Posted on July 27th, 2009 by Tim Danton

Microsoft, Windows 7, the EU and common sense

The world’s gone crazy. Surely Microsoft can’t have decided to do what’s been blindingly obvious to the rest of the world for eternity and – gasp – offer users a choice of web browsers when they install Windows 7? And thus, in one fell and seemingly easy swoop, appease the EU and its browser-producing competition?

But by jingo it has, at least if today’s news story (Microsoft to offer browser choice with Windows 7) is to be believed. During installation, you’ll get the choice of five (Internet Explorer, Opera, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Apple Safari), rendering the EU’s objection of Microsoft exploiting its monopolistic position irrelevant.

“Under our new proposal, among other things, European consumers who buy a new Windows PC with Internet Explorer set as their default browser would be shown a ‘ballot screen’ from which they could, if they wished, easily install competing browsers from the Web,” said Brad Smith, Microsoft General Counsel and Senior Vice President of Microsoft Corp.

So, you’ll still need to go through the hassle of downloading your browser before you can actually use it, but it should also mean that we can avoid this stupidness of having no way to upgrade from Windows Vista to Windows 7 (as exclusively revealed by PC Pro many weeks ago).

At the moment the proposal is lighter on detail than Sarah Palin’s plan to get elected President of the USA, and perhaps it’s unfair to expect anything more than broad statements at this stage, but you have to ask how we’ve got to within eight weeks of Windows 7 going on the shelves without this being sorted out.

Until Microsoft updates its code to incorporate this new “choice of browser” proposal – and bear in mind this could take months – anyone in the EU who upgrades their Vista machine to Windows 7 will have to go through the pain and hassle of a full reinstallation, possibly losing all their applications in the process.

So yes, I applaud this latest move by Microsoft. But it’s many months too late.

Tags: browsers, EU, Microsoft, Opera, Windows 7

Posted in: Rant, Windows 7

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15 Responses to “ Microsoft, Windows 7, the EU and common sense ”

Len Says:
July 27th, 2009 at 10:46 am
who the hell does the EU think they are.
How can you download an internet browser when you dont have one installed by default. Idiots!
Tim Says:
July 27th, 2009 at 10:48 am
If it’s “seemingly obvious to the rest of the world” that Microsoft should want to offer it’s customers the opportunity to choose a competitor’s product, then the world has indeed gone crazy, because in a business sense, that sort of thinking is completely batsh*t crazy.

I mainly use Firefox, but it doesn’t bother me in the least that IE is also installed. What is it that the supporters of this EU regulation are worried about, disk space? This doesn’t offer anyone any more choice or freedom than they already had, same as the insane media player issue with XP, and because it clouds the issue of upgrading from Vista, it’s even more insane.

Looks like I’ll be getting my Win7 upgrade media from America. Thanks again, EU (not).
paulzolo Says:
July 27th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Len Says:

Of course you can download without a browser. FTP is one methods, and I think you’ll find that there will be FTP capabilities built into the OS. All the app that offers the choice needs to do is grab the appropriate file from the vendor’s server and install it. You don’t need a browser for this kind of thing at all.
Tim Danton Says:
July 27th, 2009 at 11:15 am
@Tim I agree that it would be crazy to offer downloads of rival choices in a natural environment, but we’re talking about an environment where Microsoft has already paid out billions of dollars to the EU due to monopolistic behaviour. The business need is to avoid the fines.

@paulzolo Yep, agreed. Like I say, details are light at the moment (eg at which point does the file download happen, pre-installation or post?), but technically it shouldn’t be difficult to download files… so long as the computer is connected to the internet. Cue a number of very unhelpful error dialogs.
Stack Says:
July 27th, 2009 at 11:50 am
My car came with a CD player pre-installed. I didn’t hear about the EU jumping up and down on behalf of other in-car CD player manufacturers because I didn’t have the option of choosing from five different manufacturers. However, I can always take this one out and replace it with a CD player of my choice if I wanted to.

If only I could install any browser I wanted onto Windows alongside IE. Oh, hang on….
Cyteck Says:
July 27th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Frankly, weather you decide to use IE8 or some other companies web browser in windows 7 I strongly doubt it will make much difference either way. Users will select a browser based on a wide number of variable factors. But whats 100% MOST important here is the principal of providing consumers (customers or clients) with a choice. I strongly suspect that what gets users of windows most annoyed is the sheer arrogance of Microsoft at its blatantly presumptions that everyone wants or must have IE8 rightly or wrongly. Its this assumption that really angers users in my opinion.
Dai Says:
July 27th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
How much taxpayer money has been wasted by the EU on this? You have a choice in Windows of using the free built in Internet Explorer or any of the other free downloadable browsers. Same with Media Player, use the free one or download a free one.
Seriously – where’s the problem? It’s not like Microsoft is taking money away from other software manufacturers.

Isn’t it about time that Apple were sued because the only way you can sync your iPod is to use iTunes?
Or how about the Linux distros that you can buy (yes, buy. Novell Suse Linux Enterprise for example) that come with applications installed including openoffice and Firefox. Surely they are becoming a monopoly too.

@Stack – best post so far!
jonners99 Says:
July 27th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Apple are so much worse at this than Microsoft I just wish someone would switch the focus.
Cyril Says:
July 27th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
I really don’t get the way some people think. MS is =arrogant= because they provide a free media player and browser. Last time I checked, OSX came with them, both authored by Apple and bundled FREE with the OS (how arrogant of them). Why isn’t the EU going after them? There has never been a problem with installing someone else’s browser, media player or file manager in Windows if you don’t like the one that comes in the box. Consumers have ALWAYS had that choice.

It was anti-competitive (somewhat) when MS gave away IE for free when Netscape was still charging money, but that was a LONG time ago.

@Stack – brilliant
Neal Says:
July 27th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Maybe the whole thing will be over by the time that people get ehat the complaints were about…

As far as I see it, the problem is not that Microsoft included stuff when you install an operating system. The problem is that you cannot not get rid of it ifyou wanted to.

If you use Windows, you haven’t really got a choice but to use Internet Explorer – because it can’t really be uninstalled and if you go to the Windows update site with your Firefox / Chrome / Safari / Opera / Links web browser you are told to bugger off and come back using Internet Explorer.

If people are using Internet Explorer for doing one thing on the internet, they become familiar with it, and will use it for other internet stuff…

There isn’t really a market for web browsers any more, and hasn’t been since Microsoft killed it by giving away Internet Explorer rather than selling it. (To my mind, a market is about buyingand selling, not giving away and taking for free.)

The only reason that there is significant competition over which web browser people are using is that people with a grudge against Microsoft are throwing large sums of money at getting people off Internet Explorer.
Mr C Says:
July 27th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
@Cyril – Insert obligatory remark about Apple’s share only being 10% of the home computer market so Quicktime/Safari aren’t a monopoly.

Then insert obligatory reply about Apple’s share of the iPod market being a monopoly.
Mighty Boosh Says:
July 28th, 2009 at 8:33 am
I wish that Microsoft hadn’t caved, a ballot screen is not needed. What do less tech-savvy people do if they decide they’ve made the wrong choice? What information is given about each browser on the ballot screen? You can’t make a choice without information.

On the subject of IE vs other browsers, I for one am thankful Microsoft killed Netscape. Does anyone remember using it? It was terrible. IE was a breath of fresh air. I’ll stick with IE because I don’t want to be associated with those who preach Firefox.
Andy Says:
July 28th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
What a bizarre set of comments. I’m glad my taxes are going towards paying the EU to ensure fair competition, I’m not sure people complaining about it really understand what they are talking about. Any by the venom and ignorance (see very first post for a great example) you would have thought that the EU had asked MS to remove all browser supoprt utterly from the OS, rather than – oh deary deary me – click on an option during install.
Dai Says:
July 29th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
@Andy – “ensure fair competition”? What, the amazing competition between any number of free items? Giving something away for free ISN’T competition if everyone is doing it (unless you count spending lots of money giving stuff away for free as a competition)

If you went to car dealerships and they said “I’ll give you any car in the world that you want for free” you wouldn’t sue Ford for giving away a car for free, just because they are the market leader.

Unfair competition would be if MS were heavily subsidising IE so that it only cost £5, whereas every other browser cost £50. Or if IE was bundled for free and you couldn’t install and use any other browser.

Much more anti-competitive is the PC manufacturers who bundle in anti-virus programs that expire after a month and you have to pay to use. There’s only the oone preinstalled and you get no choices screen. True you could always install another one but that wouldn’t be fair now would it?

Mind you I still think that if Microsoft were French and not American, that the EU would have left them well alone.
Steve Cassidy Says:
July 29th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
I’m with Andy on this one. The lawsuit isn’t about the browser on the PC, it’s about how Microsoft twist the arms of site developers to stay inside the Microsoft delivery platform. The end-user browser is only part of that picture, though it’s an important part. The EU is doing this for some reasons that seem highly relevant once you escape the english-speaking world and the english-speaking mindset: and Apple aren’t being sued like this because Safari (and Camino and all the others) were never sold or downloaded as exclusionary upgrades because otherwise you’d not be able to see the Apple website, or similar.

Some of the ideas here about what the EU does, or whose the nastier competitor are simply bizarre.