custom browser distribution

developer kits - has anyone done it?

[idiotgirl]

Because my particular market niche consists largely of the less sophisticated (by internet savvy standards) websurfers, I've considered a custom browser distribution (probably IE). In addition to branding, it might also have a viral effect of encouraging users to update their browsers (I have a few clients that still cling to NS 4 like a life raft - ugh).

Has anyone here done this? Is it especially difficult? I'm quite interested in what kind of results anyone's received if they've gone the custom distribution route. Or maybe everyone already knows it's a bad idea!

In which ever case - I'd appreciate any feedback.

[Brett_Tabke]

I tried it for awhile with Opera Composer [composer.opera.com]. It worked good, but the bandwidth usage was quite high for such little return. I could see doing something like that with a cd.

[idiotgirl]

I think I'd prefer a CD distribution. Something that is Windows and Mac friendly.

[carlwright]

We had a client that needed a custom distribution of IE but they were'nt too fussed what we set up as the users homepage, default links etc., so we set it as our site. They've been sending their CD out for about 3 months now and we still get a hell of a lot of traffic through it - so it does appear to work quite well (you'd be surprised how many people don't know how to change their homepage!).

It is VERY easy to create one of these distributions, MS supply an IEAK (Internet Explorer Administration Kit) that lets you build the install pretty much however you want.

[Brad]

I just went through the process with Opera Composer for Windows. Unfortunately, what you get is Opera 5.12 to distribute. That is not worth the trouble.

Why bother distributing Opera 5.12?