Bones - 12:15 pm on Feb 27, 2010 (gmt 0)

>Lots of users will be confused by the screen and will just close it eg: Microsoft couldn't have written this better if they could have tried. This just adds to microsofts market share in browsers and operating systems.

*sigh*

How does it add to Microsoft's market share in operating systems? Linux/mac users aren't going to see the pop-up choice, so they're not going to suddenly switch to Windows. Windows users aren't suddenly going to buy another PC and install Windows on it when they might've otherwise been thinking about buying a mac, just because they've seen a pop-up about their browser preference.

From the article (which few people seem to have read): "In addition, 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."

If 99 people out of a hundred get confused and just hit cancel, fair enough, there's still one that might install a different browser other than IE - thereby reducing IE's market share. This can't *increase* IE's market share it's only shown to Windows users already using IE as their default browser. So if 100% of people get confused and close it, or see the pop-up and still choose IE, they were using IE anyway so the number of IE users won't increase - it'll stay the same and those users will lead their lives as they did the day before.

The choice gives people the option to walk away from IE or stick where they are - it's not asking Firefox users to suddenly switch to IE and most certainly is not asking people to make a choice about their OS (!).