Browerless Windows 7 E Edition Likely Canceled

[mitch074]

About the ballot screen: this allows one to download and install whatever browser one's favourite, without having to pass through the "Run IE, get infected" spot. One can even (gasp) choose not to get a browser! Like, a browser is sooo useful on a server... Like, say, a media/streaming server.

About MacOS X/Linux not getting hit with this: Safari can be removed from OS X. A base Linux install doesn't even include a GUI - much less a browser. And this is irrelevant anyway, since neither are convicted monopolists (and MS was asked to solve the monopoly abuse of forcing a browser on all Windows users).

About Firefox/Chrome/whatever starting faster than IE; it depends on:

- the machine: due to Firefox using a third of the RAM IE uses, on machines with low RAM, Firefox starts MUCH faster; so does Chrome (although Chrome can end up using more RAM than IE due to its use of sandboxed separate processes)

- what you do with it: since IE 8 has to restart a separate thread for each tab it opens, including a separate thread for each plugin it loads, opening a tab in IE can take as much as 5 seconds before it becomes responsive (dixit IEblog)

- how you load it: since IE is heavily integrated with Windows Explorer, most of it is preloaded when Windows starts (a great chunk of the chrome, the HTML and Jscript engines) so that all that's left to do is populate history and favourites menus, and preload ActiveX controls on browser first start (this is also why you can hang Windows Explorer if IE crashes - yes, even IE 8); a workaround is to allow each Windows Explorer sessions to start in different threads, but this results in even more RAM consumption

 

[juncwil]

I don't mind having Windows comes with IE. I just want them to make it able to uninstall it completely which is unlikely since IE's dlls are also used by the OS.

 

[evolve60]

M$ should just ship a version of Win 7 to Europe with nothing but the bear essential components to run win7, no IE no IM no nothing but just enough for the os to start up and run on its own.

 

[Guest]

I could not agree more. Let's ship as many bears to Europe as we can. I even got a slogan: "Bears for Brussels"!

 

[blackened144]

I still have a problem with ANY government entity anywhere in the world trying to tell one company that they must promote and offer their competitors products. That is wrong.

 

[alltheusernamesareusedup]

There is a real bunch of IDIOTS writing in this thread;

1) firefox loads MUCH faster than mscrap browser. The reason for the *perceived* slowness is that mscrap browser is *ALREADY LOADED AT LOGIN TIME*, also known as WASTING YOUR SYSTEM MEMORY WHEN YOU DON'T NEED IT.

2) exploder==internet exploder. It doesn't matter if you think that it looks slightly different. Its the same bloody libraries. The actual ".exe" file is just a loader.

3) @ the guy who says it might be the web page causing the lockup... that is just plain retarded. Yes, a website can be bad, but that should NEVER make the INTERFACE stop responding.

4) MOST IMPORTANTLY: Allowing a user to choose not to install the browser is B.S. Would you like to install a web browser? Uh... What are brainless idiots going to press... yes or no? The more sensible approach is to BAN OS PREINSTALLATION ALTOGETHER and/or ONLY install a TOTALLY-FREE OS. If the user wants to downgrade to proprietary closed-source crap that needs to be rebooted 3 times every hour, has more memory leaks than a sieve, restricts their freedoms, monitors their behavior, and reports in to big brother, then they should be forced to do the leg work themselves and install that crap.

99.99% of the problem is that computers come preinstalled with mswincrap. 95% of users use their computer for precisely the following;
Web browser+email,
word processor,
instant messaging,
videos+music.

Not a SINGLE one of those things depends on mswincrap! But people who don't know any better use what *is already there*. Give them Linux! Its free and despite the popular misconception, it DOES NOT require any special technical skill (it hasn't in a DECADE). It also installs with EVERYTHING ALREADY THERE! Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, Pidgin (instant messenger compatible with EVERY IM protocol), VLC/Xine/Mplayer/etc. (media players), tons of games and accessories, and no extra install work is required. It *just works*.

If new computers all shipped blank or with Linux, the familiarity with win-donkey would fall off and more commercial developers would more target Linux instead, which would make a computer a device to actually MAKE LIFE EASIER rather than to force you to do exactly and only what THEY want you to do.

I am absolutely appalled by the the limitations that europe has placed on MS. It doesn't go NEARLY far enough, and there is apparently NO ENFORCEMENT (they just keep paying the fines rather than making any of the demanded changes), which means that it is nothing more than a TAX --- here, you can enslave our people -- you only need to pay us $xx million for the privilege.