arstechnica.com — Microsoft and the European Commission have come to an agreement on a browser ballot that current and future Windows users will use to select a default browser for their PCs. Unless there's a huge uproar over the latest proposal, the EU's investigation into Microsoft's allegedly-anticompetitive browser bundling should soon draw to a close.
Oct 7, 2009 View in Crawl 4
abbathdoomOct 7, 2009
Is it just me or does IE have the best blurb on the vote screen? If anything FF has the worst :(
therealmisterdOct 7, 2009
doesn't matter, IE has the best position in the line up...The middle choice.
therealmisterdOct 7, 2009
Any paranoid idiot will pick IE BECAUSE it matches the Browser running the ballot . The ballot should have been without any icons whatsoever.
scy1192Oct 7, 2009
I see a scrollbar on the browser list. I wonder what browsers are listed after Opera.
diggundergroundOct 8, 2009Submitter
They position IE strategically...
9ballsnapOct 8, 2009
Microsoft needs to just tell the EU and Opera to get f**ked already. Refuse to sell Windows there unless they accept it is as Microsft designed it. Force them to go to f**king Mcntrash and see how well that works out for them trying to then keep up with the rest of the Windows based world. If people want to use a different browser, it isn't that hard to install one and use it. I don't understand the concept of and 'antitrust' or 'monoply' over a product such as an internet browser that is FREE. So let me get this straight, lets break this down using a ridiculous example. Lets say Microsoft is Cracker Jacks. As most of you know, Cracker Jacks comes with (or used to, I haven't bought them in a while, maybe they got sued like I'm about to present and don't do this anymore) a toy trinket of some kind. Lets say there is a company out there that just makes these trinkets and distributes them for free as a stand alone product. So this means the stand alone company can sue Cracker Jacks for creating an 'unfair advantage' by giving away essentially the same products that the stand alone company does along with their main product Cracker Jacks? This just makes no sense, and I can't believe with the kind of money MS makes that they are putting up with it, they don't need the EU's money, and the EU really needs them. So I think if MS told them "Aaaahh, we're just not going to sell Windows in your countries then, how about that?" it wouldn't be long before the EU came crawling to MS and said "OK, forget the antitrust thing, please sell us Windows however you designed it". Or parts of the EU would revolt against it saying they wanted Windows, simple as that.
mrjagilOct 8, 2009
I actually agree with this behavior. Though I do think that Apple and the different Linux distributions should follow suit.