Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 27th Jul 2009 07:29 UTC
Last week, the European Commission announced that Microsoft is willing to implement a browser ballot screen in Windows so that users can select a browser to install when installing Windows or when setting up their OEM computer. While this makes Opera very happy, Opera would like to see Ubuntu and Apple offer such a ballot screen too.
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Member since:2005-07-06
I don't think getting on the list can or should be automatic.
At the very least I woul expect it to pass a test of what 'counts' as a browser.
Lynx is a browser but I highly doubt the majority of users would think of this as a suitable webbrowser! (it is very goog though and certainly worth a look)
I do maintain the opinion that people will not activly search out a new browser if they are already presented with a list of 10(?) they will simply swap among them until one 'will do'.
If you are not on 'the list', sadly, you dont exist..
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Member since:
2006-03-10
I saw something in an earlier report to suggest that the list ordering would be ranked by popularity, though where the sample data comes from I'm not sure. I guess the Ballot-o-Tron will report the user's choice, but even so, where do they get the baseline for when they first roll it out?
As for "getting on the list", the same article indicated that inclusion would be open to all. That gives me an additional worry about malware-infested pretend browsers being included, but one hopes there'll be some form of oversight to prevent this.
I don't agree at all with your theory that smaller browsers will suffer from this. If what was mentioned earlier is true and they can automatically get onto the list, then their profile has just been raised (even if they're at the very arse-end of the list). Even if not, then a whole lot of people will be learning for the first time that they have this choice, which can't be bad for anyone.