Comments on: Windows 7 web browser Ballot Screen – The important facts

By: Mark Rhoades-Brown

Mark Rhoades-Brown — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:44:14 +0000

Do not be naive. Load up IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome , etc. and look at the homepages. These pages are revenue streams. When you see a search bar on these, or an advert on the web page, somebody is making money out of it. Look at this deal between Google and FireFox- http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/28/mozilla-extends-lucrative-deal-with-google-for-3-years/

If somebody is making money, then it is at somebody else’s expense. Microsoft will loose money from this, and Opera (in particular) will make more profit. Face it, how many casual users had ever heard of Opera? Firefox probably, Safari if you are a mac user, Chrome- you see it on the Google which most people use.
My personal preference for browsers at the moment is IE8, before IE8 came around it used to be Firefox (which I still use very often). I have used Opea, in fact I use that and Skyfire on my mobile phone. Choice is a good thing, but I think that this ballot system is extremely unfair.
I agree with the article that soon Symantec, McAffe, AVG, etc. will want to get in on the act. Soon it will take ½ hour to install Windows, and an hour or two to go through the choices of browser, firewall, AV, paint application, etc. Where will it end?

By: Michael Pietroforte

Michael Pietroforte — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 19:27:51 +0000

Why should MS lose a lot of money? Web browsers are free anyway. Thus this “competition” is mostly for fun and has no real economic relevance. It will become only relevant for MS if other software vendors want a ballot screen too.

By: moiecoute

moiecoute — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:09:54 +0000

I can understand the fuss but at the same time this is the world of convergence and the internet.

Whether it be Microsoft/IE, Google OS/Chrome or MAC/Safari it doesn’t make sense to me not include a browser in the OS. MS is not stopping anyone from install Firefox or paying for Opera.

MS will lose a lot of money from this but hey at the same time at least those stats about the most popular browser and websites will be more accurate. Not high because people use IE as part of Windows and because particular sites are set as the IE home page.

By: Michael Pietroforte

Michael Pietroforte — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 08:35:44 +0000

Lukas, I somehow doubt that we will see a Windows 7 with the Ballot Screen this week. Microsoft has to wait now for EC’s response.

By: Lukas Beeler

Lukas Beeler — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 20:44:06 +0000

Well, sounds much better now. Now that we know which version we can use, all we need to do is wait for Thursday/Friday.

By: Michael Pietroforte

Michael Pietroforte — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 18:49:01 +0000

Hi Rory! Yes, Microsoft will assist business to prevent the Ballot Screen from being displayed on corporate PCs. However, there is no concrete information available yet. Since the software will be delivered as an update for Vista and XP, WSUS users will be able to block the software from being installed. I suppose Microsoft will only make more information available once the EC officially accepted the proposal.

By: Rory Schmitz

Rory Schmitz — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 18:24:20 +0000

Hi Michael,

What is MS doing to assist businesses who will do NOT want to participate in the additional browser ballot? Will there be a block tool similar to IE7/IE8 installs for this particular update so end users won’t receive the ballot? Or is this just a simple update that we can block through WSUS? If you have any information regarding that I’m sure your readers, mainly the European readers, would be interested.

I just picture this causing confusing to the end-user within a corporate setting, unless sys admins have some sort of control over it.

Also, how exactly does Microsoft deploy this update throughout Europe, but not the rest of the world.

Thanks.

Rory Schmitz