Which Browser Would You Vote For?
By Harry McCracken | Wednesday, December 16, 2009 at 1:38 pm
More news about monopolies and governmental action against them: The European Union has ended its antitrust case against Microsoft over Internet Explorer after Microsoft agreed to give European Windows users a ballot screen which will let them choose between IE and eleven (!) other browsers.
A hundred million Europeans will get this feature next year, and at least a few of them are reading this post. But even if you’ve never set foot in an EU country, how about taking this quick poll? The browsers listed are the ones that Microsoft will offer when the ballot screen rolls out.
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December 16th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
My vote goes to Firefox.
December 16th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Firefox for me, hands down.
This will for sure break IE’s rule among private users. The biggest problem alternative browsers have however, is in corporate environements: a lot of companies don’t allow any other browser to be used than IE, sometimes because they use in-house apps using ActiveX elements, sometimes jsut because the IT-guy happens to have a lot of experience with IE.
The problem this poses however is not the fact corporations choose IE, but that a lot of them are still using IE6 (because of the heavy XP usage in business environments) rather than the latest version…
Nonetheless: this is a victory for the internet as a whole.
December 16th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
I’m from Europe and I will get that thing if i purchase Windows next year. But i believe it is rediculous – why should Microsoft put anything to their own product to make a space for competitors? If competitors are not good enough to make theirs OSs widely used, so why the hell should Microsoft support them?
December 16th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Even though I use Firefox, I voted for Internet Explorer based on principle. Microsoft has a right to bundle their browser with _their_ OS and should not be under obligation to bundle a competitor’s. The fact that Firefox was able to grab roughly a third of the market share while Opera hovers around 1% tells me that the issue isn’t Microsoft’s “unfair” bundling practices that is holding them back.
Also, I would choose Internet Explorer as there are still times when I need it and I can install Firefox myself.
December 16th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Safari, minimalistic and just works. I don’t use any extension and Chrome is terrible so far on OS X, i can see the “Beta” label on it for another 2 years.
December 16th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
Definitely Opera. It does everything I want a browser to do right out of the box (it’s not completely useless without addons; I’m looking at you Firefox), it’s not as spartan as Chrome (I hate minimalistic interfaces), it’s quicker than IE, and the exact same (latest) version runs on every PC I have. (Ranging from a Q9550 and Windows 7 to an old beater laptop running NT 4.)
December 16th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
I voted Chrome. I haven’t used all the ones listed on a Windows machine, but it’s easily the fastest of the ones I’ve used – IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera – on the that platform. Alas, I’m restricted now to just using IE.
@ John P. Isn’t one of Windows supposed benefits its openness? Then based on that principle a customer should have the option to choose.
December 17th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
Chrome, hands down!