I am Browzar, you are Tokyo

Smash! Crash! Biff boom-a-bang!

Looks like everybody is having a kickass time arguing over Browzar - it's Adware! No it's not! It sucks! No, it's great! I like jam! I prefer Marmite!

...well at any rate, you're all scrabbling on top of each other in an orgiastic display of wanton violence and Internet based nerdage the likes of which I haven't seen since...well....the last time. I have some experience of kerayzee web-browsers....Yap, anyone? Or how about a nice dose of Safety?

No?

Didn't think so.

But this latest one is interesting to me, because of the Adware allegations. Well, actually it's not - what's interesting is the reasoning behind the Adware allegations. Namely, that people are being "forced" to view the sponsored adverts. My idea of being forced to view adverts is having them splatter all over the screen, maybe in a few popup boxes to round things off. My idea of being forced does not equate with what is covered below. From the Techcrunch article I linked to in the first few lines:

"...but that the "browser" is going to great lengths to force users to click on Overture ads by constantly redirecting them to search ad pages served by Browzar itself."

Okay, "going to great lengths". As you'll see below, I don't really feel there's any "great length" (matron) gone to here. And, from a more damning article:

"No way to use Google. You must use Browzar's spyware engine".

As Lex Luthor would say, WROONNNNNNNG!!!!!

The writers of various articles are complaining that people are forced to use the built in search engine, simply because that's the first thing you see when you start Browzar up - is this any different to when Firefox starts up containing Google by default, or any other "trusted" browser leads you to the page of their choice when you run it for the first time?

Sure, you can't do anything about the sponsored results if you use the small toolbar search box in the top right hand corner - but again, nobody is forcing you to use it.

It seems obvious to me that all you have to do is type in your search engine of choice in the URL bar at the top and be done with it.

At no point testing this thing have I had any sort of dubious redirect from the URL bar, been prevented from using another search-engine or any kind of popup containing sponsored adverts. So I don't see what the big deal is here with regards the ads, and spyware, and blargh blargh-a-blargh blargh. The vaguely hysterical tone of the blogs covering this so far, combined with completely inaccurate claims of YOU CAN'T USE GOOGLE, OH WAIT YOU CAN, NEVER MIND makes for a pretty crazy situation.

Yes, it's rather stupid that you can't change the homepage - but that's the price you pay for running an IE shell, where traditionally they feel the need to hardwire a bunch of stuff into the application to actually make it different from the browser it's wrapped around. Unfortunately, as this hardwiring usually cripples all the useful options from the browser in the first place, they're often a pointless waste of time.

As for the privacy claims (as in, Browzar was supposed to be super secure and all that jazz even though it quickly turned out that it probably isn't), well, it's not the first time that an IE shell has claimed all sorts of "security enhancements" that they couldn't back up. So I can't say I'm surprised here, either. I'd actually tend to be more concerned by security "enhancement" claims they couldn't back up than some stupid garbage about sponsored adverts, though.

In conclusion - Godzilla would smack Browzar all over the place. But the current fever-pitch levels over Browzar are getting somewhat out of hand. Looks like a fairly run-of-the-mill, nowhere-near-as-good-as-it-claims IE shell that made the unfortunate mistake of getting on the security bandwagon while forgetting that security-conscious people do not like sponsored adverts.

However - to say these ads are being "forced" on people, and therefore ITS SPYWARE, seems a little OTT. What do you think?