OP: Why Microsoft is Innocent with IE8

[Guest]

Well do you guys remember installation's CD including Netscape Navigator and IE???? It was coming with the Driver's CD... so STOP COMPLAINING...!

 

[Guest]

There is a simple command line tool, called "ftp": adding a few pre-installed shortcuts in Windows to allow downloading one of the major web browser is dead easy: there is no need to have a web browser installed in your OS to download and install another.

EU is right that Micro$oft is abusing their leading position to try and squash down the competition. Next step would be to forbid pre-installed OSes on computers you buy, and letting the choice of that OS to the customer.

 

[joex444]

If Windows 7 ships without IE, its remarkably easy to get FireFox -- even without a flash drive with the install file on it.

Have we all forgotten how to utilize the command shell and the command line FTP program still bundled with Windows?

 

[kewl munky]

If anyone should be accused of ruining competition for software it should be apple with their propriety shit.

 

[Guest]

Who wrote this article? Steve Balmer's lost brother? 😀

Microsoft killed any kind of competition by including "free" versions of software on its Operating System. And not only that, but they've.. invented ActiveX - the worst kind of proprietary and anti-internet technology available today!

If you want to download drivers, you'll need a bloody driver for the bloody LAN card, so open the bloody CD of m/b seller or put a bloody USB stick on the bloody PC and install drivers and/or Firefox or Explorer.

Sick and tired of people (including the writer of the article) who can't really understand what is competition and what is monopoly. God knows how better Windows would be, if we still had OS/2 or real linux competition...

 

[Guest]

Kind of a lame argument. But it is fun to beat up on MSFT anyway. I think that with power / success comes a statement that your company is a fair target. Hmmm.. aka IBM in the 80's. Besides, everyone usually supports the little guy.

For my part I have and will always support the company that shaped our industry.

jja

 

[Guest]

You could download Firefox via FTP, but most people wouldn't know how to do that.

I'm no fan of IE, but forcing the OS to ship with no browser at all is just an unnecessary inconvenience for the customer.

 

[Guest]

I think you all are missing the point.
Microsoft did not remove IE from windows 7 in the EU either. They just removed the damn interface "GUI" but the whole core of IE is installed and since win98, windows is built on top of the damn thing. "here is the proof, windows get viruses simply by being connected to the internet, you do not have to download the virus to get it."
Microsoft is not in compliance with the EU ruling.

 

[metallbizkit]

Sorry if someone came up with this already, but if no browsers come pre-installed, how safe is it to make ignorant users go out and find a new browser?

Any chance there will be new, not-so-safe browsers popping up? I wouldn't doubt it.

 

[PepiX]

I wonder why the article did not mention EU wanted them to give the users more options.. not to remove all options..

i.e. EU asked other browsers to be added (as far as I know..) not IE to be removed...

If I am not wrong most Linuxes come with more than one browser installed..

 

[Guest]

You have a point there.
But as long as FTP.EXE is included, you CAN get a browser :]

 

[Guest]

I read elsewhere that windows 7 will come with a download link for IE anyway so I don't see what difference this will make at all, except making an extra job for the user of having to download IE even if they then wish to use a different browser!

 

[okibrian]

[citation][nom]Lan[/nom]To be fair, I'm sure most of you know that the EU was actually pushing to get a list of browser choices to use pop up right after you load Windows, but instead to their credit, Microsoft just ripped out IE instead. Now the EU is scrambling to try to make Microsoft play their way, and I doubt that will happen. Not in time for Windows 7 anyway.[/citation]
Then let's tell Mac to pull out Safari or add IE into the build.

 

[okibrian]

[citation][nom]PohTayToez[/nom]You could download Firefox via FTP, but most people wouldn't know how to do that. I'm no fan of IE, but forcing the OS to ship with no browser at all is just an unnecessary inconvenience for the customer.[/citation]
And of those people that know about FTP, most only use it via a browser or a third party cleint (that would also need to be downloaded). Most have no clue how to do it via command prompt. I could see my mother now trying to type ftp commands into a dos windows. I would be on the phone all day with her and I'll be drunk by the end.

 

[Twoboxer]

1) People who "don't know they need a browser" and other kinds of noobs have no basis on which to make a browser choice. WTF good is *giving* them a choice? And, perhaps more importantly, how will you have them choose? On the basis of advertising text written by each of the Top X browser vendors? Ludicrous. Who will "vet" the text, the EU? ROFLMAO.

2) I get a kick out of "eventually the EU will get it right". (BTW, substitute "government" for "EU" - I have no particular beef with them.)

The only thing governors get right is preening before the cameras, and talking past each other's questions. The EU had no clue this could happen, had no clue about future consequences, AND YET MADE A RULING.

They do that all the time, and pendulum us back and forth from one difficulty to another.

 

[josh jones]

i agree with knutjb
all this talk about microsoft being anti competetive is old news. the company has been under fire for years because of bad business practices used to gain market share. these days, you will be able to remove IE from windows 7 and use other browsers such as the very popular mozilla firefox.
im sure the EU (parasite) will find a nother way to steal money from some company.

 

[Guest]

Microsoft has money and EU wants to extort some of it. That's the essence of the whole proceeding.

 

[Guest]

You missed the point. The ruling only said that Microsoft not bundling a choice of different browsers is unlawful and they decided to skip IE themselves, probably to remind the experts of the ruling in 2006/2007 where the EU version of Vista shipped without WMP. What the EU wanted now was choice - the user chooses which browser to install. What they got was a stubborn Microsoft crippling their own OS so that people could write articles like this, misunderstanding the point and spreading the word on how the ruling was ineffective and even counter productive. You swallowed it hook line and sinker and the EU version of 7 won't sell OEM.

 

[Twoboxer]

You missed the point. The ruling only said that Microsoft not bundling a choice of different browsers is unlawful and they decided to skip IE themselves, probably to remind the experts of the ruling in 2006/2007 where the EU version of Vista shipped without WMP. What the EU wanted now was choice - the user chooses which browser to install. What they got was . . . .

. . . probably what they deserved. Are you saying EU made a shortsighted ruling to make a point?

Playing like kids in a school yard is not governing. Even if you are correct about MS behavior, there's no excuse for EU not acting as the adult.

 

[scryer_360]

Its true that this is a bad thing for the EU: Toms is right, how can people get a browser without a browser to navigate to the browsers homepage? Firefox, Safari, and linux distributions do not come on discs, sold in public spaces.

That said, I have to disagree with Tom's that the EU shouldn't of made it a point that MS hampers competition by including IE. Truth is that they do: most people will never bother trying to find another browser. But what the EU should have done is require MS to include multiple browsers, that the customer can choose from on startup.

I understand that some of you have complaints about this, that MS shouldn't have to pay someone else to include a browser they do not want to. But the fact of life right now is that Microsoft has a monopoly on the PC market. You buy Windows because all the software available runs on it, and all the software runs on Windows because most people have Windows. Why? Because Windows comes on the computer. That is why Dell or Gateway or such haven't tried including other Operating Systems as well: if they did, their customers wouldn't be able to find software to run on those operating systems and then they wouldn't buy the computer.

Software makers aren't going to code for a new and little used OS because Windows has the majority of the market. So you see, its a circular feedback loop: you have Windows because all your software runs it, all your software runs Windows because that is whats most popular, its most popular because everyone codes for Windows, everyone codes for Windows because all the consumers have Windows.

It wasn't like that in the mid nineties, when there were still multiple OS companies, but that is what the original lawsuit against MS was about back then. Heck, why do you think Mac has to code so much software for its own OS? Final Cut? All the different music editors? Its the very reason iWork exists, because originally there was not MS Office for Mac, and like hell Microsoft wanted to code for Mac. Now it does so that it can pick up the Mac users who need to transfer data to PC's.

The EU needs to find a solution in the marketplace for this Browser debacle, sure, maybe declare that people who make browsers can get a tax incentive for selling them on the shelves, or that OEM's can include browsers in with the OS they install. We all know there will be a resolution before Win7 hits, the EU may be stubborn and ungainly but it isn't stupid, someone there has probably read articles just like this one between now and the MS announcement and they are working on a fix.

 

[pythy]

I think it's a conspiracy where the Linux and Mac people have teamed up with the EU and forced Mircosoft to remove IE. They're deliberately making it inconvenient for people to use Windows and so will cause people to complain and make a fuss about how Windows is stupid that it doesn't even come with a browser so that people will start looking at other OSes.

 

[vladtepes]

Booooring shit. Battle of the browsers? Are we back in the 90's?. Give us a break!!!!. Most of us use IE to downloawd Firefox/Opera/Safari & stuff. Euroburocracy should get a life!!

 

[rand_79]

I'd have to agree that the EU is quite possibly retarded on this issue.
My 12 year old mentally disabled cousin, who we don't permit a fork at the dinner table could have seen the holes in logic this issue presents.

 

[inmytaxi]

Someone asks:

"Its true that this is a bad thing for the EU: Toms is right, how can people get a browser without a browser to navigate to the browsers homepage? Firefox, Safari, and linux distributions do not come on discs, sold in public spaces."

The store selling the PC will install one.

The store will have the choice to put in IE, Firefox, Opera, Chrome, or etc.

Microsoft can still have it's browsers on computers, it just can't tie them to Windows.

But the store is free to include IE if they so choose.

 

[Guest]

You all missing the point... Microsoft is clever here and you all fall for it... EU never asked microsoft to remove IE, but Microsoft does this because it knows its impossible for users and hence they end up with IE as its the only one they can get. Meanwhile, the EU gets broadsided and the regulators get paid.

Someone said this is wrong of the EU, but thats like saying jailing a guy is wrong just cos it took 5 years to catch him. Microsoft DID behave badly, it DID abuse its position, IT WAS convicted even in your country. Now it is being Jailed for it but instead of taking it and saying "yep, hands up"... its been devious,...

At least Enron admitted it... eventually..