OSNews

You're going on the wrong track here. Nobody will care which browser is "better". What is being discussed is the fact that Microsoft has a monopoly with Windows and takes advantage of that by bundling Internet Explorer (and Windows Explorer) in a manner that makes it unfair.

It is unfair that one piece of software should be included with Windows when others are not. What makes it especially unfair in the case of Explorer is that you can't remove it. You cannot take either Windows Explorer or Internet Explorer off a Windows system. This makes any browser or file manager manufacturer entitled to accuse them of abusing their monopoly. It's unfair competition.

Someone said something about Calculator and other pieces of software. It's not the same thing, because you can remove Calculator and install a competing alternative. An OEM can bundle another Calculator by default if they want. But try as they might, they cannot unbundle Windows and Internet Explorer. For both technical and political reasons (ie. Microsoft would take their head off). That make Microsoft ripe for this kind of lawsuit.

Edited 2007-12-13 22:09

"You're going on the wrong track here. Nobody will care which browser is "better". What is being discussed is the fact that Microsoft has a monopoly with Windows and takes advantage of that by bundling Internet Explorer (and Windows Explorer) in a manner that makes it unfair.

It is unfair that one piece of software should be included with Windows when others are not. What makes it especially unfair in the case of Explorer is that you can't remove it. You cannot take either Windows Explorer or Internet Explorer off a Windows system. This makes any browser or file manager manufacturer entitled to accuse them of abusing their monopoly. It's unfair competition."

While the issue you raise is true to a point, you can remove Internet Explorer, not easily however, and not without crippling the system.

However I think that this lawsuit is about something different. And that is that Internet Explorer by not properly implementing open web standards correctly such as HTML, CSS, CSS2 and ECMA script. And because of their dominant position as the default browser used on approximately 80% desktops has created an environment where web developers write sites to display in Microsofts undocumented slightly different versions of HTML, CSS, etc.

So Internet Explorer by not implementing standards correctly and being the most common browser, puts Opera in a position where a large amount of sites just don't work correctly on their browser which is standards compliant (or at least as compliant as anything else that I know of on the market). If I was in their shoes I'd be a little PO'ed too.

If IE correctly implemented standards the web would be a lot nicer place that "Just Works" a whole hell of a lot more than it does now. Not just in terms of more competition but web development would be a not nicer to if we didn't have to support some bastardized protocols changed slightly by Microsoft in order to maintain dominant market position.

Edited 2007-12-14 00:14

You can remove it from the system, but certain things won't function properly (such as the Help System which uses the IE rendering engine [reuse of components is a GOOD thing, isnt it?]). So you can certainly unbundle IE.

There are other components in Windows that are just as hard to "remove", but no one ever goes after those for abuse of monopoly. I've always been curious as to why.

As an Opera user and fan, it saddens me to see Opera do this. Of course, I am able to make a distinction between a company and a product, unlike some people, so it has no effect on my choice to use the Opera browser.