The Browser Ballot Screen
I'm not even sorry to be the disruptive voice in a concerto of loud bravos... The forthcoming "browser ballot screen" that will shortly hit 190 million MSIE users is not only stupid, it's a shame as it is. It's stupid and a shame as it is because there is no way a non-techie user can make a choice in front of such a screen.
Seriously, can you imagine the reaction of those 190 million ? At least one half have no idea what a "browser" is. The software with the blue "e" is "The Internet". Put yourself in the position of such a user for a second : you're a __total__ noob; you started using IE ages ago, never heard of the other browsers, never saw the Google Chrome ad in the subway of Paris because you don't live there; suddenly, the Internet displays a page with choices and you never heard of these software; even better, the description is so light you're totally unable to make a choice; and what is it about after all, why do I need to make a choice since IT WORKED UNTIL 10 MINUTES AGO?!? Why the hell do I need to download or install something? Is that dangerous? Is my computer under attack? I can imagine my own dad in front of such a ridiculous choice: he would call me immediately on the phone, totally lost.
I also imagine the load of hotlines at ISPs, Microsoft and corporations the day that ballot screen appears. HEEEEELP, I THINK I HAVE A VIRUS !!!!
The European Commission made a ridiculous choice forcing this ballot screen.The European Commission made a ridiculous choice designing this ballot screen. The European Commission should not have addressed this before addressing the forced sales of Windows with new computers, the forced sales of OS X with Macs, the impossibility to install Mac OS X onto non-Apple computers, and should have forced Apple to also implement the same browser ballot screen because of Safari.
The Browser Ballot Screen as it is was not the right solution to implement and we now have unfortunately to live with it. For the masses, pinging the journalists and the bloggers asking to spread the word will not help because these people are just not reachable. The Browser Ballot Screen will place them in front of an undecidable choice and I don't understand why nobody says it loud and clear.
I can live with it, I can't support it because I can't support counter-productivity completely neglecting the reaction of the user himself/herself.
Comments
/cheer! Exactly.
Funny, I was thinking about it.
But IMHO it's better to educate people instead to let them in the dark shadow of IE.
There will always have to be default software installed. Asking people to make a choice about something they don't understand is, as you said, stupid. On top of this, whoever designed that screen should be beaten with a stick.
I think the mandatory bundling of an operating system with a new computer is the only problem to be solved amongst what you mentioned. And it should be solved by law.
The rest, default browser choice etc., are just non-problems. It's software choice and whoever would be interested in making that choice can already make it, for free.
I think Opera's action was mostly legitimate in a way, but I find the consequence predictably horrible. We, the users, are essentially in a worse situation now than we were before.
PS: For what it's worth I completely disagree that Apple should be forced to make OSX run on other hardware. If I'm developing software I should be able to choose on which hardware I want it to run. And as Jobs said once, they live by Alan Kay's quote: "People who are serious about software make their own hardware". Universal hardware doesn't exist yet and I can't see why Apple should support 1000 different configurations.
Didn't you hear? It's changing again: http://www.phpguru.org/
Daniel, what would be a better solution?
'At least one half have no idea what a "browser" is.'
In fact you're really optimistic :
<-> 'What is a browser? was the question we asked over 50 passersby
of different ages and backgrounds in the Times Square in New York.
Watch the many responses people came up with.'
-> result : 'Less than 8% of people who were interviewed
on this day knew what a browser was'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4Mw...
@Pete: I don't know ; this is a very complex issue with legal background. I disagree with the fact an OS should be delivered w/o a browser and at the same time open choice should be promoted. But having a "default" browser when you start the OS for the 1st time *and* open choice is hard, very hard. The only thing I know is that the choice itself is hard to understand for most users. If they can't make a choice because they lack knowledge, what's the point?
I disagree with you totally. The ballot screen is a good thing. If this makes your dad call you, that's a good thing. Maybe he will then better understand what a browser is and why it's important to upgrade (security, compatibility, support for new technologies, ...). I just think it's stupid to think that a user should use a computer without having to understand the basis of how it works, especially related to the Internet (spam, virus, spoofing). When you drive a car, you had to learn how to drive. When you buy a machine, you sometimes have to read the manual to use it correctly. But when it's about computers and the Internet, why shouldn't users know a bit about them? The ballot screen is going to make these users who know only a little to know a bit more, because they will be forced to read, forced to ask questions. We also have to educate them.
Hi Daniel,
if you don't have better solution, may be there is no one? I think it's time for people to be informed about the browser you're gonna use in every day of your life. I think people can easily ask arround them (children, collegues etc.). When you buy a car you ask a lot of question about the car why not about a computer? Mozilla is fighting every day for a more open internet and you have think that is gonna help a lot.
I agree with what you said Daniel about the Browser Ballot. Like you, I'm not saying that I'm against having a choice, I'm just saying that the way it was implemented and shoved down the throat of 190 million users is going to make some people (a lot of people) quite unhappy. The idea is good, but the implementation of the idea isn't that good and will lead to some bad press...you'll see. The other thing about this is the idiot factor, which in this case hasn't been factored in, not that I wouldn't like those kinds of people to get educated in regard to having a choice, it is just that the browser ballot leaves much to be desired as an effective, educative and user friendly approach to everyone.
Thanks Daniel - finally someone talking some sense about this idiotic browser ballot.
I wouldn't have expected anything less from the European Commission, but I can't believe how some people are hailing this "an important milestone towards helping more people take control of their online lives" (Mitchell & John on http://opentochoice.org/en/ ). I mean, *come on* guys, you should know better. How out of touch are you? This is a browser we're talking about. It's an arcane piece of commodity software. For all intents and purposes the major browsers all provide equal functionality. It was maybe different a few years ago, but these days the differentiators are pretty secondary issues such as the look and feel of the tab bar and whether or not the browser has a "personas" feature. No one should be forced to make a choice on irrelevant things like these.
This whole fiasco makes me think of Barry Schwartz's TED talk on "Why Too Much Choice is Bad for Us" - http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schw...
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glazou said '@Pete: [What would be a better solution?] I don't know'
hmmm...
http://www.glazman.org/weblog/dotcl...
http://www.bing.com/search?q=%22il+...
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I believe you agree with glazou on many things and, so, for the most of your comment, I agree with you.
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'I believe you agree with glazou on many things and, so, for the most of your comment, I agree with you.'
was adressed to LpSolit
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Another thank you from here too.
LpSolit:
Saying that people should know how a computer works is an incredibly arrogant attitude. The whole point of a good computer and software is that it just works.
And the car analogy is a horrible analogy.
I don't have to know how a car works internally or what brand of engine it has or who made the radio in order to drive.
I just need to know how to drive.
Other browser vendors want the choice of browser to be more relevant to people but the reality is that most people simply don't care.
They just want to surf the internet.
In this case, people are going to just pick what they're comfortable with and what they know - the big E.
I've said this for years and I'll say it again. If Mozilla really wants more people to use Firefox, they should focus on making it much more friendly to businesses and educational institutions for customization and deployment. If more people used it at work (where they CAN be forced to use a certain browser) then more people would use it at home.
Daniel, I think you totally miss the fact that brand name carries a lot of weight with the noobs. Yes, the 'blue E' is the internet, but 'google' is now a verb potentially associated even more with the internet, people think Apple is sexy, and Firefox... gee I think I've heard of that, my brainy cousin uses it.
I think the ballot screen can *only* help turn more users on to modern browsers.
Mike,
I never said you had to know how a car works *internally*, nor what you said later. I also never said a user had to know the internals of a computer (source code, hardware??). You should re-read what I wrote instead of comparing things I didn't say.
LpSolit:
What I was responding to was this comment (probably incorrectly
> I just think it's stupid to think that a user should use a computer without having to understand the basis of how it works, especially related to the Internet (spam, virus, spoofing). When you drive a car, you had to learn how to drive. When you buy a machine, you sometimes have to read the manual to use it correctly. But when it's about computers and the Internet, why shouldn't users know a bit about them?
My point is that learning what browser you use goes beyond "learning to drive" for most people. They don't care.
I think we set pretty high expectations for what we think people need to know to use their computer.
They just want it to work.
Quoth Jeff: "I think you totally miss the fact that brand name carries a lot of weight with the noobs."
What makes you believe such a thing? It seems like so many people in support of this are completely misunderstanding the argument against this. Do you believe what detractors are saying is "Mozilla doesn't need this to reach people"? Supporters of the ballot and critics of Daniel's and others' dissenting opinions seem to look at the ends and utterly fail at parsing the criticism of the means.
This isn't a question of whether it's a good thing to get more people to use alternative (read: "our") browsers; it's a case of whether the ends justify the means and whether it's the *right* thing to do, regardless of however it may benefit us. The observation that it won't even be effective is just another layer of lamentation.
Also, to Daniel: the thoughts Cyril express regarding OS X are similar to my own. However, I'm not sure that you were exactly saying Apple should be required to support third-party hardware, which is something I would strongly disagree with. Going after Apple for actively preventing people from trying to use OS X on non-Apple hardware (i.e., the hackintosh litigation), on the other hand, would be entirely sound.
Some of the commenters above are so naive... Browser vendors are not really happy with the current Browser Ballot Screen but this result is already coming from a difficult process and it's considered as better than nothing for browser choice. In other words, they live with it too. Does not mean they're especially happy with that solution...
About my dad calling me in front of the screen, yes, that's good ! But my dad is the lucky one here : his son is a geek ! How many persons with nobody to call ?
Saying that people should know the basics of how works a computer is just totally silly. A computer is a tool and if you ask users, it should just work, period. Most people don't understand AT ALL privacy issues, security issues. Stop people in the street and ask them how works a virus, what's a rootkit or even what is something they see everyday, the BIOS. Nobody knows. And nobody knows because nobody cares. And nobody cares because they are right : they should NOT have to care about that.
Totally agree with you. Next thing we know, the EU will want Google to put a ballot on Chrome OS.
When people are asking me why Internet Explorer is more popular than other browsers, I tell them about the impression I got from some IE users before converting them to Firefox -
The blue E is a symbol for 'The E-nternet' in their view. When you are not native English speaker, it sounds that the term "Internet" is like "E-mail" where the E letter stands for electronic.
I don't know why Microsoft chose the blue E icon instead of binoculars, for example, but they made people think that this is the only way to get online.
Personally, I think the whole idea is ridiculous. There's no actual problem with an OS coming with a default browser - something has to be the default, since a great many users can't make any sort of informed choice.
No, if there's a problem with Microsoft abusing monopoly power again, this certainly isn't the way to address it. Require any new computer to come with a modern, secure, standards-compliant browser as default, something fit for the purpose of surfing the modern, web, something that can interoperate reliably with other browsers to prevent lockin. Make it so that vendors like Dell and HP and co must ship something like Firefox or Chrome in order to comply with market regulations, or prevail upon Microsoft to bring their own offering up to a standard where it will be allowed in the market.
I agree with the majority of this blog post, but I disagree with "The European Commission should not have addressed this before addressing the forced sales of Windows with new computers, the forced sales of OS X with Macs, the impossibility to install Mac OS X onto non-Apple computers, and should have forced Apple to also implement the same browser ballot screen because of Safari."
Also, in the comments, I disagree with "Require any new computer to come with a modern, secure, standards-compliant browser as default, something fit for the purpose of surfing the modern, web, something that can interoperate reliably with other browsers to prevent lockin. Make it so that vendors like Dell and HP and co must ship something like Firefox or Chrome in order to comply with market regulations, or prevail upon Microsoft to bring their own offering up to a standard where it will be allowed in the market."
Forcing companies to perform actions they do not wish to perform, as long as they do not coerce (the true form of coercion, not the bastardized idea that barring entry by boycotting companies that partner with other OSes) others to act, is antiethical, and the definition of corporatism.
It should really be Microsoft's choice if they want the browser ballot or not. Seeing they didn't make it until forced to by Opera suing over an imagined coercion (barriers to entry do not automatically equal coercion), it can be stated that Microsoft did not want to make the ballot.
The whole thing strikes me as a parallel to the situation of South Korea. Government forces action. Users are harmed. 'nuff said.