IE Not Faring Well In the EU Ballot 325
unixcrab writes "Most PC users hit the web using Internet Explorer by default, simply because that's what came along with Windows. Now, after antitrust investigations, European users get a choice of browser to install via ballot screen, and initial reports are not good for 'ol IE. According to Statcounter, IE use in France has dropped 2.5 percent since last month's implementation of the ballot, 1.3 percent in Italy, and 1 percent in Britain. It's still early days, and it'll take more than this to chip away from IE's 62 percent lead in the browser war, but it's certainly not a good trend for Microsoft. With that in mind, we're going to have to ask you to place your bets now."
My money is on Chrome (Score:4, Interesting)
But the way most people think is
Re: (Score:2)
not really. bing is default. People have to switch it to google (or go to google.com) if they want google to be the default search.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed, I have seen many users typing "www.cnn.com" in Google search bar to click on the Google link afterward instead of typing it in the address bar. And no, you do not have to prefix it with "http://" in the address bar on most browsers.
Many people access any site by first doing a search with the site address ;-))
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Why is Mozilla waiting until 30th before releasing the patch? FOSS advocates always say that with open source software critical exploits can be patched and roll-out in a few hours and criticize Microsoft update cycle.
The beta patch is out now. (Score:4, Informative)
Why is Mozilla waiting until 30th before releasing the patch?
The beta patch is out now. Mozilla is waiting to upgrade the general public in order to make sure the patch doesn't introduce worse problems.
Re:My money is on Chrome (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh come on, when it's about Firefox there is no rush, but when its just the same with Microsoft they are the Satan itself, root of evil and the reason for all the problems in the world. If you're going to defend the other one for not having any rush because you don't know it's not exploited, then do the same for both.
And how does one know it's not being exploited on small scale? It only hits news when its huge.
Re:My money is on Chrome (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft has still not issued a patch for their Charset Inheritance Cross-Site Scripting Vulnerability [secunia.com] that was found three years ago. The flaw exists in the current version of IE 8.
You may remember in January there was a flaw in Internet Explorer [theregister.co.uk] that Microsoft knew about for several months before they delivered a patch. Before the patch was delivered, the flaw was widely exploited by Operation Aurora.
Now, you're trying to equate those fuckups to Mozilla holding back on releasing a patch for two weeks when there's no sign that the vulnerability is being exploited at all? In case you can't see what the difference is, Microsoft delays patches far longer and gives black hats far more opportunity to exploit the vulnerabilities. How do you think all those botnets get created?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, my question isn't why they aren't rushing 3.6.2 out the door. It's why they aren't rushing 3.6.0.1 out the door with a backfitted patch. Presumably 3.6.2 was already in development with a laundry list of other defects patched, and probably some (hopefully minor, if at all) features added. You don't want to rush that out the door. However, backfitting a security patch back into the already-available streams would be a good thing, even if the next official release is "merely" two weeks away. Es
Re:Why Netscape lost. Re:My money is on Chrome (Score:5, Insightful)
I always knew the reason Internet Explorer won the 1990s browser war was because it was the default install. NOT because it was superior (it wasn't - IE was shit compared to Netscape), but because newbies equated IE to internet without realizing alternatives like Mozilla or Netscape or Opera existed.
Yeah, except for the fact that Netscape 6 was a buggy piece of shit and almost universally panned. It's not at all amazing that it was at around it's release that IE surpassed it. So basically you're making up bullshit and reinventing history.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
>>>Netscape 6 was a buggy piece of shit
(1) I said 1990s. That is not 1990s.
(2) Yes it was buggy because it was actually an America Online product (after AOL bought-out the nearly-bankrupt Netscape). It did eventually evolve into Firefox, so it wasn't complete crap - just released too early (2002).
(3) The *90s* versions of Netscape (4 and earlier) were superior to any IE product of the time. While IE was constantly crashing for me, Netscape 4 and earlier were rock steady, and offered lots of nift
Re:Why Netscape lost. Re:My money is on Chrome (Score:4, Insightful)
Netscape 6.0 was based on Mozilla 0.6 (I remember it was starting to be usable by then, but definitely not for the faint of heart), Netscape 6.1 was based on Mozilla 0.9, so it is hardly surprising that is was buggy.
Mozilla 1.0 (June 2002) better than IE6 (August 2001). By the time Mozilla 1.4 came out (June 2003), there was no comparison.
Of course, that doesn't matter much, since the Browser Wars (round 1) where really lost in the Netscape 4.x/IE5.x era, due to a combination of "default browser" and IE 5.x being pretty good for the time.
Re:MSIE still on 100% of Windows machines (Score:4, Informative)
You're linking to old articles, other one from 2007 and other one from beginning of 2009. Things have changed since then, like this ballot screen shows now.
The later article didn't explain what illegal tying, but did you know Google also pays people to tie their products in - almost all of Firefox revenue is coming from Google and in turn they set Google as the default search engine. Same thing for Opera and other browsers and even some manufacturers (I think HP)
Re:MSIE still on 100% of Windows machines (Score:5, Informative)
what google's doing is not tying. What MS does, is indeed tying. I think you might want to try to understand legally what that means before you make such an incorrect statement.
It's one thing to pay someone to bundle, it's another to refuse someone from being able to unbundle (essentially the issue of illegal tying).
Ever tried to remove internet explorer from windows? Yeah, just a little bit of tying there. /sarcasm.
Re: (Score:2)
You can remove IE in every Windows version after XP. mshtml.dll is usually left in the system because thousands of applications use its rendering engine and it would break all those programs. If you wish, you can delete that yourself too.
Re:Another option (Score:3, Funny)
$ rm -Rf C:\windows
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You'd download a browser using the system package manager... Most linux distros work this way, with a single command or selection in a gui you can choose a browser and have it downloaded and installed for you.
Re:MSIE still on 100% of Windows machines (Score:5, Funny)
Have you ever tried to use an operating system without a built-in html renderer?
Get off my lawn, you little baby.
Re: (Score:2)
> billions would be save each quarter by avoiding the malware that is part and parcel of the Windows experience.
A somewhat ludicrous prediction. Firstly you have no idea if the malware would not become commonplace on the New Default Platform, whatever it may be. Second of all, I don't think anyone has an accurate idea of the actual costs of Malware right now, let alone in a highly hypothetical future. You can have opinions based on facts and figures, but this type of "koffiedik kijken" isn't exactly scie
Percentages...? (Score:5, Informative)
{snip}it'll take more than this to chip away from IE's 62 percent lead in the browser war,{/snip}
Before we work on getting rid of the whole OS (good idea BTW ;) ), we should start by getting the effin' journalists to check [w3counter.com] their numbers [statcounter.com] and do some decent reporting - IE isn't even at 62%, much less @ a 62% lead over *any* other browser... The *only* thing IE leads in is, as you have pointed out, default installs.
Re:Percentages...? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, from that first graph you link to, IE has ~160% of the market share that FF (the 2nd most popular browser) has, so "62% lead" could make sense.
Re: (Score:2)
> So far, MSIE still is getting on 100% despite the 'browser ballot'
The technically correct solution to this problem would have been to go forward with the release of Windows 7e and add some kind of protection (keep an eye on the number of legs broken) to make sure OEMs were in no way influenced by Microsoft as to which browser the OEM choses to bundle. This way the OEMs choice of bundle would hopefully be related directly to what users actually want, and as a result selling more units for the OEM.
I'm no
Re:MSIE still on 100% of Windows machines (Score:4, Insightful)
Canonical doesn't have it's own browser, how can they do the same? And the default browser, Firefox, is available in all major desktop OSes.
In fact, Ubuntu (like any other distro) is basically a collection of software from other organizations, so they have almost zero software tied to them. You can use almost any other distro and get the same software, only packaged in a different way.
Re:MSIE still on 100% of Windows machines (Score:5, Informative)
Many of us believe that a Linux distribution with a decent default configuration is inherently more secure and less exploitable than the average Windows system that ships with new PCs. There are several reasons for this. Access to source makes it easier to build binaries with protections against buffer overflows and other exploits. The wide variety of distributions combined with the extreme configurability of each, down to the ability to replace most core system components with alternative implementations, means that Linux tends to avoid the problems that come with a monoculture.
Centralized package managers make it much easier to keep all of your software up-to-date. Compare that to Windows where Windows Update can only service Microsoft software and all of your other programs are on their own. Also, Linux distributions are not known for abusing their update mechanisms by pushing WGA and other non-customer-friendly components. They have no "piracy" fears that would tempt them to do so.
I used to look at widespread Windows worms and wonder at the fact that so many of them exploit already-patched vulnerabilities. It amazed me that people weren't updating, and I think the lack of trust towards Microsoft has much to do with that. If those people did trust Microsoft to provide updates that are high-quality and only in the customers' interests, then there'd be no reason not to allow automatic Windows Updates. For these reasons, it's both easier to keep all software updated in Linux and more likely that users will do so.
It'd be nice if no single OS had an overwhelming majority of marketshare. I don't think there'd be compatibility issues. Bear in mind that you're posting to a Web site using ASCII and HTML and JavaScript, all of which are open standards usable on Windows, Macs, and *nix. Incompatibility is really just a synonym for "vendor lock-in". Right now, vendors like Microsoft can get away with that if they have enough marketshare. More diversity in OSs would just compel them to use open standards, otherwise their customers would find themselves on a network where everyone else can communicate and they cannot.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Access to source makes it easier to build binaries with protections against buffer overflows and other exploits.
For what's it worth, any Windows software built with VC++2005 and above with default settings is built with cookie-based stack buffer overflow protection.
It amazed me that people weren't updating, and I think the lack of trust towards Microsoft has much to do with that.
I suspect it has more to do with people not knowing nor caring about those updates, and treating all the dialogs and popups about "whether you'd like to update" the same way they treat any other dialogs & popups - as a nuisance which is best dealt with by clicking "Close" as fast as possible.
Choice?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Choice?! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
But most people want a good deal,
But Windows isn't a "good deal"; it's actually quite expensive and overpriced, given that the same functionality is available even in free operating systems. Windows doesn't even work particularly well; I have had a lot more problems with hardware and software compatibility and usability with my Windows system than with my Linux systems.
The reason people have to buy Windows is because of bundling/tying and because of commercial software that only runs on Windows. But that'
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
When Windows doesn't work there's about +1 trillion places to go for help.
And most of them will say "have you tried reinstalling windows yet?".
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
But Windows isn't a "good deal"; it's actually quite expensive and overpriced, given that the same functionality is available even in free operating systems.
How do I get a free OS to run DirectX-apps?
I currently use WINE to play Fallout 3 and Mass Effect 2 (which was released recently on Jan. 26, 2010) and have played several other games successfully. For ME2, I had to patch WINE to fix a stability issue and a mouse issue, but this was no big deal and is unusual; most games WINE can run don't require this. The "Winetricks [winehq.org]" script makes it very easy to download (from Microsoft.com) and install the DirectX runtimes with a single command, facilitating the process.
It's quite rare that I encounter a gam
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure that the winner will be the one with the best icon. People are stupid.
Re: (Score:2)
You also need to make a choice to install the ballot system. It's an optional update, and the user has to manually find it.
Re: (Score:2)
. . .MSIE is still there making botnets.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought users had to actively be using IE, and visit a malicious website, in order for IE to be a botnet-infection vector? If the users are actually *using* a different browser (which, we'll assume for the sake of argument here isn't *also* vulnerable to the malicious web site), and IE is not being used to access those sites, how is IE, as you said, "still there making botnets"?
I suppose there is still a risk that some other app you use might be hard-coded to launch IE
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe people choose randomly? (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess most people don't care, and select one of the browser at random, or click the first one. Of course, given that IE has the biggest market share, it is going to drop.
For the statistics to mean anything, they should tell what percentage of the people choose which browser on the ballot, otherwise it's meaningless.
Even if most people are choosing IE, it is still likely for IE to fall. So where are the stats about what the users choose on the ballot itself?
Re:Maybe people choose randomly? (Score:5, Insightful)
Spot on. Most people do not even know what browser they are using or what a browser even is. They are given a choice, and they just choose without really knowing what it is that they are choosing from.
Re: (Score:2)
Because they are not sure what they are choosing, the process often goes like this: Oh? WTF? Well, I'm using MS Windows, don't I have to use MS Internet Explorer? Well, it's probably more compatible with other MS products, so I will just use IE.
Re:Maybe people choose randomly? (Score:5, Funny)
This box caused me no end of hassle with my grandfather thinking he had a virus, my mum asking what was on the other internets, and my dad passing all of these calls on to me because he's sick of explaining it.
It's a big F*** You to Europe. It'll irritate so many people that we'll hate Europe for making MS do it. I already do.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Problems solved.
Re:Maybe people choose randomly? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the solution is available soon - the iPad. It's not a full OS (at least, presented to the user) but ought to be easy and powerful enough to get online and do the stuff they need to do (email/web/etc).
As much as we pan it, perhaps realizing that the iPad probably does 99% of what these people need to do and giving them one may save support headaches in the future.
Re: (Score:2)
Easy solution, even though it is outside the EU:
Take them on a nice vacation to a Swiss clinic.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you expect the average person to know that Europe mandated the ballot? If they blame anyone, I'd expect Windows to get the most heat for it (mistakenly, but still). It does say "Windows Internet Explorer" in the titlebar...
Re: (Score:2)
Do you expect the average person to know that Europe mandated the ballot? If they blame anyone, I'd expect Windows to get the most heat for it (mistakenly, but still). It does say "Windows Internet Explorer" in the titlebar...
A big part of Microsoft's marketshare is not due to customers who evaluate all possible options and consciously choose Windows. It's from people who have Windows because "that's what it came with." So Microsoft has no qualms about benefitting from passive ignorance. Now when people who could use Google to inform themselves instead assume that Windows is to be "blamed"* for the ballot, Microsoft will potentially experience a little of the disadvantages of passive ignorance. I don't see anything wrong wit
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Maybe people choose randomly? (Score:4, Insightful)
For the average person it probably doesn't really matter.
FireFox and Chrome are my favorites because of the plugins and because Chrome feels faster.
IE I keep just in case nothing else will work. Thankfully IE only sites seem to be getting very rare. Thanks Firefox and Safari.
I keep Opera and Safari around for testing on my PC.
I know people love Opera but it just doesn't fit me well.
The thing is that even IE doesn't really suck and they all work. If you are not into tweaking then any of them will probably work just fine for you.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
People never choose randomly... Which icon is prettier or which name sounds the friendliest?
Or the coolest.
I don't think I'd even know Firefox had it been called Dulltuna or Slowduck.
Re: (Score:2)
>> People never choose randomly... Which icon is prettier or which name sounds the friendliest?
> Or the coolest.
> I don't think I'd even know Firefox had it been called Dulltuna or Slowduck.
Introducing my new browser, "Gates Of Eternity". (my thanks to the Heavy Metal band name generator http://b10m.swal.org/cgi-bin/bandname.cgi [swal.org])
The numbers you need, and the danger of prediction (Score:2)
For the statistics to mean anything, they should tell what percentage of the people choose which browser on the ballot, otherwise it's meaningless.
That'd certainly be an interesting number. Another interesting number might be the number of people exposed to the ballot screen---it tells you how much to trust the first number. Ask a statistician, or ask yourself this: if two people had been exposed, and both chose firefox, would you predict a 100% market share for firefox or would you think firefox got lucky and wait for more data to come in?
It might also be interesting to know how browser changes have happened historically---how do the switch rates d
1% drop !? (Score:2, Insightful)
1% drop? That's all?
I'm sorry but this does not seem as 'good news' for fans of IEs demise. You are saying that out of 62 of the users who are getting the ballot box, in the past month 61 have chosen IE and one has chosen to switch?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If you're going to see the ballot screen, you've seen it by now
As I understand it, new PCs and reinstallation of Windows on old PCs will trigger another ballot page view.
Re:1% drop !? (Score:5, Informative)
No, that's not what they're saying. They're saying that IE's TOTAL market share has dropped by 2.5%, 1.3%, and 1% in the above countries, in ONE MONTH, which would tend to suggest that a substantial portion of the installs from that month utilized an alternate browser. Remember, not every computer user in the EU installed Windows 7 this month!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:1% drop !? (Score:5, Informative)
Ironically, I thought it was malware and closed it via the task manager.
Margin of error? (Score:2)
What's the margin of error on their data? How much does it fluctuate from month to month? Did any governments do any major new deployments, or change their firewall settings to mask what kind of browser their users were connecting with? Until several agencies start reporting consistent numbers I will remain skeptical of anything over 0.5%
Re: (Score:2)
You are saying that out of 62 of the users who are getting the ballot box, in the past month 61 have chosen IE and one has chosen to switch?
No, he's saying that 0.62 have chosen to switch!
why would I care? (Score:4, Interesting)
why would I care which browser is the most popular?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Individualthink is not allowed here. Report to your nearest behavior modification center, citizen!
Re:why would I care? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:why would I care? (Score:4, Funny)
Well, there's a lot of begging of the question in your historical summary, but you left out one obvious historical scenario:
PHB: Your web pages are late, what's the problem?
You: Well, everything works OK in IE but I'm still trying to get things to render correctly for standards-compliant browsers like Firefox.
PHB: Fire-what? Everybody uses IE. if you don't want it to be Fire-you, button this up and release it. Ha, Ha. Slaps you on the back and walks back to flirt with his secretary
Re:why would I care? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:why would I care? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because a browser with a majority market share gets to define de-facto standards. If MS goes its own way with web standards (not that they would ever do such a thing) then, a few years ago, you have two options. Either support IE and 80% of your target market, or support standards-compliant browsers and 20% of your market. What do you do? Go with the MS solution. Now they have 61%, so it's not such an easy decision.
If IE, FireFox, Opera, Chrome, and Safari all had 15-30% of the market, then it would not be worth the investment for most people to support features specific to any single browser. Once two support the same feature, it starts to become worthwhile. Once four do, it definitely is and the one that doesn't support the feature is left out.
Having no single dominant player in the web browser market is good for web standards. You shouldn't care which browser is the most popular, you should care that none of them is too popular.
Re: (Score:2)
"Because a browser with a majority market share gets to define de-facto standards."
Yeah, like Netscape creating JavaScript and MS creating XMLHttpRequest.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
it would be best to be standards compliant and shoot for that standard
When there is no dominant player, it is in the interests of both site designers and browser makes to aim for the standards. If you write a site for the standards, it will work for most people, if you design a browser to the standards then it will work with most sites. This is only the case, however, when there is no dominant player. When one browser controls most of the market, it is in the interests of the site designers to make sure everything works with that browser (irrespective of standards complian
Re: (Score:2)
Re:why would I care? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:why would I care? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because if you ever do web development, you are required to hate Internet Explorer.
It's not so much a requirement as it is a natural consequence, in my experience.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you suggest that we withhold every single news item on the basis that someone, somewhere might not care?
Dont care? Don't read.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you design or maintain websites, you might care a great deal. If IE's popularity drops low enough, you can justify dropping half of your workload. It's not at all uncommon for one thing to work great for Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, etc, etc but not IE. So then you have to add a bunch of workarounds for IE. If you own a business, you might appreciate the reduced cost of having your web presence designed and maintained. If you are the customer of a business with a web presence, you might hope some of t
Socialism (Score:5, Funny)
This is what happens in a socialist paradise like Europe.
The "Evil Corporation's" web browser is forced to showcase it's rivals on an equal footing. The best product wins and free market capitalism dies a little.
Glenn Beck just urinated on his producer.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Glenn Beck just urinated on his producer.
Was this televised? This sounds like a once in a lifetime chance to watch Fox News.
David Murray (Score:2, Interesting)
In a way, this will probably HELP microsoft because this means less malware infections, which will make their O/S look more secure.
Probably good for Google. (Score:4, Interesting)
Many people have no idea what any of these are.
"Oh. I search with Google. This must be what I use."
Not so much. (Score:5, Insightful)
Many people have no idea what any of these are.
"Oh. I search with Google. This must be what I use."
There's "internet" in "Internet Explorer". And they recognize the icon.
Re:Not so much. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Next Step (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Choose your operating system(s)
Microsoft(R) Windows - The world's most widely used operating system, designed by Microsoft with you in mind.
GNU 1.0 - Will be able to run Unix programs, but will not be identical to Unix. We will make all improvements that are convenient, based on our experience with other operating systems. When we get around to it, we will add a portable Common Lisp, a spreadsheet and an Empire game.
Unix 1.0 - Experience history in a lively, engaging way with the original Unix terminal, run
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Now if there could just be a "Pick your OS" pull-down on first boot ...
I felt a strange disturbance in the MSForce when you wrote that.
It was as though a thousand Redmond executives cried out in pain...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
ok (Score:2)
Ok, I bet on Microsoft.
My rule of thumb (Score:5, Insightful)
Link to Stats (Score:5, Informative)
Germany showed a slight increase:
Place your bets? (Score:2)
I'm hoping for no winner: a heterogeneous market where people use one of a number of standards-compliant browsers, and I think it could actually be what happens.
Re: (Score:2)
a heterogeneous market where people use one of a number of standards-compliant browsers
This would be of course the best outcome possible. Nobody wants another monopolist to replace Microsoft. Competition is what drives technology forward.
Re: (Score:2)
Russia seems like a paradise [statcounter.com]
The ballot order (Score:3, Informative)
I don't understand (Score:2)
On one side, I understand how competition in the browser space is good for advancement, but the whole concept of why market share matters perplexes me. How do free browsers, which do nothing but display webpages, make ANY money whatsoever? They seem to be a gigantic money sink to me. The only thing I can think of is the default search bar generating ad revenue, but thats it. What the hell is the point of comparing "market share" of something like this? I don't see how this translates into anything bene
Re: (Score:2)
Place your bets now (Score:2)
Someone remind me who that is?
Re: (Score:2)
I'm wondering how much of the high IE value is from AOL users. The AOL client still uses IE. If they had switched to Netscape all those years ago, how would the balance of power be tipped now?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
AOL used to be a lot more widespread than the US.
I remember getting AOL install discs in the mail here in Australia in the 90s. What's kinda funny is that it was called "AOL Australia". America On-line Australia. Hmmm. Australia even starts with an A so why couldn't they have just called it (Australia)OL?
Re: (Score:2)
AOL was quite big in Europe (at least in France) in the days of dial-up modems. They became nearly extinct though since DSL and cable modems took over.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
All the bullshit from here in the US and over in Europe, and god only knows how much tax money went to suing M$ for its evil ways
I think the two billion dollar in fines Microsoft has received so far covers those expenses nicely.
GIGO (Score:2)
You have to realize that these anti-trust actions were lobbied for and designed to benefit competitors, not to help the consumer.
For example, Sun probably lived an extra year thanks to MS's settlement.
That sounds like a feature? (Score:2)
I'm not exactly sure what you're complaining about? Seems to me that it would be reasonable that if you already have another browser installed, there's no reason for Windows to bother you with a ballot screen to select another browser? I think I'd be kind of annoyed, really, if it did.