Why do ISPs do this?
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| phsolide Sep 15, 2009 11:42 AM EDT |
Exactly why do ISPs rebrand IE (and then roach it) and then have DSL customers use it? I always figured it was so that they could force people to use their web caches or DNS servers, but I've always just downloaded firefox and used it instead of IE (which even natively, is fairly awful). So I really don't know for sure. Does anybody else? |
| jdixon Sep 15, 2009 11:45 AM EDT |
> Exactly why do ISPs rebrand IE (and then roach it) and then have DSL customers use it? Branding. They want their name and logo attached to the "customer experience". Which is fine as long as the customer experience is good. That's not likely to be the case with IE, at least not for very long. |
| phsolide Sep 15, 2009 1:26 PM EDT |
"Branding" is all well and good, right up until the underlying branded product starts to stink. I'll give you the example of "improved" xterms, like "hpterm" or "aixterm" in the only two remaining proprietary Unixes: Both stink. Both have such extreme usage flaws as to prohibit their use. Both of them have a brand ("hp" or "aix") that have caused me to think much less of the rest of the brand. I still can't figure out why corporations like HP so much: everything about their products is no better than average, and nothing is better than average. |
| softwarejanitor Sep 15, 2009 1:47 PM EDT |
@phsolide HP's bigger laser printers are above average, or at least some of the other off-brands we've got around the office here... of course the guts of them are still made by Canon I believe. On inkjets I prefer Canon or Epson over HP. |
| techiem2 Sep 15, 2009 2:03 PM EDT |
Branding...yuck.. Which reminds me of all the Comcast business targeting commercials proclaiming how Comcast is "one of the most visited sites on the internet" or something on that order. My immediate thought is: "Well duh, because most of your customers are clueless Windows users who think they HAVE to use that setup CD, which changes their homepage to your site, and they don't know how to change it back." What I don't get is why they do a customized version of IE. Why not just change the title, logo, and settings to their liking? That's all fairly simple to do, so why go to the trouble of making some weird hack of IE? LOL I should start replacing the Title in IE on Customer's computers to "Why aren't you using FireFox?". :P |
| TxtEdMacs Sep 15, 2009 2:13 PM EDT |
Quoting: ... HP's bigger laser printers are above average ...At one time that might have been true. Moreover, since I removed your explicit comparison being to other third party manufacturers, it might be true more generally. However, if you look carefully at consumables (i.e. specification on toner capacity and power usage) HP's performance is not stellar even when compared to some of the afore mentioned off brands.. [I really got to cut out all this serious crap] YBT |
| tuxchick Sep 15, 2009 2:55 PM EDT |
I interviewed one of HP's boss printer engineers about the HPLIP project, and was he ever a piece of work. Started out gruff and progressed to grumpy, especially when I asked the most common user questions, like why doesn't my failed print job just quietly die instead of popping out days later? His answer was print queues should never die, never! Then I asked about notifications in CUPS-- why aren't there better status notifications so we know when a remote printer is really available or not? Reply: the driver emits all the necessary notifications, and it is up to the CUPS devs to capture and use them appropriately. So I asked do you ever talk to them or try to coordinate in any way? He was offended by the question. It's a wonder any of this junk works! Linux Printing: A Curious Mix of Yuck and Excellence, part 2 http://blog.linuxtoday.com/blog/2008/11/linux-printing-1.htm... |
| softwarejanitor Sep 15, 2009 3:00 PM EDT |
@TxtEdMacs Well, admittedly most of the larger HP lasers I use are a few years old, so possibly they have gone downhill since then. We also use cheaper 3rd party toner cartridges and other supplies for them. It isn't really that the HP's I use are great... its how really awful some of the others we have are... Some of the others around here are just really badly designed, especially a couple of Ricohs. |
| jdixon Sep 15, 2009 7:47 PM EDT |
> "Branding" is all well and good, right up until the underlying branded product starts to stink. I thought that was the point I was making. :) If I were creating a branded product, the last thing I'd do is start with a base like IE. However, it's my experience that most companies are lousy at managing their branding/brands, in spite of continually exclaiming over how much they're worth. > ...It isn't really that the HP's I use are great... its how really awful some of the others we have are... Some of the others around here are just really badly designed... That pretty much sums it up, yes. |
| TxtEdMacs Sep 15, 2009 9:20 PM EDT |
swj,Quoting:It isn't really that the HP's I use are great... its how really awful ...That is my impression of many Name brands too. Whoever mentioned the startup power of some printers was right on target, on some the values* are astounding and the standby power** requirements are worse than the peak power usage of the best. I am thinking of color laser, networked versions where the range in performance is eye opening. Moreover, seeming good pricing comes with hidden deficiencies, e.g. sucking the CPU of an associated PC just to function. The latter seemed to be Windows centric, however, and I eliminated those from my list. That was my experience when I was looking in 2007 or so. * 1 KW ** I remember hundreds of Watts. |
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