Software giant Microsoft has one last chance to comment before it gets hit by sanctions for abusing its dominant position, the European Commission has said. Full BBC Story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3128621.stm Now the EU is having a stab, i hope this case actually goes somewhere this time its long overdue.
You know, I bet you MacOSX comes with QuickTime and Netscape. I am sorry, but this is becomming pathetic. We want to get Microsoft for money because they are incorporating their own software into their own operating system, what a concept! Besides, if you want the others, just install them. I have QuickTime and Avant browser installed at the moment.
To be honest, I don't really think Microsoft should have to pay money for this whole thing. I mean, Microsoft saves everyone so much work by including it as standard. Most people would have to waste lots of time downloading Internet Explorer if this wasn't the case. The average user isn't gonna care for any other browsers, they'll just download Microsoft's product. The rest of us will have downloaded the browser we prefer regardless of what Microsoft gives us. I expect even most of you 'slightly higher than average' users are still using IE anyway though.
I think its the fact that you cant easily remove IE cause its so interlinked with the OS now, which means 3rd party browsers dont get the same sort of support.
Also Microsoft are making it difficult for developers who want to develop good non-ms applications such as browsers, media players, etc
No-one can know, but chances are that whatever browser is packaged with an OS it'll be used. It's a lot of effort to source out another browser; besides, what's actually wrong with IE ? I have many grudges against Microsoft, but mostly because of the way they abuse their power and not because of the software they produce. Let's be honest - microsoft products work most of the time and are compatible with everything i want to use with a PC; what more do i need to look for in software? What i don't agree with is how they monopolised the market in order to FORCE people to buy windows, but it's tough, if we decapitate microsoft now it'll start to fall apart.
Actually before they did bundle it with Windows (pre Win98 release 1), Netscape ruled the browser world.
Mac OS X don't include Netscape or Quicktime although they do ask you to download it from their 'OS Update' utility which is the equivelent of Windows Update (although 10x slower - just like everything on the mac ). It actually includes IE for the mac but also encourages you to download Safari which is another browser for the mac. I don't know how Microsoft are impeding other developers to create browsers and media players, acrimonious. Just look at their MSDN library which let's you in on almost all the different kinds of tricks needed by us programmers to create good Windows applications. MSDN doesn't simply apply to people using microsoft development products either as most of the articles cater for almost all Windows programming languages. I think MS are right to include a browser in their operating system. After all there would be nothing to operate if there were no applications included. How are people supposed to get on the internet (what most people use their computers for) if they have to download a browser first?
I agree that they do alot to help, but the (albeit minor) controversy over the 'hidden' API calls seems a little fishy.
You need an ISP first, and I've yet to see an ISP disk without a browser. Netscape lost their crown largely because back then they charged for their browser, MS gave IE away free. I've IE6 and NS7 on my box, IE is used 99%
Agree, and one example is Opera. This browser is light and superfast: a jewel of programming tecnique.
I would use Opera only it doesn't support the google toolbar or QuickLinks. A perfect example of how Microsoft are gaining market. Then again IE doesn't support 8bit alpha channel pngs whereas Opera does. But then no one can be bothered to create 8bit alpha channel pngs. Perhaps another example of Microsoft's dominance.
Good point, but a lot of people even then didn't like the fact that MS was integrating their browser into their OS. I remember when they started to do that, I was upset because having 2 browsers on my system used a bunch of disk space and my hdd was only about 540mb...
For my work I had to install Opera and Mozilla, and I instantly fell in love with Opera. It's so fresh and customizable! And fast! God it's fast! But when I started Mozilla, I had a flashback to the times I have used Netscape (and hated it), so I instantly didn't like Mozilla too, also because it takes a lot more time to start. IE isn't bad but it just crashes too much for my liking. Maybe it's because it's full of garbage plug-ins and stuff, but still, it shouldn't crash! So what does it has to do with this topic? Well if IE wouldn't be included in Windows, I maybe would have discovered Opera a lot earlier.
