arstechnica.com — The devil is in the details, so Ars digs into the nitty-gritty of Microsoft's proposed browser ballot for European Union residents. Most EU Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 users will see the browser ballot screen that lets them choose a third-party browser.
Jul 29, 2009 View in Crawl 4
tnoyJul 29, 2009
But only if a businesses choice is made by a government, right?
sirhomerJul 29, 2009
USA acted on it: That's why you CAN change your default browser in Windows today. That was part of the DoJ settlement with Microsoft.So yes: Microsoft violated the law in the USA and the EU, just the EU has a different remedy. It's not the end of the world.Personally I don't think this is addressing the real issue: the actual monopoly (Windows). A ballot screen like this would be more useful for operating systems, not browsers.
mrjagilJul 29, 2009
Because browsers are so f**king important. The internet is pretty much THE most important "application" on any OS. Paint is not.
johnnysoftwareDec 4, 2009
Yeah, but I have been wondering if IE will *truly* be off the computer. Windows Update, the guts of it, require ActiveX controls - for instance MSHTML - to render the page.The bugs are in the guts of IE, not the app itself for the most part. Having any version of IE on the computer would seem to put the system at risk - at least if it is set up as a URL handler by the desktop/anything or it is in anyway callable by application code.Firefox is not going to run MSHTML. Has Microsoft ditched the need for HTML and ActiveX components in Windows Update?If they have, smart move. Linux and Mac OS X do not require a browser to display updates. The OS updaters are simple GUI applications that display the updates your system qualifies for, well "needs" - and, then you get a chance to put off installing any you do not want right now (or put off the update entirely) and you can get more information about an update from inside the app. But they simply display text and not an unnecessarily complex web-style GUI. Windows should be things the way they do.
johnnysoftwareDec 4, 2009
Have you seen the web virus catalog for Safari? Firefox?Here is SANS (Symantec, which actually depends on Windows revenue) top 20 list:<a class="user" href="http://www.sans.org/top20/" rel="nofollow">http://www.sans.org/top20/</a>Even 2 years ago, half the vulnerabilities in web server applications were web [client] vulnerabilities, it said. That said, you would tend to care if a frequently compromised web browser was on your computer AT ALL.Here is the latest spyware/malware Sophos has detected:<a class="user" href="http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/" rel="nofollow">http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-an ...</a> (web page)feed://feeds.sophos.com/en/rss2_0-sophos-latest-viruses.xml (news feed)All 10 malware programs target Windows and no other operating systems. Just Windows. At least two of them infect the computer directly through INTERNET EXPLORER. And handful more spread via removable storage - which you would THINK would be completely safe - if not for AUTORUN triggering the desktop to lunch Windows Explorer (guts of IE), etc.Microsoft also destroyed the integrity of the Java interpreter they licensed, violating the heck out of their license agreement (contact, in this case). They did it in such a way to destroy interopreability and cross-platform compatibility. Things did not get straightened out until Sun took it back, properly fixed the problems, and took over the job Microsoft had promised to do right in the first place.The DOM Microsoft came up with for JScript was incompatible with the existing de facto standard one that Netscape designed. There was no reason to make it different except to make it incompatible. It made writing browser independent DHTML a nightmware and it is still at PITA unless you rely on third party DHTML/Ajax libraries for "compatibility".The dumb thing about that is that HTML was supposed to be a universal language to begin with.Anyway, that is why MS is so hounded about IE on Windows. It is pretty simple. If it was not dangerous, it was compliant with the gamut of W3 standards, they had not let IE literally rot for half a decade, they had not bolted in so much Windows-only web content (yeah, ActiveX, Silverlight - Windows-only) - then people would see it differently.But then you would have Firefox and Safari. They are not as dangerous, they are far more W3 compliant, they have not been rotting at all, and they do not support Windows-only executable content like ActiveX (dangerous) and Silverlight (another proven security risk).Security problems in Windows and IE are a serious issue. Google researchers measured this with their Ghost in the Browser investigation, and they published a white paper about it. The NSA was forced to take charge of computer security for the USA and I think we all know this is because of the serious breeches that have occurred to Microsoft Windows computers in the past several years. It really does affect national security when banks, credit card processors, hospital lab equipment, etc. are just getting pwned by worms/viruses constantly.<a class="user" href="http://www.usenix.org/event/hotbots07/tech/full_papers/provos/provos.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.usenix.org/event/hotbots07/tech/full_pa ...</a><a class="user" href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/03/nsa-continues-b/" rel="nofollow">http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/03/nsa-conti ...</a>Viruses and worms do exactly what the job of the OS is to prevent in the first place: violate security by allowing unauthorized acts to take place against the owner's wishes.Flawed browsers suck up viruses and install malware on the computer which is something that people have been trying to avoid for a decade.When IE/Mosaic was coded at UIUC almost a decade ago, developers did not have the high level of concern about web security that they did when stuff like the Java sandbox & Java 2 security model were put together in 1995 and 1999 or so, and the first cross site protection rules were defined for HTTP/HTML/CSS content. Firefox and Safari were born in a more concerned world. IE was not. It it not a good fit as it is now for the web we have now.The web, which was invented in the EU (using a NeXT computer made by Steve Jobs running at CERN in Switzerland, lest you forget), was designed to be OS and client-application neutral. IE is *anything* but adherent to that policy. If you look at what the leaders are doing, Safari/Firefox/Opera - they cooperate on standards set thru the W3 (w3.org) and they strive to conform to those standards.Look at every version of IE and everything that has been said and followed through on by Microsoft - they do not kick ass on implementing the suite of standards. They are always behind, usually flouting the standards - and in the end, their customers and everyone else suffers because the badly written, non-conformant browsers are out there so long that lots of permanent software & and documents get put out - that wind up being spoiled unless you use an obsolete, decade(s) old browser to view them.So look at it this way. The Internet is the US's invention and we still control a vital organ or two of it. The Web is an EU invention, and they want the web to work they way they invented it to work - with durable documents, long-lasting web applications, and operating system & browser independence. So naturally, they are happier with cross-platform, standards-compliant web browsers like Safari, Firefox, Opera, etc. and less than pleased with IE.
johnnysoftwareDec 4, 2009
I think at some point it could be but other OS vendors would have to:1) have way, way more security flaws in their web browsers2) be much, much, much more W3 standards compliant3) embed their web browser deeply into their OS and swear in court it could never be taken out4) have an OS-specific web browser5) be based on closed source web rendering engine component6) have higher market share (to be fair to Microsoft, they are down from their high of 95% to 89%)7) be responsible for the OS+browser flaws that virtually all malware infections arise from on x86 architectureThat said, they have a long way to do and it could take "couple of years". ;-)
johnnysoftwareDec 4, 2009
Yeah, that is true and I kind of have started to wonder about that. But, the US does do fines as the main way to keep companies from violating antitrust laws.Microsoft, Intel, and Dell were found violating US antitrust laws in this past decade. In Microsoft's case, they actually were not punished in the US at all for past transgressions - just restricted from future ones somewhat.EU and major parts of US computer industry did not think that was too right, so EU collected the fines which US inexplicably chose not to collect itself. Less of a surprise than the US not levying fines.In Intel's case, things were sort of more normal - US and EU both fined them, and now strangely you have individual states like NY suing them. It kind of sucks for Intel because we have 50 states. Plus, the reason they are being fined in the first place is for paying Dell under the table kickbacks for many billions of dollars that Dell demanded.Dell has not been fined by EU or any US states that I know of, or by the US itself. Why Intel had to pay fines and Dell did not I do not grasp. I guess antitrust law is not intuitively easy to understand in some ways.Hopefully, EU is not abusing their ability to fine US companies. It does seem like a lot of the Free Trade principles are elusive in practice. [Another example besides EU: Microsoft got hit by a software tax for its OS in India which for the most part Apple avoided since it sells systems, which the software tax does not apply to, more than software.]
johnnysoftwareDec 4, 2009
You just click the one button on the voting screen for the browser you want. It is faster than going to a web site and downloading from a web browser.
johnnysoftwareDec 4, 2009
They must have a lot of reasons for rejecting applications because the Microsoft app store does not even have 300 apps and the Apple app store has over 100,000 apps. The Apple apps are very inexpensive too. Lots of stuff in there is powerful and/or fun and only costs several dollars.