Microsoft’s ‘browser ballot’ for European editions of Windows 7 ranks Safari and Chrome before Firefox on the menu. Apple and Google seem happy, but not Mozilla...
Install a European copy of Windows 7, Vista or even XP in the near future and instead of Internet Explorer automatically installing, you could choose from up to a dozen browsers listed on a menu.
Good news for consumer choice, open competition and the anti-monopoly crowd? You’d think so. Especially given that Microsoft’s own browser doesn’t even get the first slot on the menu – that potential ‘donkey vote’ goes to Apple’s Safari, of all things.
In response to the EU’s push against the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows operating system, Microsoft opted to load the installer file for a range of browsers into the bare OS image and then allow users to select which browser (or browsers) to install from a simple menu called a ‘browser ballot’.
Microsoft’s proposed system ranks the five leading browsers according to alphabetic order of the vendor or parent company: so Apple’s Safari gets pole position followed by Google’s Chrome, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Mozilla’s Firefox and, err, Opera’s Opera.
Sounds fair? Not fair enough, according to Firefox designer Jenny Boriss.
Sounding off on her
blog – with the caveat that this is her personal opinion “and doesn’t reflect Mozilla’s official position or any formal statement from Mozilla” – Boriss slams the layout because it doesn’t take into account Firefox’s market share.
“A ballot is simply not a good way to create more ‘user choice’ on the Web”, Boriss argues. “While literally giving users a choice, the ballot is unlikely to let users make an informed choice.”
Boriss claims that the current ordering of browsers “is about the worst option possible, both for user choice and the Web as a whole. Windows users presented with the current design will tend to make only two choices: IE because they are familiar with it, or Safari because it is the first item.”
“Users selecting the IE logo because it is the image they associate with using the internet isn’t too surprising. After all, many users do not know or care that other browser are available. But the disproportionate advantage to Safari is what really makes this design poor.”
Boriss’s suggested alternatives include randomising the browse orders for each Windows installation, and ranking browsers according to “order of market share, excluding Internet Explorer” – which would see the first five listed as Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari and then Internet Explorer.