IE Rivals Oppose Ballot-Screen Solution for EU
Internet Explorer rivals are opposing the company's proposal for a ballot screen that would allow users to choose which browser they want to use.
A recent report in the Wall Street Journal quotes the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS), an industry organization whose members include Opera, Adobe Systems, IBM, Oracle, Red Hat, and Sun Microsystems, says Microsoft's proposed "ballot screen" isn’t a solution.
According to ComputerWorld, Thomas Vinje, an attorney and spokesperson for the ECIS told the WSJ that choosing another browser requires "the user to confirm and answer threatening and confusing warnings and questions."
"Microsoft has cunningly found a way to accept the commission's suggestion of a ballot screen, but to do so in a way that will be entirely ineffective," said Vinje.
The news comes just a few weeks after Mozilla Foundation chair Mitchell Baker criticized the ballot proposal. In a blog post, Baker argued that the agreement still offers "Internet Explorer a uniquely privileged position on Windows installations," in that even if a user does not choose IE as their default browser on the ballot screen, a shortcut is still placed on the user's desktop.
Check out the full story here.
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When I buy a six pack of Coke do they have to include a can of Pepsi?
Cue retarded comments about having another manufacturers engine in your car...
Also sounds like MS havent learned anything, I say fine em again til they do.
I really don't see the fuss. If someone wanted to use Firefox or any other browser it is a 1 minute download and install that anyone can do. If the user isn't really bothered by what they use to surf the internet then IE is perfectly good.
Stupid EU.
I live in the eu, do i really want them to spend all my tax money arguing over this bullshit?
@Talwoasc: This may be a non-issue for you and I, but when most people out there don't even realise there are other browser choices available, let alone how to find and install them, then this becomes a valid concern.
What exactly does microsoft need to learn? Please explain.
I live in the EU, and I can't think of a better way for them to spend my tax money than busting up Microsoft's Monopoly and generally bullying them & Intel
US comments http://www.tomshardware.com/news/I [...] ,8750.html
@atomdrift: If the Ballot screen manages to inform people of the fact that there ARE other browsers out there, then in my view it has done the job.
@djcoolermasterx. That its not ok to abuse their monopoly position, thats what.
Thanks for posting the link to the US site, lots of predictable comments from yanks saying that its some sort of anti american thing (which is rubbish).
Heres a good sensible comment from WheelsOfConfusion:
There is also the monopoly facet of this: Google, Apple, etc. do not have a monopoly on operating systems the way MS does with Windows, and according to the EU MS unfairly used that advantage with its OS marketshare to give IE an unfair advantage over competing browsers. And even though most browsers today are free (they weren't always), there is competition among them that drives things like the acceptance of existing web standards and the generation of new standards (WebGL, HTML 5 features, etc.). We can see what happened when MS had so much share of the browserspace during the IE6 years: stagnation in the browser, lax security, use of non-standard markup and abuse of proprietary web technologies. There's a reason many web pages to this day are still "IE Only" or "Best viewed in Internet Explorer," and it's mostly not because the other browsers are lacking.
So that's some of the reasoning the EU Commission used to determine that MS violated their anti-competitive laws and levy a fine against them.
I still cant get why people think it's ok for a monopoly to to use its position to push its other products...
I personally would be happy if IE ceased to exist, its crap, there is also NO reason it had to integrated into the OS.
MS could dump IE and contribute to another browser such as FF, maybe start getting the web back to standards, would probably please the EU too. But lets fact it that will never happen.
I still want IE on my PC so Media player and Steam work properly. I can't see Valve bringing out options to set the location of your html render engine!
How are people meant to make an informed decision about which browser to choose when they cannot get onto the internet to look up the options?
Fail. This case needs throwing out. If opera want to expand their user base they should make a decent browser.
Opera do make a decent browser IMO.
Suggestion for other browser companies: make your own God-damn OS and then you can make the ballot system however you like. This is ridiculous, in that it's really anti-competition when it's trying to be just the opposite. FF and Chrome are gaining market-share through having a superior product, which is the way healthy competition works.
I have a suggestion: How about when you install firefox, you get a list of other browsers to choose from?
Pleh.
LOL healthy competition? How did MS get the majority share of the browser market? Not through healthy competition thats for sure. MS were found guilty of anti competitive behaviour by both the EU AND the US so no it isnt healthy competition.
Its complete bullshit pure and simple.Anyone who would benefit from a differant browser would by definition know enough about computing to know that there are options out there. Its not like the other browsers are in a secret hidden folder on the net. Type Internet Browsers into a search engine and there you have it.
I have put plenty of time into trialing other browsers but there isnt a single option out there that does everything that i want it to do while IE does. When people talk about better faster browsers we are talking about time frames that really dont matter anyway.
True and the other, non tech people (the majority) will just get whats given to them yes? eg Internet Explorer...which is what started the whole thing off in the first place way back when. Overnight (not quite) browser monopoly by integrating with Windows. There was/is no reason that IE should be integrated with windows IMO. They did it purely to kill off the competition.
IE has its place, and I use it very occasionally for sites that are IE only (and I thought the web was based on standards).
A web browser is a standard feature which I would expect with any modern consumer OS. As is a caculator or simple text editor. Ofcourse there are alternatives for these also.
The question being, is Microsoft unfairly monopolising with notepad by having it intergrated into the OS and should they have a ballot for the various alternatives?
Yeah web browsers are pretty much standard for any OS nowadays, but not when the case started, and I still dont think they need or should be integrated with windows. Why does windows server need a web browser integrated?
Calculator and notepad arent integrated with the os, as far as I know, and can be removed. Now if they integrated Office, then there would probably be another anti trust case started and quite rightly so IMO. But people seem to think that because MS wrote both it would be ok to use windows to further (or start) a monopoly with another product.
I dont think I can think of one thing that can be compared to this. The case started way back in 97 was it (maybe not the EU side)? Just because it was so long ago doesnt mean they should be allowed to get away with it though.
@ gregor,
You clearly dont have a working understanding of what you are talking about, its intergrated for a reason you know or do you fancy setting up permisions etc for other services etc on an as and when basis that they request permision ? An OS without an integrated browser is useless untill you download (how do you do that then) or install one. How do you check for upgrades ? how do you know what needs/would benefit from upgrades ? which services need access to work at ther best ?
Would poor joe blogs whose freedom of choice people are worried about rather have an intergrated browser linked to such services etc and have it all done for them or do you think they would rather have to work out how to get a browser then work out which of all the services asking for access really needed it ?
@mac, lol
give some examples please of the services effected and the permissions you'd have to set up. I'm also pretty sure that 95 and nt etc were working fine before ms absolutely HAD to integrated IE with the os.
How does virtually any distro of linux work then? OSX might come bundled with a web browser but I'm pretty sure its not integrated into the OS, although I could be wrong. And I doubt that OSX requires safari to be able to get updates.
Youre trying to tell me that there is no way that ms could come up with an updating app that doesnt require IE to be an integrated component of the OS?
Also bearing in mind that just because it would be a big job to remove it, doesnt mean that it should have been integrated in the first place.
And then there's the security issues with integrating it...
Try doing some research first LOL
Instead of me wasting time why dont you just google OS X and discover for yourself how it has an update system very similar to Windows and how Safari is very much intergrated much the same as IE.
Such as what permissions and services?
Again 95 and NT were fine before they deemed it necessary to integrate IE.
Fair enough, may have been slightly off with OSX, how about Linux? No INTEGRATED browser needed. A preinstalled browser maybe useful though.
And with the outcome, all they have to do is select a browser and it get installed.
How about with the updater utility which would take minimal effort for programmers at ms to achieve. Still doesnt need an INTEGRATED browser.
Would poor joe blogs whose freedom of choice people are worried about rather have an intergrated browser linked to such services etc and have it all done for them or do you think they would rather have to work out how to get a browser then work out which of all the services asking for access really needed it ?
Again, what services are you talking about?
I'd rather do without the security issues which effect IE effecting the OS too.
You keep talking about windows 95 but that really was a pre-web OS for the majority of people.
Yeah, but thats when the "offense" was committed, some people seem to think this only started last month or something. The case has been ongoing for a long time. Times have changed, the web is used a lot more than it was back then but I don't think just because its dragged on for so long that they should get away with past actions do you?
Just one other thing, Windows 2008 core has no IE built in and you can still use windows update on it.
Since vista windows updates have been split from internet explorer.
If I made a car (windows) and sold loads of them and then thought one day people need to see in the dark I best put lights on them(IE)the last thing I want is someone like the EU to tell me someone else makes lights and you have to let them put them on your car.
Now maybe it`s me put I think that is wrong.
That analogy just plain does not work.
Read up on the history of the case.
@ gregor,
You keep going on about the history of the case and how it was started so long ago. Well as far as i know it was started and settled a long while ago, at least as far as the US side of things are concerned. MS even agreed to have an extention of the terms untill 2012 should the plaintifs wish so i cant see how anyone can think MS are being unreasonable.
Personally i think there should be a kind of worldwide court of appeal for this kind of crap. As far as i am concerned the case has been tried in the US and the verdict should carry to the EU. Its only because some jumped up unelected prat within the EU worked out that the ruling didnt actually count in the EU that we are having all this crap in the first place.
Well as far as I'm concerned the EU followed through and did what the US should have done.
I cant see any problem with the settlement, what is wrong with selecting the browser at install? At least you get a choice. Why shouldn't MS be brought to task for this? Are you happy if they are just allowed to crush any competition they come across? It certainly wouldn't be good for you or me as consumers, the same way that if there was only one CPU manufacturer wouldn't be good for us.
Having the majority share of the web browser market has done what for the web and IE? IE certainly hasn't seen the attention that other browsers have seen, because they have to compete to stay alive. MS just have to bundle an average product, and thats me being kind to IE by the way.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti MS, I use MS products on a daily basis at home and at work. I do however think that there needs to be controls in place to stop them abusing their monopoly position. If there weren't then those people who think they should be able to do what they want would pretty soon change their mind I think.