[citation][nom]mitch074[/nom]my goodness - such a load of stupidity.I mean the comments.The problem is not with MS 'selling' IE with Windows, it's not with bundling a browser with its OS, it is (please read slowly, because it seems many comment authors didn't follow the whole thing) using its monopolistic status on the OS market to force a product on consumers: namely, the web browser.Main interest: by doing so, once IE reached 95% market share, they cut ALL DEVELOPMENT FUNDS to it for 5 years. This meant, and please consider this closely...Five years of nothing but IE 6. With no popup blocker (before 2004 and SP2), no tabbed browsing, no protection against phishing, no protection against ActiveX virii/worms/trojans, no progress whatsoever in browser capabilities (static DOM, lousy event model, slow as hell Javascript), no possibility to set another browser as default (you couldn't ask Windows utilities to open text/html resources with Firefox, it would use IE even if you had set Firefox as default), and no way to remove IE (it meant that if a program managed to load IE, it could use IE's bugs to infect the system; consider that in IE, ActiveX controls originally had SYSTEM privileges).Other browsers did propose these improvements much sooner; however, Web designers couldn't rely upon said improvements, because the 'common' browser could not, and would not, support them.this meant:- browser market: gone.- web development market: stalled.- web business (relying upon the web as a platform): stalled.- web apps (relying upon the browser as a software development environment): stalled.You may notice that stuff like Google Docs and Gmail run like sh!t on IE 6, but run almost as if they were a local application on Firefox or Opera, Chrome, Safari etc.In short: by abusing its status as a monopoly, Microsoft froze the web market for five years, preventing entry to competitors and the emergence of alternative, potentially competitive markets (web apps VS heavy clients).Had Microsoft kept developing IE after 6, while following W3C standards, there would probably have been no case.If you want to make a comparison with the car market, it would mean that the only car maker in your country would build cars that would come with a 3-cylinder engine coupled with a 3-speed automatic gearbox. This car would do 15 MPG, and run only on leaded gas costing 15 bucks per gallon. Gas stations would sell only this special leaded gas, so other car makers, even though they can make engines that run on potato alcohol with a 70 MPG autonomy and costing half a buck per gallon, wouldn't be able to gain a foot hold on the market.The monopolist's car would also come with a radio that would be pre-tuned to some radio stations, and that you wouldn't be able to adjust.This is anticompetitive, and even the US of A have laws against anticompetitive behavior from monopolies. That the US judges don't care, or can be bought (see: public transportation systems and Detroit car makers in 1950's, MS in 1999: convicted, but not punished) is too bad; it seems like the EC does what it exists to do, though.To answer the question on web development: developing an app under 2001's Mozilla suite 1.0rc2 makes it work under Mozilla Firefox 3.5, Apple Safari and Chrome with little to no trouble; developing an app under Google Chrome, without using browser specific extensions, will work without a hitch under Firefox 3.x, Opera and Safari; it may even work with Mozilla 1.4. IE 6 will crash hard on it, though.Developing an app under IE 6.0 will need fixes for IE 7 and 8, developing for IE 8 will crash IE 6, and in all cases will require heavy refactoring to work in other browsers. Developing so as to use IE 8's most standard mode and no IE-specific extensions may allow you to do interesting stuff in all browsers, but if my experience is any indication, you'll need to program your GUI code twice:- once for IE's event model (which dates back to IE 4 and hasn't been improved since then)- once for all other browsers (which, interestingly, all agreed on adding useful stuff like the DOMContentLoaded event)And then, you'll need to add fallbacks, hacks etc. to support IE 6.0 and 7.0.By allowing uneducated users (those that think that the blue 'e' is the internet loaded on their machine) to choose a browser, it should help other browsers to appear more prominently.How the ballot screen works: the five most represented browsers on 3 big Web stats websites are arrayed on top in a random order; 7 other browsers (market share must be around 2%) will be displayed under them.[/citation]
oooook ill reply to your load of stupidity. the problem isnt MS putting IE with windows its not with it bundling its own browser with its own OS (wait didnt i or youalready say that?) wait i did follow the whole thing how nice of you to assume we didnt though but if im correct here people have the right to force thier own products on you normaly via advertisments or those annoying perfume snipers in the malls.
ok down to the rest. hey i used IE 6 it did have tabbed browseing and a popup blocker wtf IE did you use? maybe not standard built in but it was capable. Two things at the time and i still hate tabs today actualy. I actualy used other browsers at that time and i only found alot of broswers that loaded pages wrong, slowly, or not at all so i dont know what your talking about. As far as java script being slow. Ever since sun forced MS to stop putting thier own java machine in i have had to deal with insanly slow java compaired to the good old days when MS was allowed to use thier java machine. (why should i be forced to use others crap that hardly works because you people bash on ms simply because you believe them to be this giant monster). Actualy you could set others to default though i kept telling them i wanted IE as default. BTW anything that uses teh same API's as IE to view pages is as "faulty" as IE so i could really care less if its integrated in the OS.
Now i know alot of people complain all the time about IE and windows but i have been using them since the 95 plug and pray years and honestly other then some incompatable hardware slow to make drivers from venders and a couple bugs here and there.. i have had NO issues with my windows or IE installs.
but hell im sure alot of stuff made today runs like shit on software or hardware made years ago god point there.
MS froze the web market? really they told people to not make browsers? i mean serisouly if i told you to not eat till you died would you? from what i remember not only are you so fulll of it its coming out of your ears but during that time i remember all kinds of crap browsers i wouldnt have wipped my ass with (perhaps thats why people chose IE over them cuz they werent worth the bandwidth to download!!! nooo it must be MS telling people to not do it thats right !!!
im going to ignore your comprison because its just simply to say retarded and really the worst comparasin i have ever seen.
Why you keep reffering to IE 6 is beyond me i know your trying to make some point about that erra but your comparing it to things that werent even out then so really i dont see your point at all. most of what your saying just seems to be mindless MS bashing for the sake of doing so.
well its a good thing we dont and havent used IE 6 in a long time eh? i mean developing for a browser that hasnt been around for some time would be a great use of time wouldnt it? Not sure what hacks your talking about or special coding.. but i have made websites for te past 10 years and i have never had to change anything as i went from IE 4 to IE 8 to make the sites work.
thank you for pointing out the fact that well while you might have had some valid points a few years ago with IE 6 that your just a damn retard now. I cant see it now at teh MS office.. your browser doesnt work. ok well internet explorer....... NO your firefox isnt working.. well thats not our browser (angry customer well its in your os!!) well thats because the idiotic EU and people that actualy think they have a point think if we add others software with our OS that its going to help people use other software that if they needed they could have done by them selves.
personaly if you back up the EU on this i question everything you say from now on ..... on anything ...
The only thing this is going to do is pointlessly waste money for MS pointlessly add a bunch of browsers to the OS that others should be trying to make worth downloading in the first place. amd cause so much damn confusion that ill bet later on this will be over turned as a big mistake.. (100% hind sight) only it really takes a dumb ass to think this is actualy doing anything usefull for anyone.