Details Emerge On EU-Only "Browser Choice" Screen For Windows 220
Simmeh writes "Microsoft have posted screenshots and details on their upcoming 'web browser choice screen.' Requirements include being in Europe, and having Internet Explorer set as your default browser. It comes with a few surprises, as the software automatically unpins Internet Explorer from your taskbar, and offers 11 alternative browsers."
Post-ballot data (Score:4, Interesting)
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Bear in mind it only shows IE8 equitably. Even Microsoft would prefer to see people upgrade off IE6 or IE7. That's pretty big in and of itself, no? (ok, for security concerns obviously it's a great idea, but to pretty well force everyone to take notice that they should be running something other than IE6 or IE7 ...)
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Bear in mind it only shows IE8 equitably. Even Microsoft would prefer to see people upgrade off IE6 or IE7. That's pretty big in and of itself, no? (ok, for security concerns obviously it's a great idea, but to pretty well force everyone to take notice that they should be running something other than IE6 or IE7 ...)
This ballot screen is for Windows 7, and neither IE6 nor IE7 have ever been available for this OS.
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Nope, it's for Vista and XP too (from TFA).
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Seems to present IE completely equitably with the other browsers. They show in random order with similar sized logos and all (...)
I'm impressed.
I was expecting Microsoft to manage to fool the European Comission presenting a "technically correct" solution which, somehow, still favoured Internet Explorer.
That's really weird. There must be a loophole in all this.
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The EC will just find a way to smack them even harder. They could get a bunch of independent or "independent" experts to give their opinion on whether the "technically correct" solution favoured IE or not, and present their conclusions.
Microsoft can get away with lots of stuff in the USA, but they're not considered an EU company like say Airbus.
If they hadn't already found Microsoft guilty then Microsoft could use technicalities and debate interpretations of laws to
Re:Post-ballot data (Score:5, Informative)
Those Governments are unlikely to lose votes or support when they crush you (a foreigner) for misbehaving despite you trying to use some loophole.
Why do Americans think that the EU is only crushing American companies?
They apply the rules equaly to European companies as well.
Last year a German and a French energy company where fined half a billion Euros each for violating antitrust laws: http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/1099 [europa.eu]
Re:Post-ballot data (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do Americans think that the EU is only crushing American companies?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projection_(psychology) [wikipedia.org]
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In short, be aware of just how insular the news is, or you will be severely mislead.
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Why do Americans think that the EU is only crushing American companies?
Because America is built upon paranoia. Their government has convinced its people that everyone is against them and they must do everything to protect their paranoid delusions and self containment.
Re:Post-ballot data (Score:4, Insightful)
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Except that most people think that blue E is literally "the internet", while the other logos (besides Google's name) will be somewhat alien to them.
Perhaps this explains the timing of Google's massive advertising campaign for Chrome in the UK. Many busy London Underground stations have a massive advert for Chrome on the platform, they advertised on the entire front page [techcrunch.com] of the UK's largest free newspaper, and have outdoor adverts [bedroompublishing.com]. as well as banners on general websites (newspapers etc).
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I wonder how many people will choose Chrome because they do not know the difference between a browser and a search engine?
Seriously, as 10 random non-geeks what web browser they use.
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If the other browsers aren't well-presented, that's their own fault. All the copy/images was submitted by the browser team, it wasn't created by Microsoft.
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IE8 is a baby step in the right direction, but it still exhibits some non-compliant CSS behaviors that FF, WebKit and Opera get right, and still requires some hacks. Not major stuff like in IE6 and 7, but still, annoying shit that shouldn't be there.
One that I ran across recently are random double margins in certain situations. I could not find a pattern, and had to use padding instead of margins... luckily in this case that wasn't a problem.
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Well, the button-clicking probably won't be purely "random" for most of them. Although, their "logic" for which they click probably may as well be.
I'm guessing Opera will actually gain some marketshare because of this.
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By reducing the market share of the browser that supports less features and suffers from most attacks, we reduce the number of botnets and delays for feature support like HTML5.
And if the user is so clueless he can't decide one of the browsers for himself, what does he have to lose anyway?
/.'d already? (Score:3, Informative)
The link isn't working, taking way too long... did we really /.-effect a Microsoft server? Too funny. Although, it's most likely not on the main Microsoft cloud.
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I'm using Ubuntu as a guest OS on Windows 7. Doesn't work. Going there directly via IE8/Win 7 (Host OS) it doesn't work either. (TFA is fine; it's the post on microsoftontheissues.com that won't load).
It would be pretty amusing if Microsoft designed a website hosting a blog that discusses browser choice to not function properly with Linux-hosted browsers.
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That's the default error Firefox displays when it fails to load an image accessed directly (it's usually due to either a connection or server timeout). The actual JPEG's are kosher when they finally load.
--- Mr. DOS
11 browsers (Score:4, Insightful)
11 browsers? how many of them have >1%market penetration? This is going to confuse the less versed users and I bet one ballmer's chair this is intentional, divide et impera
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11 has been long known in this space. The above comment is a nonquestion.
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I challenge you to name the top 11 browsers off the top of your head without searching for them. Go. 11 browsers. Other users of "this space" are waiting.
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Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, K-Meleon, Konqueror, SeaMonkey, IceWeasel, and that's about all I can name.
Of course, IceWeasel and SeaMonkey are forks of Firefox I guess. On the whole, I agree with the GP - offering 11 browsers is ridiculous. Unfortunately, that was probably the only way to be "fair" to everyone... except the end user.
I would have rather had the EU tell Microsoft "You can keep your browser but you have to get it up to current standards." THAT would have accomplished s
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You did much better than I could. I know Firefox and IE because those are the two browsers that I can manage via GPO on my network. I know Safari because that is the default OSX browser that some people in the design department use. Beyond that I know about Opera and Opera-Mini through friends and because O-Mini is what I use on my Blackberry. Do SeaMonkey and IceWeasel even work on Windows? I only hear Linux users talking about those. Of course there is Chrome. It's pretty much impossible to not kno
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Well, I used K-Meleon and Konqueror on Linux. There's the Gnome one but I forgot what that is.
I don't know if seamonkey and icweweasel have Windows builds. I actually preferred it to Firefox on slower boxes that I installed with Linux... they both actually worked fairly well.
Opera is actually kinda nifty, but I still prefer Chrome at the moment :)
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Iceweasel is a strictly Debian fork, Seamonkey is the good old Mozilla browser and it was always multiplatform.
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Iceweasel is a strictly Debian fork, Seamonkey is the good old Mozilla browser and it was always multiplatform.
I'm not sure Iceweasel could be even called a fork from Firefox (in the usual sense at least).
Here [wikipedia.org] you may read about.
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I know about the rebranding issue but since there are were also some source code modifications to fit Debian better (and not just different icons), you can safely call it a fork.
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http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2009/07/28/browser-ballot-screen-isn-t-just-for-windows-7.aspx [winsupersite.com]
who has time to do that? I'll just point to something that's more than 6 months old (albeit this one mentions just 10, other sources shortly thereafter were mentioning 11 or more such as
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/12/18/0210240/How-Europes-Mandated-Browser-Ballot-Screen-Works [slashdot.org]
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9142416/FAQ_How_the_IE_ballot_screen_works [computerworld.com]
which listed:
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You went back that far, but didn't mention Mosaic? Come on now..
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As the white haired 70 yr old man is about to die, with his last breath he whispers to his grandson.....
Net....Scape...
To this day his grandson is confused as to whatever his grandfather could be referencing.
The tearful ending is that his grandfather is Jim Clark.
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11 has been long known in this space.
In base-4 maybe...
Before today they've only ever mentioned five browsers. The first link won't load for me, but from the second link...
Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera are the alternative browsers that people will be offered.
Not among the alternative browsers, the alternative browsers. Meaning those four, plus IE, and no more.
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Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera, AOL, Maxthon, K-Meleon, Flock, Avant Browser, Sleipnir and Slim Browser.
Ah yes, AOL... good thing that's an option! Much better than IE.
I've heard of Avant and Flock. I've never heard of Maxthon, Sleipnir, or Slim Browser. I've used Avant and disliked it.
This seems remarkably ... pointless, as someone else said.
Re:11 browsers (Score:5, Funny)
We are offering a choice of 11 different web browsers with new versions of Microsoft Windows, including:
Microsoft Browsers:
Internet Explorer 6
Internet Explorer 7
Internet Explorer 8
Non-Microsoft Browsers:
Lynx
w3m
Mosaic
Safari (Macintosh only)
Netscape Navigator 4.08
Image Xplorer
Emacs
The browser from the online tutorial code for beginning KDE programming
WARNING: If you choose any of the non-Microsoft browsers in the above list, please be aware that they are THIRD PARTY applications that are UNSUPPORTED by Microsoft Corp. Microsoft makes no guarantees as to the functionality or features of any non-Microsoft browser, and disclaims any responsibility for viruses or other malware that unsupported browsers may or may not contain.
Re:11 browsers (Score:5, Informative)
11 browsers? how many of them have >1%market penetration? This is going to confuse the less versed users
Well they say 11 but it's 5 + 6 really. That is, they are randomly placed but in two groups - the big 5: IE, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Firefox are the only ones visible without scrolling. Most people aren't going to look at the 'below the fold" browsers.
Mirror.... (Score:5, Informative)
11 Browsers? (Score:4, Funny)
Please God don't let any of them be Netscape.
Re:11 Browsers? (Score:5, Funny)
Please God, let one of them be a telnet terminal.
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See? That's the benefit of having a totally professional system with an ultra-stable, totally dependable and unchanging set of system DLLs, so the programmers can totally concentrate on the specs of their browsers.
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One of them better be LYNX.
I can already anticipate the ignorant posts (Score:3, Funny)
Microsoft agreed to use Windows Update to provide a browser choice screen to Windows users in Europe who are running Internet Explorer as their default browser.
Who wants to bet we are going to see posts here after this feature is rolled out from users who don't have IE configured as their default browser? They will be complaining about not being presented with a choice of alternate browsers, even though they have already selected one.
Furthermore, the article states that the top browsers (Firefox, Opera, Chrome, IE) are going to be presented in random order. I can't wait for the whines from people who happen to see IE as the random first choice.
Here, I'll come up with one for you guys.
"Whaaaa!! IE was first on the SO CALLED RANDOM browser choice list. Obviously Microsoft weighted their algorithm to give preference to IE. My mom and third cousin also both had IE show up first. It's a conspiracy!"
Pointless (Score:4, Insightful)
Lovely, so now a bunch of tech savvy people are going to be getting calls asking how to make these screens go away and never come back.
Users don't want choice, they don't want complexity, menus are complexity. Even that stupid setup menu on IE when you first install it scares the hell out of people and they just have to keep clicking 'not right now' or whatever it is EVERY time they start the application because they don't know how to make it go away. They want shit that does its thing that they don't have to think about and for whatever they're doing IE already does that. If you have enough know how to not use IE already, you don't. If you don't have the know how sticking some other choice for you there is just going to break stuff and confuse people. I feel bad for people who will accidentally choose google chrome or safari and then not have a clue how to use it, and not have a clue how to immediately revert the system to what they did have that let them do whatever they were doing.
Not a bad concept in the 'when it's installed' sense, and on purely legal basis it makes sense, but it's not the sort of thing you want to be pushing out to live OS's that people are actually using right now. Even then putting anything other than IE8 on tends to be risky, everything is designed to work in IE, less so with firefox and way less so with any other choice, that's going to hobble people who suddenly have a new browser and no idea how to make it work.
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They tried that - although probably as a bluff - and the EU denied MS that approach.
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everything is designed to work in IE, less so with firefox and way less so with any other choice
Whilst I think that's not really the case these days (5 years ago perhaps), I really can't see how people will find a browser like Firefox, Chrome, Safari etc any more difficult to use than IE.
They all have navigation buttons, some sort of address/search bar, tabs, etc etc.
They all work very well. They all work with all the important plugins. And they all look and function more or less the same.
Some would argue that they function better than the leading browser, too.
I understand what you mean
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They all work very well... for people who know what address bars and tabs are.
Seriously, you're setting the bar way higher than the average user.
Plugins? What's a plugin? Why is this asking me to download something? How do I install something? Ever tried to install flash in firefox? You have to download and run an executable, it terrifies people, they don't know if the site they're getting it from might be hacked, the usually don't know how to find the file they've downloaded to run it. If it doesn't j
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While I agree that Microsoft's IE is bloated and shouldn't show that dialog on start. I strongly disagree that somehow users that chose another browser like Chrome or safari will be confused. Those two alternative options are much easier for a user then the default IE.
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Meh, I'm just waiting for the first malicious website popup that looks *exactly* like the browser choice screen to appear.
You're using IE8, visit a website, all of a sudden a window pops up asking you if you want to install a different browser. Download and instant box pwnage.
You think Granny is going to know the difference, especially after her grandson explained "this is normal, and lets you choose other things to use" ?
Congrats EU, you've done a fine job in making people trust popups and increasing the b
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Sorry to disappoint you, but we all *know* they'll just tear the iPads off and use them as mousepads.
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Canonical is not the author of Firefox
the 11 choices are (Score:4, Funny)
Luigi
Princess Peach
Wario
Yoshi
Toad
Donkey Kong
what...?
ooooh, browsers... ok, nevermind!
11 is a crafty choice by MS (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a decent amount of research (although, somewhat controversial) suggesting that providing too many choices may actually impede our ability to make rational choices, and would be less likely to experiment with an unfamiliar browser. Overview of some of the research can be found on the Freakonomics blog: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/is-the-paradox-of-choice-not-so-paradoxical-after-all/ [nytimes.com]
Irrelevent (Score:5, Informative)
The 5 most popular are shown when the window first opens (in random order), you have to scroll over to see the rest. Furthermore, it can't be an evil scheme by Microsoft as it wasn't their choice - the idea, the criteria for browser selection, and the ordering of the browsers were forced on them by the EU
The link (Score:5, Informative)
For reference, the browsers listed are IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Flock, FlashPeak, K-Meleon, Avant, Maxthon, Sleipnir & GreenBrowser
11 browsers? (Score:5, Interesting)
My first thought was "Can I tell it to load all 11 of them?" If so, it could make the Windows box useful for real web testing.
I do most of my actual testing on my Macbook Pro, because I have 9 browsers installed there. I also have a linux box with 5 browsers installed. My wife has a Windows XP partition on her iMac that has 3 browsers. For most of these, we had to download them and install them ourselves. A working package of 11 browsers could be really handy, especially when it comes time to reformat and reinstall, which happens quite often with "lab" testing machines.
Anyone know if MS's browser installer has an "All of them" choice?
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The point of the selection screen is not to provide a lab-testing box - it's to fulfill a requirement by the EU that they offer alternative browsers to non-professional consumers.
Missing Option (Score:3, Funny)
So where's Lynx?
javascript randomness (Score:3, Interesting)
random my ass!
only appears to be random if you have javascript working (thanks noscript!) - Otherwise IE8 appears first on the list, on the left.
Re:javascript randomness (Score:5, Insightful)
a) You have already chosen a non-IE browser
b) You have javascript disabled and you know what you are doing (and have as many different browsers as you want)
c) The organization that provided you the computer system has already chosen the browser for you.
d) The organization that provided you the computer system has disabled javascript and you're not supposed to enable it, much less change the browser.
e) You're using the wrong computer - go use your own PC.
f) You're some really fringe corner case.
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Why use server cycles for an effectively static page? That site is probably going to see a lot of load, running even a simple PHP (or ASP.NET, it being MS) web application seems like a lot more overhead than some static HTML page with an embedded script that uses the client to do the work.
Pet peeve: (Score:2)
...people who confuse “the Internet” with “the web”.
Not like I'd expect Microsoft and their Internet Explorer (which has always targeted web browsing, barely supports FTP, and doesn't support anything else beyond handing it off to a helper program) to know the difference...
--- Mr. DOS
Apple choice? (Score:2)
is Apple required to do something similar, to offer an alternative to Safari?
Re:Apple choice? (Score:4, Informative)
Other practises of bundling (Score:2)
The question is where does the manufacturer's choice stop and where does the customer's choice start. But there are many more examples which clearly don't have a technical justification:
Huh... the site's already online... (Score:3, Informative)
I just noticed the URL in the screenshot: www.browserchoice.eu [browserchoice.eu], and the site is already online!
On the first load, it gave me the choices in the order similar to the screenshot, interestingly enough.
Re:More to come (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:More to come (Score:4, Insightful)
If you mandate OEMs to install it, should they also be mandated to support it?
Re:More to come (Score:4, Insightful)
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I've only ever seen that attitude out of one community, the Fedora community. I've never seen it anywhere else, and I've been using Linux since about 1993.
The Slackware community is helpful. The Debian community is extremely helpful. The Ubuntu community is helpful, but there are lots of "noobs" there, so their advice isn't always correct. The OpenSUSE community is extremely professional and provide the best advice I've seen. The Gentoo community is always willing to provide help.
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But unfortunately they are still waiting for it to compile, so although willing, are currently unable.
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./ needs a "Gentoo takes a long time to compile" tag for comments; I don't think "Funny" applies anymore.
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What I've found is that the communities are exactly as helpful as your question's accuracy. So educated people asking pointed, informed questions will find the community delightful and helpful. Newbies to Linux will find the complete opposite. Most communities will cater to the former just fine, far fewer for the latter.
Just thought I'd add some of my own broad generalizations.
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I find this too. But, sometimes being the one providing the advice (for software other than Linux and Unix), I can see why it happens. It's not always snottiness on the part of the experts.
My ideal, as a potential provider of information, is a question that I can answer easily, in one short post, without research, and using jargon. I.e., I like to help but I'm lazy. It's tedious if I have to spend 20 minutes translating the jargon into something a beginner can understand. It's more tedious if the answer tur
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Support as in "computer doesn't work" phone support. OEMs provide first line of that for Windows on those PCs they sell at the moment.
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An oem manufactures the computer they sell...
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Ding ding ding, you win the dumbest post of the thread award so far!
A few things.
a) It doesn't.
b) Why would anyone care that it does? Updating the OS is an OS function, if they choose to use IE to do it that's not depriving you of "choice" any more than if they wrote a custom GUI app to do it.
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I had to install IE again the other day, or else the "Microsoft Update" link in Windows 7 wouldn't do anything. IE isn't actually required to use Microsoft Update once you've installed it, as far as I know. I needed it for a link.
"Microsoft Update" is an upgrade to Windows Update that works on all MS software you have installed, in case you hadn't noticed it. I wanted it to keep Visual Studio up to date.
Also, any applications that use the IE activex (like steam) won't let you open any links outside them (e.
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You know it's funny, because the exact opposite happened to me. I wanted AdBlockPlus and DownloadHelper, I downloaded the addons from the website, and could I get IE8 to install them ?
Maybe now you'll realise the ridiculousness of your post ? ActiveX doesn't work with non-MS applications ... well no shit, Sherlock.
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I think you completely misunderstand. The "IE ActiveX" I am referring to is a version of IE designed for embedding inside other applications, not an addon for IE.
The "IE" ActiveX works perfectly happily in a non-MS application, in this case Steam. It even works without "IE" installed. However, when you click a "new window" link, it insists on trying to launch actual IE instead of your default browser, even if you don't have actual IE installed.
No longer true! (Score:5, Interesting)
Windows Update has been separated from IE in both Vista and Windows 7 - and apparently it will be backported to XP at some point in the future.
-MT.
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Right. They shouldn't have any sort of internal displaying method for their OS.
I'm afraid most of the world doesn't care that they use IE when they use Windows Update. And those that care as much as you appear to probably don't use Windows ;) :)
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Most of the world doesn't care to use Windows Update in the first place, hence all of Windows' security problems.
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Windows update has been separate from IE since Vista's launch.
Re:Does IE "security" sabotage Firefox download? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Does IE "security" sabotage Firefox download? (Score:4, Informative)
I'm trying to figure out how he didn't see the Enhanced Security warning screen... you know, the one that pops up the first time you start IE (and subsequently, if you don't turn off the warning) and tells you various things (including that downloading is restricted and security settings are very high). It also tells you how to turn off this feature, if you want to...
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This is actually a feature, as other posters have pointed out. It's called Internet explorer Enhanced Security or somesuch. You can disable it as a feature in Win2k8/Win2k3 via various means if you really want to use win2k8 as a desktop. Basically, it's the server's way of telling you you shouldn't be browsing the web, and if you try to, it's going to pester you about everything you visit.
It's a reasonable "duh" saftey net, imho, and sufficiently annoying enough to remember to minimize the RDP session and u
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It's the one with the blue "e" logo.
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