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____/ Fritz Wuehler on Tuesday 02 Mar 2010 19:40 : \____
> "Roy Schestowitz" <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:2152979.FhMhkbZ0Pk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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>> Doing the Microsoft Shuffle: Algorithm Fail in Browser Ballot
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | The story first hit in last week on the
>> | Slovakian tech site DSL.sk. Since I am not
>> | linguistically equipped to follow the
>> | Slovakian tech scene, I didnït hear about the
>> | story until it was brought up in English on
>> | TechCrunch. The gist of these reports is
>> | this: DSL.sk did a test of the ïballotï
>> | screen at www.browserchoice.eu, used in
>> | Microsoft Windows 7 to prompt the user to
>> | install a browser. It was a Microsoft
>> | concession to the EU, to provide a randomized
>> | ballot screen for users to select a browser.
>> | However, the DSL.sk test suggested that the
>> | ordering of the browsers was far from random.
>> |
>> | But this wasnït a simple case of Internet
>> | Explorer showing up more in the first
>> | position. The non-randomness was pronounced,
>> | but more complicated. For example, Chrome
>> | was more likely to show up in one of the
>> | first 3 positions. And Internet Explorer
>> | showed up 50% of the time in the last
>> | position. This has lead to various theories,
>> | made on the likely mistaken theory that this
>> | is an intentional non-randomness. Does
>> | Microsoft have secret research showing that
>> | the 5th position is actually chosen more
>> | often? Is the Internet Explorer random
>> | number generator not random? There were also
>> | comments asserting that the tests proved
>> | nothing, and the results were just chance,
>> | and others saying that the results are
>> | expected to be non-random because computers
>> | can only make pseudo-random numbers, not
>> | genuinely random numbers.
>> `----
>>
>> http://www.robweir.com/blog/2010/02/microsoft-random-browser-ballot.html
>>
>>
>> Recent:
>>
>> How Random Is Microsoftïs Random Browser Choice Screen In Europe?
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | More than once out of every four hits, the
>> | page would show Google Chrome on the far
>> | left, and Internet Explorer would only make
>> | it to the first spot in 13,8% of page loads
>> | (scoring well below all four other
>> | browsers). In fact, in over 50% of all page
>> | hits, Internet Explorer would come out to
>> | the far right spot of the five browser
>> | choices shown on the screen.
>> `----
>>
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>
> I wouldn't go so far as to call them cheaters, but it clearly shows
> that they have a lot of INCOMPETENT programmers working for them. Most
> competent programmers would have been able to get it right (although
> few would have chosen Fisher-Yates).
>
> It just illustrates why Windows sucks like a 2000W vacuum cleaner and
> why Linux / FOSS will win.
Good programmers appear to be working at companies like Oracle, with
quite a lot of talent drifting towards Google as well.
To cut costs, Microsoft has moved many job/programmers overseas and 'imported'
even more (Abramoff|Gates visas).
- --
~~ Best of wishes
"Lotus Notes for Dummies" is surely a single page pull out with
"don't" printed on it. -- Unknown
http://Schestowitz.com | RHAT Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
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