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News Microsoft apologises over Windows 8 browser ballot gaffe

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Gareth Halfacree, 25 Oct 2012.

  1. Bogomip

    Bogomip ... Yo Momma

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    Yeah, they should be one of those companies who promotes their rivals and stuff like that... right? :)

    Yep, IE isn't the dominant browser anymore and so this rule should not still apply imo. If it should still apply to MS it should apply to Apple. Im not a fan of IE and haven't been using it since firefox 1.0 (moving onto chrome when that came out), but I am a fan of keeping things fair.

    EDIT:

    http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp - Browser statistics :)
     
  2. RichCreedy

    RichCreedy Hey What Who

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    not forgetting that without internet explorer on the machine in the first place, the user would have no way of downloading an alternate browser anyway, if that was their only machine
     
  3. faugusztin

    faugusztin I *am* the guy with two left hands

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    AOL (insert your provider name here) CD/DVD's like in old times ?
     
  4. Sloth

    Sloth #yolo #swag

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    I'm going to hope there's some sarcasm I'm just not picking up going on with that! I shudder at the thought of such relics from the Dark Ages of PCs.

    Seems like unnecessary and artificial "fairness" to me. Including a web browser is a courtesy of most operating systems (I'm sure you can find Linux distros without one) not unlike Windows including Paint or WordPad. Internet Explorer happens to be decent as a browser so some users don't replace it, Microsoft has done nothing to prevent users from switching should they want to. Considering Bogomip's link shows that both Chrome and Firefox outrank IE by quite large margins it would seem that users are quite happily installing other browsers even without a pop-up when launching IE.
     
  5. fdbh96

    fdbh96 What's a Dremel?

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    On my OS I don't really care about the 'browser ballot' anyway, as every time you go to google, it asks you to install chrome anyway.

    However, it would be great if they could force Apple to let other browsers be the default on iOS. I prefer chrome by miles but its impractical to use it as it can't be set to default.
     
  6. noizdaemon666

    noizdaemon666 I'm Od, Therefore I Pwn

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    We have Windows 8 installed on nearly every machine where I work and have had for over a week. The browser ballot came down as an update not long after installation (sooner if you actively check for updates) and it popped up automatically after a restart.

    I'm not sure how this is anticompetitive?
     
  7. crudbreeder

    crudbreeder What's a Dremel?

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    MS has made a deal with EU not to do things like this as part of the big lawsuit years ago. The EU now complains that MS are breaking that deal.

    That was how it worked with win 98 (or possibly 2k), and thats when the whole EU legal issue started.
    Everytime you installed and update, or an MS product it reset the default browser to IE.
    Some MS products even refused to work if you didn't have IE as default, and most of them always opened IE when you tried to open an URL, regardeless of the default.
     
  8. ArcAngeL

    ArcAngeL What's a Dremel?

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    What a load of BS, I'm not sure of a company that doesn't provide a browser with their OS, it's not forced on users, and they remain to have the choice to download and change to another.

    EU are out of line to be suing Microsoft in the first place, without suing all other developers and operating systems, OSX, iOS, windows phone, Nokia's dead phone OS, ubuntu, blackberry etc.

    Having to use a OS specific browser for the installation and distribution of an APP, from which takes a small fee, now that's anti trust.
     
  9. ArcAngeL

    ArcAngeL What's a Dremel?

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    My other gripe is that, Microsoft aren't the company preventing its installation onto many manufacturers hardware, apple on the other hand are. That's the real antitrust there.
     
  10. sui_winbolo

    sui_winbolo Giraffe_City

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    I've never seen this happen to me and I use Firefox exclusively on a few desktops.
     
  11. noizdaemon666

    noizdaemon666 I'm Od, Therefore I Pwn

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    Yes but the browser choice still happens, taking up the entire screen not just some of it like with 7. So I don't see why it's anti-competitive? They're still giving everyone the choice.
     
    David and Teelzebub like this.

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