, people are also killed through excessive safety regulation which delays drug research and makes the drugs much more expensive. You have to look at both sides of the equation before taking even the food safety as an example of something that obviously needs regulation. Regulating the choice of browsers, which by the way are all freely downloadable, is ridiculous.

Re:informed decisions?

[FireFury03]

The thing that everyone has forgotten here is what is best for the general public - the ones who aren't interested in tinkering with their computer and who just want to get onto the web.

What's best for the general public, and what the general public are interested in are rarely related. The general public will usually take the path of least resistance, which frequently doesn't serve their long term interests. Causing short term inconvenience may indeed be good for the general public in the long term. We've already seen what happens when Microsoft gains an unopposed monopoly - IE6 caused the web to stagnate for *years* because they had destroyed the competition and so there was no longer anyone pushing MS into doing any further development work on it. We are only just starting to get out of that stagnation now, primarily because other browser vendors appeared and took advantage of MS's lack of improvements, but the alternative browsers had a really tough job getting any traction against the IE monopoly.

A healthy market with plenty of competition is frequently an inconvenience for the general public, but it is undeniably better than a monopoly in the long term.