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Safari for Windows Receives Prominent Placement on Microsoft's European 'Browser Ballot'

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Apple's Safari for Windows browser has received some attention today due to a proposal from Microsoft to use a "browser ballot" system to allow users to select Internet browsers for use on their Windows PCs in Europe, where the company has faced significant scrutiny over its historical anti-competitive integration of Internet Explorer with Windows.

Microsoft proposes featuring a "ballot" of the five most popular Internet browsers from which users can select their desired browser. Additional browsers would be available for selection, although they would be featured much less prominently. In ordering the selection of featured browsers, Microsoft has chosen to place them in alphabetical order by vendor from left to right, giving Apple's Safari the prime first position. Safari would be followed by Google's Chrome, Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Mozilla's Firefox, and Opera.

As Firefox designer Jenny Boriss notes on her personal blog not affiliated with Mozilla, the arrangement has raised some eyebrows for the apparent advantage it gives to Safari, which currently holds a very small percentage of Windows browser share.
This ordering is about the worst option possible, both for user choice and the web as a whole. Microsoft wrote in their proposal that "nothing in the design and implementation of the Ballot Screen and the presentation of competing web browsers will express a bias for a Microsoft web browser or any other web browser," but this is exactly what the current design does. 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.
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Boriss, who understandably would like to see Firefox, the second most-popular Windows Internet browser behind Internet Explorer, featured more prominently, cites studies of election results that show that minor party candidates listed first on a ballot frequently receive up to a 50% boost in their vote totals simply due to their placement on the ballot.

In order to address that issue, she suggests several alternative arrangements, including randomizing the order of the five featured browsers on each load of the ballot screen, ordering the list of browsers based on market share with Internet Explorer being placed last, or a combination of the two in which the probability of a given browser appearing first in the list is weighted by its market share.

While the current design of the ballot screen is not final, the European Commission gave its approval last week to begin market testing of the feature.

Article Link: Safari for Windows Receives Prominent Placement on Microsoft's European 'Browser Ballot'
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2009/10/16/safari-for-windows-receives-prominent-placement-on-microsofts-european-browser-ballot/
What a weird story to be seeing all over the Web today. (Hmmm... maybe it's my weird browsing habits...)

They're all side-by-side, all visible at first glance... any effect beyond that would seem to be too trivial to be worth much of a fuss. With the possible exception of Opera being highlighted in deep red :p (And how about IE being right in the middle like that? Or Firefox and Google's multi-colored buttons? Unfair! Safari is tucked off to the side in plain blue on white, like it's just a useless Help button or something :p )
 
I can't believe that the 5 options being placed alphabetically requires an entire story. If they were in reverse alphabetical order, Safari would still be in a prominent position as it's still one of the 5 main browsers being highlighted as opposed to any other options that feature below.
 
This is one of those stupid things that actually makes me feel bad for Microsoft... here they are finally agreeing to let the users choose what browser they want, and they put them in Alphabetical order as to not be accused of playing favorites, and still people go out of their way to find a flaw in it....
 
Why!?!

Why is the "order" a story.

Jenny is a douche.

Really, it's a ballot and some cultures read right to left.
 
HiRez said:
Um...who cares? What a non-story. Randomize them and be done with it.
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So now they have to waste more time and money to randomize the choices? If they do that, someone will sit there and find a way to "prove" that Microsoft is still pushing people towards IE instead of the other choices.

This should be a non-issue.
 
The order seems alphabetical:

Apple
Google
Microsoft
Mozilla
Opera

(Which of course, puts Microsoft smack-dab in the visual center of the group.)
 
xsecretfiles said:
Making your web even better...Faster, Safer, Easier


:D
Click to expand...

I noticed that too -- IE has this nice, carefully worded and slightly longer description.

I really which something like this was required over here in the States. I hate when I have to help PC users with Internet Explorer issues.
 
This is stupid. Only one browser can be shown in that first spot. If it were Firefox, then Apple would be bitching.
 
Would people really pick Safari simply because it is the first item on the page? Surely not?????
 
Seriously, this is crap. I'm getting fed up with Mozilla due to this. Quit your whining.

The only better alternative would be to have it random, but I'm sure they'd complain about the randomization algorithm used.
 
I think that there should be a button that says View Browsers: up comes a radial menu with the options around, randomly ordered, and the cursor defaults to the middle.

Of course then they will argue about who gets to go in the top and bottom slots...
 
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