Opera lobby dubs IE ballot screen 'threatening and confusing'
The chief European critic of Microsoft's Windows-IE bundling says the company's proposed web browser ballot screen compromise is a sham, accusing Redmond of packing the screen with "threatening and confusing" questions. The European Commission is well into its anti-trust investigation aimed at curtailing IE integration with the …
Please, it's just making you look more unreasonably whiny than ever before.
I think it's very sad that so many people are complaining about Opera and the EU. Here are some organisations who actually have the balls to go up against MS and try to do something about their awful monopoly abuse which has set the whole computing industry back by about 10 years... and you're complaining about it? You should be ashamed. Go and get admin jobs in the civil service you tossers, and leave the computing industry to those of us who actually care about what we do and the tools we use.
People have such short memories, perhaps if all those commentards, who only seem to stop their knuckles dragging on the ground long enough to tell Opera to FOAD, did a bit more research they mightn’t be so quick to condemn Opera.
There was a time when the world’s most popular browser was not MickySoft’s Swiss cheese browser, it wasn’t even considered a ‘standard’. As far back as 1994 in the octobed issue of Wired, Gary Wolf said that "The [Second Phase of the] Revolution Has Begun: Don't look now, but Prodigy, AOL, and CompuServe are all suddenly obsolete - and Mosaic is well on its way to becoming the world's standard interface." Thus Mosaic begat Netscape and the first browser war started.
Up until 1997 Netscape had over 70% of the browser market.
IE 4 started the ball rollowing for MickeySoft, not because it was technically superior, in fact due to a lack of compliance with the agreed standards (Netscape was considered more compliant than IE), and additional “features” added by both cometh "standards",.no, the big move by MickySoft was to integrate IE into Windoze, a move which was heavily criticized by IT professionals and industry critics at the time who felt that it was a bad technical idea (subsequently proved true as security flaws in an integrated browser compromise the security of the PC) and an exploitation of Microsoft's monopoly on the PC platform because of Windows. Users were discouraged from using any competing products because IE was "already there" on their PCs.
While MickeySoft was quicker to adopt the W3C standards and implement CCS, it also did a number of other things that hurt Netscape badly, it entered a licensing agreement with AOL to base AOL's browser on IE, purchased and released a web authoring tool that made it easy to use MickySoft proprietary extensions and non-standard HTML code in web pages, and entered into an agreement with Apple that year to make Internet Explorer for Mac the default browser on the Mac for five years.
SO by 1991/2 MickySoft had over 90% of the browser market. The old adage used to be “that to succeed in the software business you had to be either the first or the best”, MickySoft were neither of these but they did have a monopoly on the operating system
These actions eventually led to the United States Microsoft antitrust case in 1998 which found that Microsoft had abused its monopoly on operating systems to unfairly dominate the market and eliminating competition.
So just because Opera are whinging, or because Opera may not be the best browser, that doesn’t mean that they’re saying is wrong.
Let the flames begin....
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Maybe a new test placed by the EU could be the ability to actually render the page correctly (like the Acid Tests) ... that'll stop Opera getting on the list :)
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As long as the page adheres to standards and is W3C compliant then Opera 10, which gets 100/100 on the ACID3 test, will render it correctly. Will the ACID3 20/100 scoring IE8 ?
I do wish all the numpties who keep talking about keeping IE for access to Windows Update would notice that in Windows 7, Server 2008, and probably Vista as well (never used it long enough to check) Windows Updates is a Control Panel applet and not a web page link any more...
I agree that you should be able to uninstall Internet Explorer, but calling Windows a suite rather than an OS because it comes with a browser and media player is a little strange. Again, Ubuntu comes with a default media player (and that one IS crap), as does Mac OSX. You don't seem to have a problem with those...
"I thank MS for giving me a full copy of Win7 for $30 because Im a student"
UK student edition is £30. Yet again some innumerate moron in MS/US thinks that $1 = £1.
Still, at least the non-student version is cheaper in the EC.
I have a simple solution to that. Reduce the number of buttons by not offering Opera as a choice.
MS could embrace this idea fully by only offering the three most popular browsers - IE, Firefox and Chrome/Safari (whichever is no 3 now). Simple, effective and nicely screws those moaning windbags at Opera.
"If IE was unbundled from windows, then how, exactly, do you propose that users would actually find and download the browsers of their choice? Usenet? Anonymous FTP? Gopher?"
Erm, simple ballot program + wget anyone?
"Up until 1997 Netscape had over 70% of the browser market."
"SO by 1991/2 MickySoft had over 90% of the browser market."
Umm you do realize IE didnt EXIST in 1992 right? Get the facts straight please.
Meanwhile in the real world, Windows 7 Enterprise is already on my desk. Yes, legally via volume licensing. It shows no signs of Microsoft's proposed changes. Did you expect any different?
of all the eejits with their "it's their OS, they can do what they want" rant.
I will summarise my thoughts quickly:
1) Like it or not, there are rules when you are a monopoly. MS have broken them.
2) I don't care about Opera, I don't like their browser, but at least they have made the effort to push the EU into protecting our consumer rights..
3) The issue with this ballot screen is that it still leaves IE as the easiest choice for consumers, and consumers are lazy. They need to present a level playing field, and preferably not have IE installed at all. A separate, simple app to grab a list of download locations & descriptions from a central server, and display a choice, would take no time at all to build. Then which ever browser you choose, it needs to download it and install it.
4) Those who complain about OSX & *nix bundling browsers: they are not in monopoly positions, and Linux based distros normally come with several open source browsers.
Just switch the products around.
Put Firefox in place of IE on Microsoft systems and Microsoft will tell you exactly what is illegal, unfair and unopen about a browser (now not theirs) being bundled with the OS.
Put Chrome in place of IE and the rest of the lot will be glad to tell you why that is illegal. (Microsoft will still claim the solution is somehow illegal).
Microsoft collects cash money for each copy of IE included with the OS. And a bunch of idiots out there think that it is okay if everyone else can not have a revenue model for their alternative.
Switch the products around and you will see Microsoft making the same arguments by those disadvantaged under the proposed solution.
Get it its free. They didn't raise the price of win 95 or win 98 cause it included IE
um that includes taxes for the UK. Sales tax in the US can be highs as %10 so that can really be $33 not $30
Utter crap - bottom feeders like Opera have nothing to give and should take their whinging arse's off somewhere else. No-one wants their software and no-one cares what they think.
it will be more like when you could theoretically run Windows 3.11 on top of DR DOS- except that you really couldn't, because these mysterious incompatibilities started showing up.
Most people never got past the initial "non-fatal error" warnings.
How about "Windows update detects possibly incompatible default browser! Make IE your default browser to be sure to get your essential updates".
"Are you sure your non-standard browser has all it's security patches? Make IE your default browser to secure your system!"
More than one way to keep a monopoly.
I wrote:
"What the feck? Just unbundle the damned operating system already!"
Someone else wrote:
"Every operating system bundles a web browser. It's pretty much essential these days."
Hello? Unbundle the operating system *from* *the* *computer*! Arguing about which browser you get after being given no choice of operating system is a bit like being served horse when you really wanted to see a menu, and then being asked which sauce you want with it. And then the waiter pretending that you had a choice.
Jebus!
Why is this being called a "ballot" or a "ballot screen?" Its not an election. We're not counting votes and tallying a winner (at least at first). Individual users are making a personal choice. A single "vote" wins.
Are we going to start calling all radio buttons "ballot buttons" now?
how many people will think it's a quiz and will just answer IE because thats what it says in the title bar.
