The Browser Choice Screen is dead


  

18 members have voted

  1. 1. How did you feel about the Browser Ballot Screen?

    • I got the update, and it was probably the most stupid idea ever
      6
    • I got the update, but I feel indifferent about it
      5
    • I got the update, and I loved it
      0
    • I didn't got the update, but hated it anyway
      7
    • I didn't got the update, but they should have released it in my region too
      0


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Today, Microsoft finaly kicked off the begin of the end of the Browser Choice Screen (http://support2.microsoft.com/kb/2019411/en-us?sd=rss&spid=14019). This means that the update will no longer be provided to Windows XP, Windows Vista en Windows 7, and that the app will no longer be provided to Windows 8 and Winodws 8.1. Now people, let's hear it: how did you feel about the Browser Choice Screen?

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stupid idea in the first place, daft EU bureaucrats with nothing else to do, but think up stupid ideas and waste money.

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As someone living in the EU and deploying windows regularly this was just a pain in the ass!, If you locked down the startscreen using group policy the tile was forcibly added to the end of the screen. Worse still there was no way of removing the update.

I hate it as much as oem bundled bloatware

 

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Good riddance to it, as there were loads of browsers on there all powered by Gecko, so Mozilla had an unfair advantage!

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I do not live in Europe, but the entire EU's case against MS did catch my attention. For the record I am all for regulatory bodies putting rules into place that increase competition. However, I really did not feel that EU's final ruling was fair to Microsoft. Aside from MS and a few of its OEMs, no other software developers or hardware manufacturers were bound by this ruling; for example, I wonder why Apple did not have to put browser choice box or offer a version of OS X without quicktime and why did no one target Apple when they allow Safari to use undocumented APIs on iOS that give it a clear advantage over other browsers in the App Store (I used Apple as an example here to show that MS is not the only one who made these practices; but there are many others besides Apple who engaged in the same practices as MS did but did not get this ruling applied to them). Overall, I felt like it was a bad ruling, and it went too far because Windows allows users to download any web browser they choose to install, and I am glad MS is removing the Browser Choice Screen (a lot of technical problems seemed to stem from the update that brought this feature).  

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I agree with the sentiments above however, all this wil do is, feed the frenzy EU political sharks to open a new legal battle to only get it put back up.

 

politicians can't govern well, what makes them think they can get their hands in our software?

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I feel indifferent about it. The browser ballot screen did annoy me, but not enough to make me hate it.

We rolled out 20 new desktops for our UK branch. Didn't care at first, but by the end of it, I was fed up seeing it lol. :P

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honest question to all people being happy to get rid of it: would you love to go to a supermarket for your shopping and being able to buy only 1 brand of each product, no light-products, no additionals, etc.?

 

my view: choice is never something negative.

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my view: choice is never something negative.

Except nobody's stopping you from making that choice. Just don't expect company A to spood-feed you options from company B. Don't think there's a person alive who thinks that IE is the only browser out there. I don't get any browser choices with any other operating systems.. no choice there either? Of course not, pure bias, plain and simple.

(And before "hurr durr Microsoft", no I don't use IE except to download another browser.)

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good that it's gone. It was a bad decision in the first place (EU and MS should had done in a different way) and even Microsoft managed to screw it because for some months it just didn't showed in newer computers (leaving me with a false sense of hope).

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Except nobody's stopping you from making that choice. Just don't expect company A to spood-feed you options from company B. Don't think there's a person alive who thinks that IE is the only browser out there.

 

i would not assume from the viewpoint of a (semi)professional neowin user but rather from the viewpoint of many beginners. it's even said that few have migrated their computers from IE to firefox back in the day then received phonecalls claiming "my internet is gone" because they have not seen that well known blue IE icon on the desktop anymore.

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i would not assume from the viewpoint of a (semi)professional neowin user but rather from the viewpoint of many beginners. it's even said that few have migrated their computers from IE to firefox back in the day then received phonecalls claiming "my internet is gone" because they have not seen that well known blue IE icon on the desktop anymore.

That's very 1995's thinking. Sad fact is it's hard to install something or use a major web site without another browser choice being thrown at you, never mind, oh gosh a vast majority of the world uses Android phones and jeez, they're pushing Chrome. It's reeeeealy hard to claim ignorance in this century. Just doesn't apply anymore.
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stupid idea in the first place, daft EU bureaucrats with nothing else to do, but think up stupid ideas and waste money.

I don't think that's the way it came about. If I remember right, Opera went to court because they saw their browser at a disadvantage. I am pretty sure they will go to court again - and maybe also Google. I wonder though whether it is worth it because you can install as many browsers as you want anyhow.

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i would not assume from the viewpoint of a (semi)professional neowin user but rather from the viewpoint of many beginners. it's even said that few have migrated their computers from IE to firefox back in the day then received phonecalls claiming "my internet is gone" because they have not seen that well known blue IE icon on the desktop anymore.

Beginners should learn how to 'drive' a computer before they use it.

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(Late addition, gotta take care of the clients and all that.)

Can put this another way that's really easy to show why it wasn't even necessary. Some like to shout "big bad Microsoft monopoly limiting choice" from the rooftops, so hence the ballot in the EU, and it's a bad idea it's being removed again, otherwise who's going to defend the consumer's choice?  Us poor stupid 'Merican consumers don't have the EU protecting us, only the tech savvy know about other browsers.. God help the rest who can't find the big blue IE icon on their desktops. Sounds all warm and fuzzy.  But alas, reality steps in.

Here's a browser market share graph for the USA only, no browser ballot, Microsoft's home turf so they're obviously able to strong-arm the poor consumers into using IE and force the OEM's into making sure that nobody can use a competing browser, right? 
 

statcounte.jpg

Note that graph shows the downward trend of IE's market share a full two years before the browser ballot even came into existence.  Probably not-so-coincidentally, that downward trend of IE really took off more or less when Chrome was released back in 2008.  Kinda clearly shows that contrary to the rhetoric, there is choice and the consumers have been exercising that choice for years.  No ballot required.   So yea, complete waste of time and completely unnecessary, but it sure made good headlines I suppose. The cash probably didn't hurt either.

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That's very 1995's thinking. Sad fact is it's hard to install something or use a major web site without another browser choice being thrown at you, never mind, oh gosh a vast majority of the world uses Android phones and jeez, they're pushing Chrome. It's reeeeealy hard to claim ignorance in this century. Just doesn't apply anymore.

 

firefox did not even exist in 1995 

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firefox did not even exist in 1995 

Missing the point.  Besides, even back in evil MS era 1995 we still had alternatives, even before IE was a thing.  Mosaic?  Navigator?  Cello?  Hell whatever was built in with CompuServe, AOL, etc at the time? 

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honest question to all people being happy to get rid of it: would you love to go to a supermarket for your shopping and being able to buy only 1 brand of each product, no light-products, no additionals, etc.?

 

my view: choice is never something negative.

 

I would love to go in a supermarket and be free to shop whatever I want instead of having some person constantly nagging me about the hundred other products they have.

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I would love to go in a supermarket and be free to shop whatever I want instead of having some person constantly nagging me about the hundred other products they have.

 

so your analogy would be: you go to the butchers but then need bread so you go to bakery, but then you need vegetables so you walk 30mins till you are outside the city where they have markets selling veggies and so on.

at the end you have spent about 3 hours shopping, spent more money than you would have done by just going to supermarket buying everything and spending only half an hour. 

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honest question to all people being happy to get rid of it: would you love to go to a supermarket for your shopping and being able to buy only 1 brand of each product, no light-products, no additionals, etc.?

 

my view: choice is never something negative.

 

How is removing the choice screen removing the ability to make the choice itself? Sure IE is the default, but its easy enough to find and install an alternate or get the family computer geek to do it for you.

 

To work off your analogy, that's like saying that since the endcap in the supermarket is focusing on Cheerios, I'm somehow prevented from buying Chex. All I have to do is go find what I want. The same is true with choice of web browser.

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