Forced by the EU: Microsoft puts its browser selection site live. | Hacker News Reader

Forced by the EU: Microsoft puts its browser selection site live.

browserchoice.eu

29 pointsjrnkntl43 comments

Millions of people are going to find out about fringe browsers through this selection dialog. If I were in charge of such a project, I would have put some serious effort into improving the icon and copy text the minute this opportunity was made public.

Right now most of the non-top-5 browsers look like crap or spyware. Avant is definitely shortlisted for the "ugliest 145*50 banner image of 2010" award.

One of the Mozilla guys pointed out that below the top five the browsers are big in places outside Europe, mostly Chinese or Japanese.

And most are just wrappers for IE's engine anyway, which doesn't really help.

I think the marketing person responsible for Microsoft's spot should be called on the carpet. How lame a pitch is

Internet Explorer is the world’s most widely used browser, designed by Microsoft with you in mind.

I don't think it's going to make a difference for the fringe browsers. My reasoning is that I had to scroll to the right to see the remaining options, and there is no indication that there are more options other than the scrollbar. I'm pretty sure not too many people are going scroll and see the remaining options.

This selection dialog is going to be around for a while. Even if only 1 in 20 users does scroll to the right, that should mean millions of viewers over the coming years... Whatever the exact numbers may be, it eclipses the exposure that these browsers could get through any other means.

It's a bit like having your iPhone app in the lower part of the Top 20 on the App Store. It won't be visible on the iTunes front page, but it's still much more powerful than any other kind of free marketing you could hope to get.

Legally, I don't know how I feel about the EU ruling. Something feels off to me about forcing a company to offer alternatives to something it is offering its users for free.

In terms make the internet a better place, the EU ruling is full of win. The more people that use browsers that actually rely on web standards, the more people will be forced to build web sites to web standards. If enough sites are built based on actual standards, Microsoft might actually have to make its own browser standards compliant. Not to mention the simple fact that more people will be exposed to Explorer's competitors will force Explorer to actually, you know, compete.

Next year EU is going to demand that MS put up a site offering competitors to the packaged Solitaire game.

No. Because Solitaire is not a platform. What Microsoft is being punished for is abusing its desktop OS monopoly (which was, BTW, acquired through all sort of shady backroom deals) to hijack and prevent technological advancements that could render its clients independent of its desktop software, thus inflating its profits by artificially reducing competition.

Sorry for the humorless reply, but this is an important subject and it has been shown, over and over, any misconception about it is abused to portrait Microsoft in a more favorable light.

Woa woa woa, clearly MS has the monopoly on minesweeper, nobody cares about Solitaire.

Is it just me or is the html for this page really ugly?

Code like this gives me horrible flashbacks to the frontpage days:

  td id="_description_1"

Not to mention a meta tag outside of the html block and class and ID names that make Hungarian notation look pleasant.

If I was Microsoft I would have made it just as bad.

It's certainly consistent with their other online properties.

It's probably designed against every SEO guideline in the book and then some.

The fewer people who get to this page, the better for Microsoft.

I doubt it's been written by hand or is maintained by hand: it may also be styled to be rendered in a dialog.

How would you significantly improve this html?

For starters, instead of using integers all over the place, I would use a cleaned up version of the browser name (i.e. _description_1 becomes internet_explorer_description, _installLink_1 becomes internet_explorer_download, etc.).

If they're using the IDs to do the randomization, that could be moved to class names that could easily be picked up by the javascript (instead of looking for _item_id_1 through _item_id_5, just pick up any div with a class of "first-tier" and randomize those).

Perhaps I'm being pedantic, but it seems like it would be easier to maintain (which for a single page site, might not really be an issue).

That's it? That's your idea of the difference between "really ugly" HTML and good HTML? Kids these days... makes me feel so old.

Quite sad, it looks like something from the nineties... Are we sure that this site has been built microsoft (no reference found)? there is also a browserchoice.org that is a bit nicer.

  browserchoice.eu  - Doesn't resolve :/ why not
  www.browserchoice.eu - OK, force me to put www you idiots
  
  > HTTP/1.1 302 Redirect
  > Location: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=178663

  OK, lets go visit microsoft.com :/

  > HTTP/1.1 302 Found
  > Location: http://www.browserchoice.eu/BrowserChoice/browserchoice_en.htm

  Oh so now you want me to go back again. Fine.

I'm guessing they wanted to use their existing link tracking stuff on microsoft.com

http://www.browserchoice.eu/BrowserChoice/browserchoice_en.h... Welcome to Tautology Club

I totally give Microsoft high-fives for placing their browser above all others even if, technologically speaking it isn't. I don't see the EU saying anything to Apple about Safari. I don't see them really addressing the problems with the whole OS + bundled stuff picture. I, unfortunately, don't have a worthwhile solution for it either. I guess it's a start, though.

I don't see the EU saying anything to Apple about Safari.

The difference, of course, is that it has been established in court that Microsoft have a monopoly in the desktop OS market, and that they have abused said monopoly by bundling their browser, media player, etc. with the OS, giving them an unfair competitive advantage in those markets.

Not only bundling. You forget all kinds of shady deals that effectively increased OEM licensing fees if any other browser was to be included.

> I don't see the EU saying anything to Apple about Safari.

This comes up every time. The problem isn't having a monopoly (the EU isn't preventing the distribution of Windows), it's using an existing monopoly to corner a new adjacent market (in this case, web browsers).

Browsers are hardly a new market. Hey, browsers are hardly a market - they are free as in beer.

I suspect the beer people would tell you that wherever you find free beer, there's a lot more money at play than just the beer.

Cool. How do I get my browser on this page?

It's called "billpg is an attention whore browser". It's just a rebranded firefox with the home page set to billpg.com that can't be changed. All my easily bribed friends love it!

As a side note, it's quite interesting how the first 5 browsers tag themselves-each tag line really reflects the market strategy of the respective organization:

IE: Internet Explorer is the world’s most widely used browser, designed by Microsoft with you in mind.

You're familiar with us-you see us all over the place. You know Microsoft. You've been using us for a while-why change?

Safari: Safari for Windows from Apple, the world’s most innovative browser.

We're Apple. We make shiny, cool stuff. Safari's also shiny and cool.

Chrome: Google Chrome. A fast new browser. Made for everyone.

Simple message just like our home page and everything else we do. It's fast just like our home page. Made for everyone = easy to use (just like our home page)

FF: Your online security is Firefox's top priority. Firefox is free, and made to help you get the most out of the web.

IE has problems (security holes/spyware/viruses/identity theft-all the things everyone tells you to be scared of). Download us instead and have less problems.

Opera: The powerful and easy-to-use Web browser. Try the only browser with Opera Turbo technology, and speed up your Internet connection.

We have feature x. Feature x is cool! Come try feature x!

Nice how IE flashes up in first position for a moment before the randomisation. Once again Microsoft forces me to ask: evil or incompetent?

actually all 5 have a fixed position that can be seen for a fraction of a second right before being reshuffled: IE, FF, OP, GG, SA

I'm surprised this isn't a violation of the EU ruling -- I would have thought the randomisation was mandated for all users (server side).

if you have javascript turned off, you'll just see the IE first...it makes perfect sense...why exactly should MS promote their competitors?

This is nothing but thuggery by the EU. Microsoft never put a gun to anyone's head to sell their OS or browser. And if they did they should be taken to court for that--not antitrust. Sure they made aggressive deals with OEMs, but OEMs could have walked away anytime and face the consequences with their customers. At the end of the day, consumers have a choice what they buy. That choice does not include imaginary products suppliers don't want to deliver whether rationally or not (e.g. an OS without a browser, an iPhone with Flash, etc.).

Antitrust is insulting to peoples' intelligence. It puts politicians (and the private parties that lobby and manipulate them) in charge of the marketplace.

Vote me down, flame and pillory me all you want. But get ready when your private property is the next to be deemed too socially important for you to fully own anymore. You'll deserve it when it happens.

Can someone clarify how this actually shows up to the end-user? When a user gets a new computer and first turns it on, does this show up in a standalone program, within IE, or some other way?

Via Windows Update

Random placement to avoid "from memory" selection.. Nice.

Or maybe just another way to confuse the hell out of web users.

It's so that they can't get taken to task for putting IE8 on the top spot, it is only there 1/5 of the time.

Not totally random as the first 5 seem to stay in the top 5.

  >> aBrowserOrderTop5.sort(RandomSort);
  >> aBrowserOrderRest.sort(RandomSort);

I honestly, didn't even notice the horizontal scrollbar.

Why is this hosted by Microsoft? (e.g. the links go to go.microsoft.com)

ok, I see that Microsoft uses this to track the links people are clicking. But, still why is this hosted by Microsoft. I would expect it to be a EU site.

this whole site is EU law gone mad.

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