Microsoft Backs Down On Making IE8 Default At Upgrade 160
Barence writes "Internet Explorer 8 will no longer replace the default browser when a user selects the 'Use express settings' option during installation. Back in May, Mozilla and Opera accused Microsoft of force-feeding users Internet Explorer 8 through the Automatic Updates process. The object of their ire was the 'Use express settings' option which automatically sets Internet Explorer 8 as the default browser. The option was already ticked when Automatic Updates offered users the choice to upgrade their browser. 'We heard a lot of feedback from a lot of different people and groups and decided to make the user choice of the default browser even more explicit,' notes Microsoft in a blog post."
What crap... (Score:4, Interesting)
Common sense (Score:1, Interesting)
By selecting "Express settings" the user is saying to the vendor: "Yes, I want to you use any settings you consider to be the best for me."
You give the vendor a blank statement. Microsoft wouldn't have to bother changing the default. They are actually quite kind to Mozilla, Opera and Safari there.
Re:Browsers War (Score:5, Interesting)
All my machines went to IE8, even though I use Firefox as my browser of choice. Three reasons:
1: Security. You always want stuff that handles protentially hostile code as updated as possible. IE6 was made for the security threats of 2001. IE8 is made for far more current threats. Nothing is perfect, but IE has gotten a lot better as times have gone on. It has decent clickjacking protection, and seems to have had done a good job in standing up to NSS Labs's security tests.
2: Features. Auto-zapping all history and cache, and InPrivate browsing make it decently usable for those sites which require IE, or don't work well with Firefox.
3: Compatibility mode. There are some sites which still assume that everyone is going to be using IE6 for the forseeable future.
Re:Browsers War (Score:5, Interesting)
If you don't use IE do not upgrade it and it won't change your default browser
Or you can update it and just be sure to uncheck the "default browser" option. I realize that not everyone knows how to do that but its not one of the harder things to change.
I do find it funny though that all of these companies are essentially fighting over the users ignorant of how to do such things. I suppose it makes sense in a way, if you can snag the majority of these people, you'll have them for ages AND you'll never have to give them new features because they won't understand how to use them anyways. They'll be endlessly happy with whatever you throw at them as long as it doesn't complicate things any more for them and still lets them access the internet.
Re:What crap... (Score:5, Interesting)
They stopped trying to force IE8 in May? (Score:2, Interesting)
I did a fresh install of 7 recently (June 10th) after some tweaking of my system rendered it unstable. (not the point of the post, just background on why I did the reinstall)
I did the Windows 7 clean install, loaded my drivers, and activated it.
Grabbed the normal updates and, during that process, I right clicked the automatic update entry for IE8 and selected "Hide Update" because I choose not to load the IE8 software.
Now with patches loaded, I go back to see if any of the patches needed patching. I go back to Windows update to get the latest round of patches and guess what the first entry on my Windows update page was...IE8! "critical", no less)
I went through the process to hide it again. I load the other patches
The next week MS released some more patches. I went to Windows Update to grab them and you wanna guess what the first "critical" patch was? IEfucking8!
I made a thread at the Windows 7 forum, http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itprovistaapps/thread/2d8a57f3-8904-49b8-a626-c6a5481ca9b4 [microsoft.com] asking them why they are trying to ram this program down my throat when I have specifically chosen not to use the program and, to date there have been 166 views of the thread, but no replies from MS...not that I expect a reply...
Re:What makes a monopoly? (Score:2, Interesting)
apple absolutely has used their "monopoly" on ipods to gain a market. In this case it's online distribution of music.
Apple and toyota seem to have a halo around them, they are still publicly traded corporations, and at their core are just the same as MS or any other business.
Re:What crap... (Score:3, Interesting)
Uninstall plz (Score:2, Interesting)
I want to uninstall IE6 and IE7 before i install IE8 bloat.
IE8 crash more often then IE6 and IE7 put together. It's wrong
to force that on n00bs. They have hard time as it is.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Setup\7.0]
"DoNotAllowIE70"=dword:1
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Setup\8.0]
"DoNotAllowIE80"=dword:1
I'm temped to add 9.0 too to avoid future nag...
Things like these and WGA spyware is why i dont run WindowsUpdate.
I'm also thinking of redirecting IE shortcuts to Opera or Firefox.
Re:Browsers War (Score:3, Interesting)
on wine AFAIK, you don't actually need to install IE to get steam working, there is some sort of hack to get it working using gecko! can this be done on windows? OFC if embedded IE uses IE6bugs then IE8 with compatibility mode is probably your only choice,
Service Packs required IE8 too for Vista! (Score:3, Interesting)
Since IE8 was considered a critical update and service packs require ALL critical updates, users have no choice to get IE8 to be able to upgrade with a service pack via Windows Update in Vista. :(