The Seven Hidden Browsers In the Windows Ballot

Barence writes "Two weeks ago Microsoft started rolling out a Windows update within the European Union, giving every Internet Explorer user the option to switch browsers. As well as the five big names, anyone who scrolls the ballot window to the right will find seven further browsers, none of which is exactly a household name. There's no quality control being offered, either — they're simply the '12 most widely-used web browsers that run on Windows 7,' based on usage share in the European Economic Area. But what are these unknown browsers actually like? To find out, seven PC Pro staff installed a browser each, used it exclusively for a day, and ran a variety of tests. The browser-by-browser verdict on the hidden seven: two are worth a look for specific reasons, the other five are only likely to give an internet novice a horribly outdated idea of what web browsing is like."

Avant browser == front-end for IE

[Yuioup]

Avant browser is nothing more than a front-end for IE.
It's basically a window surrounding an embedded Internet Explorer object.
I personally think its ridiculous that MS offers it as an 'alternative browser'

Y

QC

[bunkymag]

"There's no quality control being offered, either — they're simply the '12 most widely-used web browsers that run on Windows 7,' based on usage share in the European Economic Area." .. just like there's no quality control for presidents and prime ministers I suppose, except the fact that they are the most widely-voted politicians in a given area .. draw your own conclusions as to whether it works, or more importantly if there is a better option.

Re:And thus the folly is proven

[delinear]

The choice of IE8 isn't being removed from those users. They can pick whichever browser they happen to prefer, if that happens to be IE8 then that's their prerogative. If they're incapable of picking the browser they prefer from a limited subset then they have more to worry about in the online environment than usability. In reality if these browsers are hidden initially, they're unlikely to ever be picked.

Re:SeaMonkey?

[SlappyBastard]

Or the EU felt that Seamonkey was too close a derivation of Mozilla to count it a separate browser.

Re:This won't make the user happier

[quantumplacet]

if you actually got confused by this 'invasive dialogue' then you have no business helping anyone with any computer, and might want to think about wearing a helmet on a regular basis.

Re:And thus the folly is proven

[clone53421]

Opera doesn't have such zealots as Firefox yelling all around how good their browser supposedly is

You’re kidding, right?

Re:Lynx?

[lordmetroid]

That's nothing! In my days we had to paint the web pages on the walls of caves.

What I do not understand

[wisnoskij]

Is why they are going after Microsoft exclusively and why only browsers.

Every OS on the planet has a list of software they have bundled with them.
Their is nothing wrong with this, sure I do not like using pretty much everything MS bundles with windows, but I would not want to spend huge amounts of time configuring it during installation and still only be offered the top X of the market share.

Re:And thus the folly is proven

[KermodeBear]

I'm not sure why the parent is modded Flamebait.

It is true - these other browsers (and I use that term loosely - some of these are just wrappers around the IE engine) may be interesting to nerds and geeks for a variety of reasons but they offer minimal value to the average user.

It is nice for them to have exposure, but why expose users to bad software? I have tried some of these other browsers myself, specifically Sleipnir, Maxthon, and Avant. Saying that they're "not as good" is an understatement. They have a combined market share of less than 1% for a reason.

Users really are far better off using ANY of the top 5 than the bottom 7, and that includes IE8.

Re:Avant browser == front-end for IE

[tixxit]

I personally think its ridiculous that MS has to offer alternative browsers at all. An operating system is not just the kernel, but all the software bundled on top. IE8 is just a value add on top of windows; one you can easily replace. That some users are so incompetent (I say this with love) they could not install another browser is a testament to the reason why MS even bundled IE8 to start with. Windows is usually bundled with lots of software that have alternatives; from games, to notepad, to web servers. Why not give users a choice of Apache, Lighttpd, IIS, etc. when installing Windows? I say this as a guy who has been using primarily using Linux, both at home and work, for the past 8 or 9 years. I think I'd be very annoyed if Ubuntu required me to choose amongst alternatives for each large piece of software it installs by default.

Re:Lynx?

[Lunzo]

Where's the "-1, Whoosh" mod for Parent and all the sibling posts who didn't get it?

In other news The Gimp is so named because it's pure punishment using it.