Smaller browser makers urge Microsoft ballot rethink

Inclusion

Lesser known / used browser makers want their products shown too

- Gosh, never expected that to happen... (Rolls eyes)

By greemble on 5 Mar 2010

That boat has sailed

Surely they should have made this complaint earlier before it was agreed with the EU? What the screen was going to look and behave like has been known for a while.

By WhiskyFudge on 5 Mar 2010

Erm....

"We are only requesting the simple addition of any text or design element, that would indicate to an average user that there are choices 'to the right of the visible screen,"

Erm....isn't that what the scrollbar below the list of options is for?

By everton2004 on 5 Mar 2010

How do you do this on a Mac?

By stokegabriel on 5 Mar 2010

Agreed with WhiskyFudge.

These guys are already getting far better advertising than they could ever hope for. How many of them were actually around before IE became part of Windows anyway? And how many of them are anything more than IE with a dress on anyway?

By halsteadk on 5 Mar 2010

I tend to agree with them. Why should Opera and the others get such prominent positioning.

Surly the whole argument was that Microsoft rigged the playing field in their own favour. So now rigging the playing field in favour of Opera, Firefox, Chrome and Safari to the exclusion of other browsers somehow puts that right.

Whiskyfudge is correct in that they missed the boat and should have objected earlier to the ballot format, or did they?

By chapelgarth on 6 Mar 2010

You cant criticize Microsoft for putting the most popular options first in the list, its just like anywhere else, e.g. you do a google search and the most popular websites are shown at the top of the list, you search for something on Amazon and the most popular items come first etc.

By OWBaglow on 6 Mar 2010

Hi everybody.

I have just bought a new iMac a few weeks ago but I haven't yet seen this browser choice screen thingy you talk about.

Everytime I try to go to a Microsoft site then the crappy broweser Safari crashes and insists on taking me back to Apple's home page.


Infact, when I think about it, when I purchased my new iCrap (iMac), it didnt mention the media player, web browser etc that was included with the O/S, infact any day now I peay that the MS popup is going to come up and at last I will be able to use some decent software unlike this bloatware my iCrap (22"+) commes preinstalled with. IN FACT, I don't remember a choice, any choice at all to if I, wanted to instsll it!!!!

By kingct on 7 Mar 2010

It's easy.....

... all they need is for the browser choice display to show 5½ icons on the front page instead of of 5 as it does now, that would make the further choices to the right more obvious! It is a design trick others use... in fact the new Windows Mobile 7 uses this same half on/off the screen trick to show there are more pages to scroll to... I think this would clear it up for everyone!

By mdoragh on 7 Mar 2010

More...

I dont think its asking much to put an arrow or a "more" link at the top right hand side.

I've been supporting IT for donkeys years and I was amazed there's 10 choices of browser.

It begs the question is there an 11th choice and how vexed are they to miss the cut?

ITs only a webpage so I am assuming they will update it as required anyways.

By Gindylow on 7 Mar 2010

There's a scrollbar?

i must admit i missed completely the scroll bar on the five or so machines i've seen this pop up on. i'll look out for it in future, perhaps take a look at the other browsers.
Like the mac comments above. i run firefox on my imac (also have chrome, but not quite settled into it yet). Does the EC ruling assume that if you are able to break from the herd and get a mac, you are also able to make your own informed browser choice?

By thirdbrother3 on 7 Mar 2010

No-one cares

Surely they are exactly where their market share suggests they should be - out of sight but available it you dig around a bit.
After 20 in the IT game I've never seen anyone with any of the browsers outside the big 5 except for one person with Maxthon a few years ago.

By The_Scrote on 8 Mar 2010