Opera: Microsoft's browser ballot has tripled our downloads

[Mike Gayner]

The word "monopoly" is being used a lot in this thread - presumably by people who don't know what a monopoly is. MS is already fighting a losing battle in browser market share - this action by the EU was ridiculous and unnecessary.

 

[Linflas]

I am always amazed that the stupid piece of software that displays webpages draws this kind of religious ferver. As long as pages display correctly I could give a crap who makes the browser. IE works fine for me for most things and Firefox for the things I do that it has plugins that do things I want to do.

 

[zinfamous]

That's plain bull. Nobody cares that MS provides IE for free. The issue is that it's bundled with the OS that 90% of the world runs, so by default it's going to have the vast majority of market share. That stifles innovation and other browser development.

The approach of not having a browser 'built in', but allowing the user to select which browser they want when they first use windows makes each browser compete in the market, which is good for all of us.

This argument doesn't work, either. So, now it's Microsoft's fault that the consumers have decided over 3 decades-worth of development that theirs is by far the superior product (OS), so now Microsoft should limit the capability of their superior product by not bundling a browser?

A single button click on a fresh install, creating the default browser to whatever you want it to be...is not enough for the consumer? How can anyone rationally blame Microsoft for not giving the consumers choice, when that is exactly what they have always done?

Forcing Microsoft to include, or at least play lip service to Real Player or other trojans veiled as media players was just as ridiculous as this BS.

...why the hell wasn't Apple sidelined with their ABSOLUTE REFUSAL to allow anything outside of Quicktime?

Are you gonna argue that it is simply because of Market share? You realize how invalid this argument for forced-bundling becomes when it is ONLY based on market share?

Malarkey. pure and simple.

 

[Raduque]

That's plain bull. Nobody cares that MS provides IE for free. The issue is that it's bundled with the OS that 90% of the world runs, so by default it's going to have the vast majority of market share. That stifles innovation and other browser development.

The approach of not having a browser 'built in', but allowing the user to select which browser they want when they first use windows makes each browser compete in the market, which is good for all of us.

I disagree. There's hundreds of different freeware browsers out there, and all it takes is a quick google search to find them. It is not Microsoft's fault that end users are too stupid or lazy or whatever to find and install a different browser. Maybe you could argue that it stifles innovation if Microsoft somehow prevented browsers other than IE from being installed.

Oh, and you can't have IE not be "built in", because it's very much a central part of Windows. Maybe the icon is removed, maybe even the iexplore.exe process is deleted, but the core of the MSHTML renderer is still there. Take it out completely and you break a multitude of things, including Help and Support and even 3rd party apps like Steam.

This is nothing more than typical EU bullshit: Exercising it's far-reaching authority, screwing over a foreign company/consumers to give an advantage to a "local" company because that company is full of whiny douchbags.

Edit: Oh, and how does this choice mechanism actually work? Does it happen as one of the steps before you actually get INTO windows(part of the Out-of-Box experience when you turn on a new PC/fresh install of Windows)? Is it something that pops up when you click the "Internet" icon? If it's the former, does Microsoft now have to secure distribution licenses for all the included browsers? If so, that's an expense that Microsoft will have to start passing on to the consumer. More choice = more expense.

 

[Fox5]

I'm not pro ballot, I'm really not sure what it's supposed to accomplish.
IE obviously wasn't hampering competition, it's free and almost on every computer and we still ended up with at least 4 clearly superior browsers.
IE doesn't have anywhere near 100% market share.

The only reasons I can see the EU to have a problem would be standards and security issues. In which case, the more appropriate response should not be veiled under consumer choice, but to mandate that every computer sold comes with a certain level of security or web features/performance. Mandate that every computer have a browser with less than a certain number of unresolved major security issues or a certain score on the ACID3 test or that supports some other criteria.
It'd be more beneficial to whatever ecosystem the EU is trying to build, every computer would have a browser that supports the latest open standards (thus no barrier to competition), individual computer manufacturers and browsers could work out their own deals (or even let the user pick when the computer is purchased), and it would be a much stronger incentive for Microsoft to make their browser standards compliant, rather than built around their own proprietary ecosystem.

Heck, I'm surprised more PC vendors don't include alternative software more often to make their PCs stand out. Make Firefox a key feature, or offer openoffice as the only PC company to offer a free office suite. It'd be way better than the crapware that's been loaded on PCs in the past.

 

[Kirby]

Lynx FTW

 

[lxskllr]

The only reasons I can see the EU to have a problem would be standards and security issues. In which case, the more appropriate response should not be veiled under consumer choice, but to mandate that every computer sold comes with a certain level of security or web features/performance. Mandate that every computer have a browser with less than a certain number of unresolved major security issues or a certain score on the ACID3 test or that supports some other criteria.
It'd be more beneficial to whatever ecosystem the EU is trying to build, every computer would have a browser that supports the latest open standards (thus no barrier to competition), individual computer manufacturers and browsers could work out their own deals (or even let the user pick when the computer is purchased), and it would be a much stronger incentive for Microsoft to make their browser standards compliant, rather than built around their own proprietary ecosystem.

That's not the government's job. They can demand any standards they want, or no standards at all for their own procurement, but it isn't their place to demand it for the population.

 

[MotF Bane]

Can you clarify what you mean by the bolded statement.

Sure. If you have two tabs open, it shows two stacked items on the taskbar, as Windows 7 does when you have two copies of a program open. By itself, that's not my preference, but it's not a deal breaker. The problem comes in with minimizing and maximizing - when I want to minimize the active window, 9/10 times I click the taskbar icon, and now that just shows off all active tabs. Same for maximizing, it shows all tabs and makes you choose one to maximize. Yes, I'm nitpicking, and that's because I'm very happy with how Opera has run for years, and don't want a change to something that works.

 

[Anubis]

humm that is quite annoying, ill have to eval that for myself next week when i get win 7 up and running on my new comp

 

[MotF Bane]

humm that is quite annoying, ill have to eval that for myself next week when i get win 7 up and running on my new comp

I'm hoping that feature will go away with the next release, or become optional.

 

[Fox5]

That's not the government's job. They can demand any standards they want, or no standards at all for their own procurement, but it isn't their place to demand it for the population.

They don't have to mandate the population uses it. And I don't see how the browser solution is less invasive. Whatever the situation, Microsoft is forced to provide other browsers. In the case of my idea, companies are only required to provide another browser until IE is brought up to a minimum level of functionality.

Besides, technology is ridiculously complicated and easy to make proprietary. I don't see any problem with the government mandating that standards be decided upon and then used. That practically happened on its own in almost every computer field, except in cases where Microsoft (and a few other companies) push their own incompatible standards or just don't support open standards.

Making sure that every computer supports, out of the box, a minimum level of web functionality or document types would be a good thing imo. There's no reason people should have to hunt around the Internet to figure out how to open a pdf or a docx or why they can't click on any links on a webpage or why some web app doesn't function. (though I wonder why microsoft just doesn't provide better out of the box support?)

Sure. If you have two tabs open, it shows two stacked items on the taskbar, as Windows 7 does when you have two copies of a program open. By itself, that's not my preference, but it's not a deal breaker. The problem comes in with minimizing and maximizing - when I want to minimize the active window, 9/10 times I click the taskbar icon, and now that just shows off all active tabs. Same for maximizing, it shows all tabs and makes you choose one to maximize. Yes, I'm nitpicking, and that's because I'm very happy with how Opera has run for years, and don't want a change to something that works.

You can change win7's taskbar back to the old way. I wish you could define behavior based on the app though.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Opera does that as well BTW

Oh it does. I just upgraded to 10.50. Who knows what version I was using? 10.10? heh...

 

[BurnItDwn]

I liked running Opera back when I ran an OLDE machine os a freebsd box, old laptop with a 450mhz CPU and 192mb of ram ran MUCH faster with Opera than it could with MSIE or Firefox (just a couple of years ago becore I got rid of it)

 

[lxskllr]

Making sure that every computer supports, out of the box, a minimum level of web functionality or document types would be a good thing imo. There's no reason people should have to hunt around the Internet to figure out how to open a pdf or a docx or why they can't click on any links on a webpage or why some web app doesn't function. (though I wonder why microsoft just doesn't provide better out of the box support?)

You can say the same thing about any O/S. Why should I have to hunt around the web trying to find a way to open a tarball in Windows? Why should I have to search for a way to open 7z files in Linux? It isn't the government's job to enforce file types or standards of any kind. The best thing they can do is stay the hell out of the way, and let the market do what it does best. The government can ENCOURAGE open standards by using them itself, but that's as far as it should go.

 

[Staples]

ive used nothing but Opera since you actually had to pay for it. So something like 8 years

Actually it is more like 4-5 years. I have used it ever since it went free and used nothing else (except IE for sites that did not like Opera). I recently switched to Chrome

1) because their politics bother me
2) lastpass, most Silverlight sites do not work in opera

I do miss

1) Mouse gestures
2) their built in block content filter

 

[Anubis]

Actually it is more like 4-5 years. I have used it ever since it went free and used nothing else (except IE for sites that did not like Opera). I recently switched to Chrome

1) because their politics bother me
2) lastpass, most Silverlight sites do not work in opera

I do miss

1) Mouse gestures
2) their built in block content filter

i started using it my Soph year in college (2001-2002) so its been that long for me. Chrome has adblock or at least a buggy form of it, but yea if you need silverlight to work Opera wont do it. Luckily i have no idea what it is and therefore dont use it

 

[AnonymouseUser]

2) most Silverlight sites do not work in opera

Aha! Another reason to use Opera!

 

[Fox5]

You can say the same thing about any O/S. Why should I have to hunt around the web trying to find a way to open a tarball in Windows? Why should I have to search for a way to open 7z files in Linux? It isn't the government's job to enforce file types or standards of any kind. The best thing they can do is stay the hell out of the way, and let the market do what it does best. The government can ENCOURAGE open standards by using them itself, but that's as far as it should go.

Base level of compatibility is important, imo.
The Internet should be treated the same as any public road is, so the government has some right to regulate what operates on it.

For purposes of interoperability among businesses and consumers, it wouldn't hurt to have a basic type of document or web capabilities common along nearly the entire populace. These are countries that regulate what languages businesses can do business in, they can certainly regulate what file type information is provided in. And that would be far more acceptable in my eyes than forcing a company to promote its competitors under some kind of guise as promoting a free market.

Back to the road analogy, if a country can decide a car doesn't meet emission standards, or isn't safe enough, or in someway is not street legal, it's fully within their rights to ban its sale or use. Web browsers are the cars of the Internet, and if a country wants a certain level of interoperability and security among their nation's computers, they can mandate that certain standards be met. If those standards are beyond what Internet Explorer is capable of, then Microsoft best improve IE to comply with that country's regulations.

 

[Cheesetogo]

The EU browser thing has always seemed kind of ridiculous to me. It's like forcing Ford to let you choose which brand of stereo you want in your car. Except in this case, the stereos are all free.

 

[tyler811]

The EU browser thing has always seemed kind of ridiculous to me. It's like forcing Ford to let you choose which brand of stereo you want in your car. Except in this case, the stereos are all free.

What's wrong with that?

 

[Chaotic42]

From 3 downloads to 9? Seriously, who the shit uses Opera?

Wow, that's exactly what I was going to post. Weird.

I wonder how much market share a browser has to have to make it on the ballot.

 

[foghorn67]

The EU browser thing has always seemed kind of ridiculous to me. It's like forcing Ford to let you choose which brand of stereo you want in your car. Except in this case, the stereos are all free.

Wow, complete ripoff of Leros' quote earlier in this SAME thread.

 

[foghorn67]

Okay, I have been trying Opera 10.5 the last few days. And one feature is really annoying.
The tabs do no meet the top of the window. Meaning, when maximed, I can't shoot the mouse over the top of the screen and hit the tab.

 

[arcenite]

I recently switched all my machines from FF to Chrome. HUGE difference in speed. I love how Chrome loads instantly.

 

[Saga]

Safari opens pages faster than any other browser and scores perfectly on the Acid3 test. Chrome is close but it doesn't quite hit 100 on all the tests. Why wouldn't you want to use the best browser? Chrome is based off the same engine, but it's not as polished, yet people who hate Safari seem to go ape shit over Chrome, I just don't get it.

As a Safari user, I'm going to venture to guess you're an Apple owner.

With that said, there are likely quite a few things in life you "just don't get".

The rest of us aren't running around trying to prove it to you, eventually you may grow up enough to understand on your own. If not you can continue being the dude in the coffee shop by himself with is MBP that everyone laughs at.