Microsoft rejiggers EU browser ballot after complaints Microsoft has updated the algorithm used to generate the browser ballot screen it's pushing out to certain Windows users in the European Union, after some complained that the ostensibly random ballot was far from random. As part of a deal with the European Commission, which was investigating antitrust complaints against the …
You might have missed the bit in the article where it says that Internet Explorer was far more likely to end up with the 5th and last spot, with Chrome at number one. The reason for this (if it was deliberate, which I doubt) would be to avoid the inevitable storm of criticism and accusations of bias should IE end up anywhere else other than last.
So - criminals, unlikely. Plain stupid? Also unlikely. Loser? Somebody is, but in this case it's not Microsoft.
The leftmost icon, though the first, is not necessarily the most likely to be selected. For a right handed person the right hand side of the screen could be more natural.
Actually, I tend to avoid the first things in lists if there is a choice.
I'm not saying that it is deliberate on MS part, and I'm don't know if Rob Weir claims that either because I'm at work and my company IT people blacklisted his website from last week.
If you've ever placed an advert in a magazine you'd know that right-hand pages are more expensive than left... this is because as the eye (in Western civilisation) reads left to right the last thing you see is the furthest right and is therefore more likely to jump out at you or stick in the mind.
The same holds true for UI design so I'd guess having IE appear in this far right spot would actually weight it favourably, slightly. (don't believe me, look at the post icons below and see if you spot the hand grenade first or Paris).
Since you would have to deliberately tweak your "random" pattern to generate this behaviour I'd say it was unlikely to be accidental.
Yeah, I can picture the Microsoft meeting now.
"I know, let's make it FAIL THE CHI-SQUARED TEST - that'll show those EU bastards what we're made of."
Alternatively, MS may have just made the same kind of programming mistake that everyone else makes when dealing with random numbers.
that you would get browsers called Aardvark and Aaardvark and Aaaardvark and Aaaaavark.
Ever looked up the plumbing companies in Yellow Pages? In fact I avoid companies with names like that. I'd rather go for "Johnson & Son, est 1983, CORGI Registered". What jerk chooses a plumber just on the basis of having the most "a"s in their name?
Years ago, I wrote a random number generator in BASIC for a version of the text-based game of Startrek. It wasn't very hard - C'mon Microsoft, you can do it!! I must send them my algorithm.
You're right, for each *individual* user it would not matter. However, it is known that human beings (as a group) favour certain physical locations. If you don't believe me, do a little research at your local supermarket as to which products are placed where on the shelves (and there's courses available on it). Real eye opener, so to speak.
So yes - once you start dealing with masses of people, the actual placement of each option on the screen becomes *very* relevant.
The placement of things is important, from supermarket shelves to a pleasing UI. It would appear to be that Microsoft appear to be favouring Chrome by more often placing it on the left where it will be seen first (odd, given the Bing/Google tensions) and they at least put their browser on the right. Or should we complain because if the "go" button is on the right then it is closest? Despite reading, naturally, from the left? Whatever is done, somebody will be unhappy with it.
It would be more balanced (and a heck of a lot simpler) for it to be proper-random, but... sorry... I still think this is something of a non-event. Feel free to downvote me some more. :-)
@dunhill, what are you talking about, I can not understand anything of what you wrote?
@suntan, yep they could do something better than this, but still, its giving people a choice now.
@heyrick, its not about loading the utilitiy over and over again, its about providing a random ordered list to the user. Before it was in a fixed order, with IE, firefox, chrome, opera and safari shown and the rest of the unknown browsers needing to be scrolled to. Now it will be a random list, so no single browser should get one of the top 5 spots for everyone.
Before asking what everone else is talking about try reading the article. The browser options were not in a fixed order before. The first screen shows popular browsers (and therefore browsers likely to be well supported and a good choice for normal users) in a random order. If you scroll you then get a list of less popular browsers (no idea if the order of those is random or not, and don't really care).
The issue was that the random placement of the popular browsers was not random enough, and, unless I'm very much mistaken, this is what they have 'fixed'.
Because you're not supposed to just shrug your shoulders and let them get away with it - for whatever reason. And it hasn't been 'fixed' yet. Companies were driven out of existence by Microsoft for the dominance they still enjoy today, not by providing a superior product but by stacking the deck. Frankly _anyone_ who lets that pass is too weak for sympathy. A bit like East Enders still supporting the Krays as in some way ethical.
Ah, yes, they invited competition then, when it was too good, took their toys away so noone else could play.
I understand that Apple were having trouble with the competition, but the "screw everyone else" approch wasn't good. IBM managed to open its PC architecture without going out of business and Apple still had the OS on top of the hardware.
All I'm saying is that Apple aren't exactly whiter than white when it comes to their treatment of competetors.
...Apple are not in a monopoly position on desktop PCs. MS are.
There is a stronger case to call Apple a monopoly in the Smartphone/Portable Media Player arena; but there is still probably enough competition for them to duck it there too.
MS, however, ARE a monopoly and this is why they come in for so much stick.
@Peter R. 1
>Micro$oft should introduce a ballot screen at the start of each installation that allows you to install Linux (all flavors), OSX, or Windoze, obviously in a random order.
That would be great, any ideas how to persuade Jobs to let us install OSX on our wintels and also apply the ballot screen to all his macintoshes and ipads.
ps we still haven't got an ODFO icon, please.
Obviously Google need to make some complaints to the EU regarding Microsofts Browser Choice algorithm since Microsoft hold a monopoly over the browser choice market due to said algorithm not allowing fair competition in people increasing their share of browser choice screens.
/Ok, I'll get my coat. Mines the one with Firefox in the left pocket, Safari in the right and Opera singing its ad-filled way in the top.
I wonder who actually gives a fuck what browser appears where on the ballot box and in fact that you see a ballot screen anyway?
I would imagine 99.9% (random number) of people who have a computer from PC world or argos or a club book or where ever don't even know there are other browsers or in fact even care about the fact.
If Miss Smith can get to facebook and yahoo mail then I am pretty sure Miss Smith is happy and that little 'e' on the desktop suits her fine.
Then we have Jo Nerdboy Freetard who likes to know that ButtsnifferMemoryHogNoFlash v.98pre-alpha will be on some ballot pop up screen because he feels the 'e' is getting tooooooo powerful and will one day lead to him going blind or whatever, well that's just spiffy for Jo Nerdboy Freetard.
Me I just don't give a flying ass poke with a cactus, I just install whatever I think will do. If the 'e' works so be it, if the 'fox happens to be clicked then that's fine to.
What next a ballot screen on notepad? Or the bloody calculator?
Just ranting, had to queue a lot this morning :-(
The reason that this is a problem is that Internet Explorer has a very poor record on standards compliance.
The dominance of Windows leads to a dominance of IE, precisely because of the "don't care" crowd.
The dominance of IE (not standards compliant) leads to coding of sites for IE, leading to lock-out of other browsers.
If IE was free for all platforms, this would not be a problem.
However, IE is not available for PS3, Wii, Symbian, Linux, etc etc etc, and this means that IE dominance perpetuates the tying of the internet to Windows PCs.
Mobile technology has made great leaps in recent years, and home TVs are now of a sufficient resolution to cope with a rich browsing experience. Ubiquitous internet is finally becoming a reality, but it is not to Microsoft's commercial benefit to allow this to happen -- WinCE failed to make a solid dent in the set-top-box market, and DTV and Blu-ray technology have introduced an MS-free software stack into the living room. Windows Mobile can ape much of the non-compliant functionality of full fat Windows, so why encourage people to use iPhones, Android phones and the like?
The ballot screen is a clumsy hack, but it is necessary to allow the internet to break free from the desktop and realise its full potential.
"I use Internet Exploiter because I find that has the best compatibility with the web (not with the web STANDARDS... I'm talking about ACTUAL web sites that exist on the web)."
I keep hearing this, but the only sites I've ever seen that don't work well with, say, Firefox and Opera, are ones that do a crappy job of browser sniffing and hence provide the wrong data -- and if they got that wrong, what else have they managed to stuff?
All of the sites I need (or want) to use work well with the various standards-based browsers. Can you provide some specific examples of useful sites that don't work except with IE?
On the lighter side, several sites I've visited recently see Opera as a "mobile" browser - even the desktop version - and provide a cut-down, simplified version of their site. At first I was upset, but then I visited their actual site using IE, and quickly went back to the mobile site on Opera: much more useful, much less crap.
and think of the dumbasses.... I am sure you have a mate somewhere that thinks a good way to 'make it work' is to switch it on & off 5 times..... <shock>
Yes I am a member of a browser forum, for windows, linux, mac, solaris, mobile, winmobile, symbian, and many blogs....
the 'browser' section is at the top, and no-one seems to go to the others!! they dont know they exist, due to the need to scroll to see them... yes, THAT is how dumb peeps are getting!!!!!
the other blinkered section lives only in blogs using a RSS feed... and always complain about NOT getting the warnings that are plainly visible if you look at the web page!!!
Actually, some people are too STOOPID to realise they CAN scroll.
A few years ago I was nearly wetting myself laughing whilst listening to a colleague on the phone to a brain dead customer who couldn't understand the concept of scrolling down a web page. My colleague was most patient but it did take several long minutes before the clueless tw@t on the other end of the line finally got the hang of using a scroll bar.
Never underestimate the depths to which human stupidity can reach!
Hmm. Looking at my dictionary, I see scroll as a verb refers to rolling paper up like a scroll or decorating things with scrolls. It's an early 80s edition, so scroll in the computer context hadn't become so widely used. Since your 'clueless tw@t' sounds as if he was new to computers, he was probably working on those definitions. I'm surprised you geniuses didn't take less than 'several long minutes' to try putting it in other terms, rather than just repeatedly talking about scrolling. Vocabulary lmited, is it? Sorry - wordiness not big?
"They probably did something stupid like hardcode a seed value and have it constantly reset the pattern."
Well if you (and others, to judge from these comments) had followed the link in the article and read the blog where the problem was explained in great detail, you'd know what they'd done.
I know, but I'm not telling. Bwuhahaha!
You fold in a non-PC generated number.
You could count the clock ticks while the user reacts to some prompt, like when they were asked to type their password. You take some low end bits from that number and use them as the seed for the random number generator.
No-one is going to be consistent in their reaction time to a microsecond.
How about a choice of operating system, EU, instead of all this larking around with choosing the saddle for the horse years after it left the stable? Or is this just a face-saving exercise so that various members of the Commission can hold back proper regulation of Microsoft with an eye to getting the monopolist to set up shop in their particular backwater?
The only way to get Microsoft to respect standards is to make them compete. And the only way to have competition is to stop the tying of Windows to the overwhelming majority of computers sold via the major retail channels. (With those channels indulging in the usual collusion on pricing - another target for you there, regulators!)
Give us proper choice for our money, EU!
I think you will find Opera & FF import bookmarks just fine. As for "loosing their internet" just how hard is it to click on the icon you just asked to be installed?
Even if that takes a call to someone they know who knows, longer term less of the machine being shagged is a definite plus point.
Unless, of course, you think IE is actually a good browser?
The real problem is not that IE is bundled with Windoze. The real problem is the incestuous mess micoshit created which made IE part of windoze and the developers that went along with the idea.
Parts of my (rather ancient ) Quickbooks accounting package which has FA to do with the internet do or don't work dependant on IE security settings for example.
You install windoze you get IE want it or not.
I'm really surprised no-one's mentioned this anywhere yet. I've certainly not heard anyone complaining anyway.
Turn off JavaScript, have a look at the browser ballot page and prepare to be utterly shocked at the order you see!
http://www.browserchoice.eu
Mind you, you maybe have to assume that anyone with the wherewithal to disable JavaScript has probably also got a better browser installed, but that's not the point.
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