Microsoft rivals: Modified OS isn’t mediocre

Microsoft’s Behaviour

Let’s try reduction to absurdity in this situation…

Let’s pretend that Microsoft is USA and that internet explorer is TVs. USA subsidizes their electronic manufactors to the point where TVs are free. If there were no laws to correct this, then it would put electronic manufactors out of business throughout all the other Free Trade Nations. Thus a USA would be said to monopolize the TV market. Thus all innovation would be stiffled: in the USA because there is no incentive to make it better; and in the rest of the Free Trade Nations because there are no companies left who produce such a product. This would result in great bitterness toward the USA.

To be clear: to approve of Microsoft’s behaviour is to defy logic! These so called “Microsoft Haters” are completely justified in their contempt toward the company and their disbelief toward governing bodies who will not correct the situation.

What is an operating system?

Definition: it … manages all the other programs in a computer. The other programs are called applications or application programs. See http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci212714,00.html

Since WMP does not participate in the management of applications, it is also an application.

Summary

Microsoft offers a package of a large amount of applications plus an operating system. The effect of this bundling is to eliminate competition and destroy innovation. They claim this package is the operating system and the removal of any application will render it useless. It has been proven, ad nauseum, that this is not the case by experts who who do not have the benefit of insider knowledge. It is clear that Microsoft knows that they are lying and therefore are intentionally & deliberately attempting protect & expand their monopoly.

So giving stuff away for free ruins competition? Man, that explains why everybody uses GPL software and not expensive apple or microsoft or adobe or symantec or corel software. Man, those companies just can’t compete with all this free GPL software. They must make no profit whatsoever because you can’t stop free from being shoved down your throat. Oh wait…..none of that’s quite right….

Mr, Anonymous:

The difference is that this bundling cannot be unbundled. And the difference is that Microsoft is a monopoly and no amount of shouting otherwise will take away these two facts.

Have a nice day and thank you for your time.

So giving stuff away for free ruins competition?

Yes. By definition.

Man, that explains why everybody uses GPL software and not expensive apple or microsoft or adobe or symantec or corel software. Man, those companies just can’t compete with all this free GPL software. They must make no profit whatsoever because you can’t stop free from being shoved down your throat.

GPL != Free. If you want to compare apples to apples, then think about Corel software on Linux. They no longer sell it because the distributions comes with comparible free stuff bundled into it. Also, Adobe is trying to prevent the existance of free PDF writing software to protect its market.

Oh wait…..none of that’s quite right….

Actually, it was right!

Clearly, your “argument” was a series of disjoint statements intended to appeal to emotion (specfically, intimidation by sarcasm), not logic.

No, actually burntash was right. MS not only started bundling it, but pressured OEMs and other corporations to also bundle IE and remove Netscape.

If it’s bundled into the OS, precisely why do they need to “pressure” OEMs to include it ?

At one point they threatened to revoke Compaq’s license for Windows if they refused.

Compaq’s Windows license specified they had to leave the default Windows desktop unchanged. At no time were Compaq not allowed to bundle Netscape, they just couldn’t put an icon for it on the desktop.

Other companies had to pay more for Windows if they wanted to bundle Netscape as well.

For example ?

To be clear: to approve of Microsoft’s behaviour is to defy logic! These so called “Microsoft Haters” are completely justified in their contempt toward the company and their disbelief toward governing bodies who will not correct the situation.

Then why do they never attack every other company doing exactly the same thing ?

Who doesn’t ship their OS with a media player of some description ?

What is an operating system?

From an academic perspective (ie: the one you are trying to use), a kernel and its associated hardware drivers (which, depending on the OS, may or may not be part of the physical kernel). Everything else is fluff. A CLI, a GUI, a C library, a help system – all *addons* to the “operating system” (some people would even argue that the hardware drivers are addons).

Now, how successful do you think Microsoft (or anyone else, for that matter) are going to be selling a product that their customers can’t interact with in any way without buying more third-party software ?

Microsoft offers a package of a large amount of applications plus an operating system.

I challenge to name someone selling “operating systems” that doesn’t.

The effect of this bundling is to eliminate competition and destroy innovation.

Bollocks. What better way to stimulate innovation than competition ?

If these companies (Real and Apple) in this case can offer a *better* product than the bundled one, people will buy it. This has been demonstrated time and time and time again.

Unfortunately for Real and Apple, at this point both their products *suck* compared to WMP.

They claim this package is the operating system and the removal of any application will render it useless.

No, they claim this package is the operating system and removing packages will render it *less useful* to consumers.

It has been proven, ad nauseum, that this is not the case by experts who who do not have the benefit of insider knowledge.

No, it’s been offered as an *opinion* that this is not the case.

I played with early versions of Realplayer (G2) and it was a nice lightwieght easy to configure easy to use peice of software. I played with Realplayer 9 recently too, the result was astounding. Massivly complex and unnecesary clutter on the startup, reams of options that really didn’t need to be there in the prefs. Adverts, sorry, “Recommended sites”… The list of complaints I had with it were endless, in short, it was an attrocity. That said, many mainstream news sites (BBC for instance is a good example) require it for its interactive stuff.

My biggest problem is that although Realplayer seriously needs simplification, putting in WMP in free basically negates all other media players use beyond specialist sites. I find it a shame that the same tactics used to destroy Netscape (the company) are probably going to destroy the various media players out there also because they can’t compete with being installed on every computer from the word go. Its not that its free so much, but that its there from the beginning. How many computer newbies out there are going to know about quicktime, or Realplayer, or the other players out there? This isn’t about it being free (although that helps), its about how its been placed into the posission of utter dominance by simple virtue of being installed on almost every new PC bought since 1995.

Not sure how I missed this the first time…

IE was NEVER better than Netscape.

Someone doesn’t remember their history.

ca. 1995 – 1996

Navigator 2 was unquestionably superior to IE 1 and 2.

Navigator’s market share was much greater than IEs.

IE 1 and 2 were available for download or bundled with Windows.

If you asked people which browser they were using at this time, they’d probably say Netscape or Mosaic.

ca. 1996-1997

Navigator 3 IE 3 were about equal.

The release of IE3 in mid ’96 triggered the first exodus away from Navigator.

ca. 1997-1998

IE4 was much better than Navigator 4.

This is when things really started hotting up. Navigator 4 sucked – big time (although some of the betas had some nice ideas, like combined Stop and Refresh into a single button). Many people (like me) never forgave Netscape for Navigator 4. In September 97, when IE4 was released, IE’s marketshare skyrocketed – even though Navigator 4 had a good 9 months of lead time, a significant chunk of people had remained with Navigator 3.

Importantly, IE4 was only available for download at this time (and it was a big download over the 28.8 and 33.6 modems of the day). Shipping versions of Windows included IE3. This lasted for about 9 months, until Win98 was released with IE4 bundled in.

ca. 1998 – current

This is about the point in time that IE’s superiority was established and Navigator’s popularity plummeted, culminating in the demise of Netscape, the formation of the Mozilla project and, finally, the release of competitive versions of Mozilla. Now, Mozilla and derivatives (like Firebird) are actually starting to wrest a bit of browser marketshare back off IE, just like IE did off netscape five years ago.

There’s a period of a good 4 – 5 years (from the release of IE4 in late ’97 until ’01 or ’02) while IE was clearly a superior product to Navigator. This is easily demonstratable by reading the comparitive reviews of the day. More importantly, IE wasn’t even a blip on the radar until it was about as good (IE 3) and it was only after it became a clearly better product (IE 4 and 5) that it really started to take serious marketshare off Navigator – and this all happened *before* Windows 98 was released.

Why don’t we come up with a STANDARD format for streaming video and rid ourselves of this mess. WMP, RealPlayer and Quicktime all have one thing in common – the formats are ok, but the programs themselves are extremely bloated and sloppy .. even more so than iTunes (Windows version) and MusicMatch Pukebox.

There already is. MPEG4. Apple, Real and a heap of third party vendors are quite happy to get behind it, however, Microsoft is hell-bent on pushing their own format. That is the problem.

Everytime 90% of the industry agree on a specification, for example “Project Liberty”, Microsoft is hell bent on creating their own flavour instead of working WITH these organisations.

You’re leaving out QUITE a bit drsmithy

“ca. 1995 – 1996

Navigator 2 was unquestionably superior to IE 1 and 2.

Navigator’s market share was much greater than IEs.

IE 1 and 2 were available for download or bundled with Windows. If you asked people which browser they were using at this time, they’d probably say Netscape or Mosaic.”

Correct Navigator was quite obviously superior to IE 1 and 2. IE didn’t have “a market share” simply because IE was never “sold” as a product. It was bundled from its very beginnings as a Microsoft product. It originally came from Spyglass and was called “Spyglass Mosaic”.

“ca. 1996-1997

Navigator 3 IE 3 were about equal. The release of IE3 in mid ’96 triggered the first exodus away from Navigator.”

Calling them equal would be a matter of opinion, yours, not mine. I used both during that time and Netscape was still the better browser. Microsoft stuffed copies of IE in every magazine and mailbox they could find during this period not to mention its massive bundling and OEM pressure. IE didn’t achieve marketshare through its sales, it achieved marketshare through a massively funded PR campaign by Microsoft and any uptake is more due to that rather than an “exodus” away from Netscape due to IE’s superior quality epspecially given that IE was not superior to Netscape at this time.

“ca. 1997-1998

IE4 was much better than Navigator 4. This is when things really started hotting up. Navigator 4 sucked – big time (although some of the betas had some nice ideas, like combined Stop and Refresh into a single button). Many people (like me) never forgave Netscape for Navigator 4. In September 97, when IE4 was released, IE’s marketshare skyrocketed – even though Navigator 4 had a good 9 months of lead time, a significant chunk of people had remained with Navigator 3.”

Again IE was not “better” than Netscape. I will grant you that by this time Microsofts illegal anti-competitive tactics had begun to destroy the once flourishing Netscape Corporation but your claimed quality of IE had nothing to do with it. More to the point was the fact that Microsoft had also begun their attempt to embrace, extend, and extinguish Sun’s Java, a popular technology for websites, and Microsofts “version” tended to do some pretty wicked things to Netscape when Netscape bumped into the growing number of MS Java enabled websites. This and other litlle tactics were by design by Microsoft in my opinion.

“Importantly, IE4 was only available for download at this time (and it was a big download over the 28.8 and 33.6 modems of the day). Shipping versions of Windows included IE3. This lasted for about 9 months, until Win98 was released with IE4 bundled in.”

I won’t dispute your timeline here, its not worth quibbling over. What I will point out is the fact that you are mentioning that IE3 was available for download as a separate application. IE4 was as well…at least until Microsoft made the completely bogus clain in front of a US Federal Judge that IE was an inseparable part of Win98 and couldn’t be removed without causing all sorts of problems. Of course its hard to reconcile the fact that IE4 was separately downloadable WITHOUT Win98. Shortly after this period, as if to back up their bogus claims, complete downloads of IE4 began to disappear from the net and were replaced by the smaller “setup” version you see now.

“ca. 1998 – current

This is about the point in time that IE’s superiority was established and Navigator’s popularity plummeted, culminating in the demise of Netscape, the formation of the Mozilla project and, finally, the release of competitive versions of Mozilla. Now, Mozilla and derivatives (like Firebird) are actually starting to wrest a bit of browser marketshare back off IE, just like IE did off netscape five years ago.”

You make it sound as though Netscapes “popularity plummeted” due to users tuning into IE’s “superiority. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The real situation was that Netscape as a company was finally on its knees due to the highly successful, but totally unethical bundling campaign by Microsoft. Netscape was sold to Sun and AOL with the browser technology going to AOL. As a parting shot toward Redmond, Mozilla was open sourced with the knowledge that Microsoft would have a hard time undercutting “Free” (as in freedom) with free (as in beer). Microsoft more recently succeeded in castrating AOL and conning them into dropping Netscape, but Mozilla lives on and is now easily passing IE in quality and user friendly (as in treating the user as a “friend” rather than a “john”) features.

Were we to go back and be able to force Microsoft to act as a competitor by eliminating their use of the “bundling” tactic I have no doubt we would be looking at a completely different Internet landscape…or Netscape I should say.

Your use of the word “marketshare” clearly does not apply to IE since IE NEVER participated in the “market” to start with.

CooCooCaChoo (IP: 216.40.249.—) – Posted on 2003-11-15 02:53:32 IS NOT MY POST. DELETE ALL MESSAGES THAT DO NOT ORIGINATE FROM *.CIT.*.EDU.AU AND *CBA.IPRIMUS.COM.AU

Also, WMP has been bundled with Windows since, what, Windows 3?

WMP has been in Windows for a long time but back then it was practically useless and was mainly used to play CDs. It was probably the CD audio counterpart of Microsoft Sound Recorder.

Only after RealPlayer and Quicktime picked up and started getting marketshare did Microsoft beef up WMP and introduce their own audio file formats.

In fact at that time I was rather surprised and would have expected Microsoft to release the beefed up WMP under a different name since it was a radical improvement over the old crap. But now I’m beginning to suspect that they did that so that if they ever got in trouble for bundling WMP, they could argue that it was part of Windows all along.

You’re leaving out QUITE a bit drsmithy

I’m recounting the verifiable facts and verifiable industry opinions of the time.

Correct Navigator was quite obviously superior to IE 1 and 2. IE didn’t have “a market share” simply because IE was never “sold” as a product. It was bundled from its very beginnings as a Microsoft product. It originally came from Spyglass and was called “Spyglass Mosaic”.

I’m well aware of IE’s origins.

IE 1 was sold as part of the Microsoft Plus pack only.

IE 2 was included only with later OEM versions of Windows 95 from mid 1996 and available for download. It was also bundled into NT4.

Calling them equal would be a matter of opinion, yours, not mine. I used both during that time and Netscape was still the better browser.

Actually it was the prevailing *industry* opinion. Read some reviews and they’ll nearly all say that between Navigator 3 and IE3, it was a toss up.

This was also when people first started moving away from Navigator, which suggests they considered IE _at least_ as good. This was _before_ IE3 was bundled with Windows, so IE and Netscape were competing on completely equal footing.

Microsoft stuffed copies of IE in every magazine and mailbox they could find during this period not to mention its massive bundling and OEM pressure.

Navigator was “stuffed into every magazine and mailbox” right alongside it, as well. Also, as I said, this was before IE3 was bundled.

IE didn’t achieve marketshare through its sales, it achieved marketshare through a massively funded PR campaign by Microsoft and any uptake is more due to that rather than an “exodus” away from Netscape due to IE’s superior quality epspecially given that IE was not superior to Netscape at this time.

It’s not a given at all. Read reviews from the day. Microsoft and Netscape, neck and neck, is a headline I seem to recall reading somewhere.

You act like Netscape were doing nothing except keeping quiet while all this was happening. Far from it.

Again IE was not “better” than Netscape.

To you. Industry opinion says otherwise.

I will grant you that by this time Microsofts illegal anti-competitive tactics had begun to destroy the once flourishing Netscape Corporation but your claimed quality of IE had nothing to do with it.

That doesn’t explain why IE4’s popularity boomed in the nine months before it was bundled with Win98. In other words, while it and Navigator were competing on the same level.

IE4 was the browser part of the Nashville project, that eventually turned into Windows 98. Nashville betas from mid-1997 had the browser integrated into the OS.

What I will point out is the fact that you are mentioning that IE3 was available for download as a separate application. IE4 was as well…at least until Microsoft made the completely bogus clain in front of a US Federal Judge that IE was an inseparable part of Win98 and couldn’t be removed without causing all sorts of problems.

Not bogus at all. Take IE out of Win98 and you take out functionality.

IE3 and IE4 were always available for separate download. This is actually a rather important point, because it demonstrates people were going and and downloading a browser and choosing IE.

Of course its hard to reconcile the fact that IE4 was separately downloadable WITHOUT Win98.

Hard to reconcile in what way ? Win98 didn’t work as advertised without IE.

Shortly after this period, as if to back up their bogus claims, complete downloads of IE4 began to disappear from the net and were replaced by the smaller “setup” version you see now.

IE4 was always distributed as the small setup program that downloaded what it needed. That was one of its “innovative features”.

You make it sound as though Netscapes “popularity plummeted” due to users tuning into IE’s “superiority.

That is precisely what happened. Why else would they use IE over Netscape, when both required separate acquisition and installation *and* Netscape already had the vast majority of established mindshare ? You can’t turn a tide like that easily – look how long it took Word to displace Wordperfect.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. The real situation was that Netscape as a company was finally on its knees due to the highly successful, but totally unethical bundling campaign by Microsoft.

Netscape was on their knees because they hadn’t released a decent product since Navigator 3. They’d made the “poor” decision to do a major rewrite and dropped the ball signficantly. Netscape Navigator/Communicator 4 *sucked*.

Microsoft more recently succeeded in castrating AOL and conning them into dropping Netscape, but Mozilla lives on and is now easily passing IE in quality and user friendly (as in treating the user as a “friend” rather than a “john”) features.

As i said, albeit without the pointless vitriol.

Were we to go back and be able to force Microsoft to act as a competitor by eliminating their use of the “bundling” tactic I have no doubt we would be looking at a completely different Internet landscape…or Netscape I should say.

Given that until Windows 98 the main versions of IE that people were using weren’t bundled, that’s a difficult claim to support.

By the time a popular version of IE was actually bundled (IE4), Netscape marketshare was already in decline. Coupled with Netscape’s inability to create a decent product, they were screwed.

Realistically speaking, a significant chunk of the market wasn’t using a version of Windows that bundled a decent browser until 1999 – 2000 (if that). It’s not like Windows 98 was the runaway success Windows 95 was. That means up until only a few years ago, all those people using IE had to go out and install it, just like they would with Netscape or some other browser.

Your use of the word “marketshare” clearly does not apply to IE since IE NEVER participated in the “market” to start with.

Of course it did. People had to choose to use it, or choose to use the “standard” browser – Netscape Navigator.

If the world behaved like you seem to think, Mozilla on Windows wouldn’t be used by *anyone*, because they’d all just use IE.

“You make it sound as though Netscapes “popularity plummeted” due to users tuning into IE’s “superiority.

That is precisely what happened. Why else would they use IE over Netscape, when both required separate acquisition and installation *and* Netscape already had the vast majority of established mindshare ? You can’t turn a tide like that easily”

This is completely absurd. Again from personal experience, I never heard of anybody going out of their way to download IE but quite a few getting Netscape. Once it was bundled with Windows, people were too lazy to get Netscape anymore.

“Again IE was not “better” than Netscape.

To you. Industry opinion says otherwise.”

Not sure what you mean by industry opinion, but there are quite a few of us who would beg to differ. In my experience, it was always MS tryihg to catch up to Netscape in features, and not the other way around. It’s just silly to think that a company that had to buy its browser would actually know how to make one that was worthwhile.

“If the world behaved like you seem to think, Mozilla on Windows wouldn’t be used by *anyone*, because they’d all just use IE.”

Are you serious? You can probably count those few of us who run Mozilla on Windows with one hand. How many Windows users do you think have even heard of Mozilla?

“And I hear Dos 2.0 is really popular in some tribes in Borneo. What’s your point?”

First of all, I’m using Windows XP. My PC is an Aspire G600 P4 2.4GHz and I recently got a GeForce FX 5200 Ultra. Yes, I am living in North Borneo (here we call it Sabah, come on you didn’t watch the 1st survivor?). We do have an Apple store here called MacBorneo and I’ve tried the new G4 iBook. And you are saying we don’t know shit about computers?

Wow man. You must be the chief of your tribe or something to have that fancy equipment. J/K.

I don’t tend to go along with “prevailing *industry* opinion”. Quite often the prevailing industry opinion you mention is funded by Microsoft through Waggener Edstrom or someone like Gartner and Silver Lake Partners. I go with my own opinions.

Suit yourself. The fact remains the vast majority of people considered IE 3 and Navigator 3 to be on par and IE 4 (even the betas) to be superior to Navigator/Communicator 4.

Not in my area. (Washington State) I never received a copy of Netscape in a magazine or ever had one arrive in my mailbox. I did receive several copies of IE by those methods. I DID see Netscape sitting on the software store shelf in my area with a price sticker on the box. I did NOT see IE there EVER. (with a price tag that is) I did see copies of IE being given away at the cashier counter though.

I’m pretty sure nearly every PC magazine I bought in that timeframe had a copy of Navigator on it _somehwere_. Along with things like IE, Eudora, WS-FTP, etc.

“Not bogus at all. Take IE out of Win98 and you take out functionality.”

Actually its quite easy to do and Win98 runs much faster and with more stability without it. (http://www.litepc.com)(IEradicator.exe)

(http://www.LitePC.com/ier_lic.html)

Ah, I remember when these guys were just a bunch of hackers stuffing around. They seem to have gone rather commercialised now.

Back in the day, the only way to remove IE from Win98 was to replace the things that used the IE components (like Explorer) with older versions from Win95. Has that changed ?

Aha, it seems like it hasn’t:

“Installing the ultra-fast Windows95 Explorer into Windows98 is the desktop modification that 98lite is famous for. If you have a copy of Windows95 prior to OSR2.5 (ie. before IE 4.0 was integrated into Windows95), then 98lite can install the SLEEK Windows95 Explorer into Windows98.”

And from the “IEradicator” page:

“The MS HTML Engine (shdocvw.dll and mshtml.dll) is left on the machine to provide needed functionality for other applications that render HMTL (e.g. Outlook Express) or that launch a mini-browsing window (e.g. Winamp’s Mini Browser, Netmeeting’s Online Directory).”

So, they don’t really take IE out at all, just a few of the user-visible bits like iexplore.exe. If you do want to take all of IE out, you need bits of Windows 95 handy so the system still works.

In other words, if you take out IE, Windows 98 breaks, just like Microsoft said – unless you replace the bits that break with something else.

I ran it that way and had Microsoft left IE out of Win98 they would have done their customers a favor. Win98 was a MUCH better OS without IE bundled into it. Name the “functionality” that is missing without it.

Again WHAT didn’t work as advertised without IE?

Explorer won’t work (which is kind of important), the help system won’t work, anything that tries to use the browser components won’t work, Active Desktop won’t work.

That’s just off the top of my head. There is certainly more.

Uhhhh, lets see, was it that one came bundled with the OS and the other required the user to install it? Maybe it was because one was free and the other cost money? No?

You seem to be not reading what I write. As I have repeatedly pointed out, Internet Explorer 3, the first version to become popular, was not bundled with Windows 95 for some time. Internet Explorer 4, the version that started taking serious marketshare off Netscape, was not integrated for 9 months after its release as a standalone application.

In other words, the versions of Internet Explorer that established it in the market and then started taking marketshare off Netscape were not bundled with Windows while it was happening.

Then there’s the simple fact that even _after_ Windows 98 shipped, there was a good year or two of lag before it was on more computers than Windows 95.

In other words, for another year or so afterwards, the versions of Internet Explorer taking marketshare off Netscape were not bundled with the most popular version of Windows.

Here’s a some links talking about Netscape dramatically losing marketshare *before* the release of Windows 98:

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/22761

http://msn-cnet.com.com/2100-1023-216043.html

“As i said, albeit without the pointless vitriol.”

Wasn’t that pointless, you appear to have gotten the message.

I was already aware you had a chip on your shoulder about Microsoft.

“Given that until Windows 98 the main versions of IE that people were using weren’t bundled, that’s a difficult claim to support.”

“Did you change your mind?

No, you’re just not listening again. The versions of IE that mattered – ie the ones that were successful – were IE 3 and 4 (and above). These versions of IE were not bundled with Windows at the time.

Although as I think back, IE2 might have been in OEM versions of Windows 95 from as early as January 1996. Not that it really matters – no-one used it.

“It’s not like Windows 98 was the runaway success Windows 95 was. That means up until only a few years ago, all those people using IE had to go out and install it, just like they would with Netscape or some other browser.”

Actually Win98 was Microsoft’s peak. Many users were disatified with Win95 and believed Microsoft’s hype about Win98 being better. A large number of users moved to Win98, very few stayed with Win95, especially the first version.

Huh ? Windows 98 was widely panned at release as a minor upgrade masquerading as an expensive “must have” for all users. It offered few advantages over Windows 95 OSR2 + IE4, which a significant chunk of people were running. There weren’t people lining up for days to buy Windows 98.

About the only subset of Win95 users who considered it a compelling upgrade were, as you say, those with the earlier versions of Win95. Everyone else had 95% of the “new features” already, by downloading IE4 and installing it onto their Win95 OSR2 systems.

IIRC, Windows 98 exceed Windows 95’s marketshare in mid to late 1999, although that was of course driven mostly by OEM sales to the booming PC market rather than upgrades. Even in January 2001, though, Google’s zeitgeist shows Win95 as still having about 1/4 the marketshare of Windows 98.

We are also completely ignoring NT, which didn’t get an integrated browser until Win2k.

It was simply too horrible to use. I have most of the versions of Windows released during that period. I believe you are correct in saying that the very first version did not come bundled with IE, but all other versions of Win95 DID come bundled with IE and the “Plus” pack was not needed to install IE.

IE1 was in the Plus pack. IE2 was the first version to be bundled with Windows, around early 1996 IIRC.

You can try to rewrite history if you wish, as all of your posts in this thread appear to be attempting, but your Microsoft centric revisionist version is wrong.

It’s kind of, well, impossible, to discuss IE’s history without being Microsoft centric. Added to that, nothing I’ve written is revisionist at all. It’s all easily verifiable by reading magazines and online publications of the day. The fact *yoU* don’t like Microsoft and *you* think IE was never a better product does not change the fact that the vast majority of consumers *did* think IE was a better browser as of mid ’98.

This is completely absurd. Again from personal experience, I never heard of anybody going out of their way to download IE but quite a few getting Netscape.

The people using IE3 who managed to drive its market share from nothing to ~25 percent before it was bundled with Windows obviously did.

Once again, your *personal experience* doesn’t define what was happening *everywhere else*.

Once it was bundled with Windows, people were too lazy to get Netscape anymore.

No, only once it was as good as – and then better – than Netscape people didn’t bother getting Netscape anymore. Even before this time, when IE was only “as good as” but had to be downloaded (because it wasn’t bundled) lots of people were using it over Netscape. By the time a decent version of IE – 3 – was being bundled, IE already had a non-trivial marketshare from people installing it specifically.

How many people can you remember using Internet Explorer 1 or 2 ?

Not sure what you mean by industry opinion, but there are quite a few of us who would beg to differ.

Industry opinion is what the majority of people in the industry are saying. In other words, if you go back and read print and online content, most of says IE3 and Navigator 3 were pretty much equal, and IE 4 was much better than Navigator/Communicator 4.

In my experience, it was always MS tryihg to catch up to Netscape in features, and not the other way around.

Which – as I’m been saying since the start – they did with IE3. With IE4 they surpassed Netscape. Not that it would have been hard with the disaster that was Netscape Communicator 4.

Netscape dropped the ball. Firstly, they started a major redesign with Communicator 4. Secondly, they started aiming a lot of development time at their web portal instead of their browser. Thirdly, they spent too much time whinging to the government isntead of trying to get people using their product.

It’s just silly to think that a company that had to buy its browser would actually know how to make one that was worthwhile.

That must be why Safari sucks so badly – since Apple had to take a significant chunk of it from somewhere else instead of writing it all themselves they obviously wouldn’t know how to make a good browser.

Why would anyone waste time and effort writing a browser from scratch when you they could buy a significant chunk of it from someone else ? Microsoft are on a business mission, not an ego trip. If Netscape had had such good business sense, it probably would have been Navigator integrated into Windows.

Are you serious? You can probably count those few of us who run Mozilla on Windows with one hand. How many Windows users do you think have even heard of Mozilla?

A surprisingly large number. I can think of dozens I’ve migrated over to Mozilla or Firebird in the last 6 to 12 months – quite a few of them because they asked me about it first. Be patient, it’s taken *Microsoft* 7 years to get to the stage Netscape used be at.

By the look of it, Mozilla (and derivatives) is going to have a good few years to carve into IE’s market share before Microsoft update IE to something competitive. “Browser Wars II” has the potential to be as interesting as “Browser Wars: The original”. The only thing that’s sure to happen is Microsoft will get the blame.

It would probably be relatively simple to do as Apple has done and use KHTML as an HTML engine in applications that needed a browser component?

I understand it’s LGPL and therefore can be statically linked without legal troubles.

Microsoft’s whole case is built on third-party developers facing extra cost to build functionality into their applications if the IE and WMP engines were removed. Typically they ignore the fact that free, legal Open-source applications can be of great use to commercial and Closed-source freeware writers.

Link: http://sourceforge.net/projects/khtml-win32/

I presume there are several ways of using other media players to provide system sound srvices – although Windows has always had an API for making sound without a media player anyway so this is confusing to me.

They also bundle Telnet and command line ftp with Windows! two programs i use daily! you never hear people bitching about those two programs. I use Secure CRT and Secure FX. WMP plays MP3’s too! but i use musicmatch. I think what people are having such a hard time with it that over the life time of a techonlogy it gets less and less important. Example: web browsers such a simple piece of software. at first it was important because the internet was new and browsers were were a new big thing now who cares. WMP and chat apps for instance are just having their time. Now if Microsoft bundled a 3d rendering app to compete with Bryce 5 that i play around with then yes i would have a problem with that right now….

Beat me to it!

Yeah, people seem to missing the fact that you can’t just remove IE, WMP without breaking something. This is by design, it seems to me. If Apple can design software that can be removed without breaking the OS, then why can’t Microsoft? The answer is: Microsoft can, but instead it wants to force its “standards” and remove competition. I find it very hard to believe that this isn’t obvious to everyone.

Oh yes, I do understand perfectly. You are saying that developers depend on WMP to be in the OS. That is fine, code that way if you wish.

But, removing WMP or making it optional would not prevent the OPERATING SYSTEM from working. It will still run programs that are properly installed, with all of the necessary libraries, components etc. The OPERATING SYSTEM is not crippled.

Besides, wouldn’t it be simple enough to have this mythical developer you are talking about write the application such that it checks to see if WMP is installed, and if not, tells you to install it first? Not really a big deal.

I have installed a few programs under Windows that indicated a certain library was required to run, and I had to go out and get it. Once installed, the program worked perfectly.

If WMP is such a vital part of your software, and your software cannot check for it first, then perhaps you should not be developing software.

“It would cripple the OS, this is what you are not understanding.”

It would not “cripple” the OS. It may mean you would have to use something else for multimedia functionality but it certainly won’t cripple the OS.

Microsoft purposely builds their products with unnecessary linking in order to lockin users AND developers. An OS should be modular not monolithic. These pieces should be able to plug in and out at will and be replaced with other units.

“I find it very hard to believe that so many people so are blind and simply hate Microsoft because they are Microsoft.”

What does hate have to do with it? Microsoft designs for a locked in environment. Pointing that out has nothing to do with hating Microsoft.

Sometimes that’s life – you have to work for what you want. When I bought a new video card, I had to download software for it in order for it to work. You know, jump through some hoops. Maybe I should have blamed Microsoft, or ATI, for not doing all the work for me.

When I wanted to listen to streaming Windows Media on my PowerBook, for instance, the web site let me know I needed WMP. I could have either a) not listened to it or b) downloaded it and then listened to the audio. I chose b).

If you don’t feel like jumping through some hoops, take it back or don’t use it. I presume if you are downloading some kind of software that wasn’t included with the OS, you don’t mind jumping through one more hoop.

Go ahead, bundle it with the OS. But, there is a difference between bundling software with the OS (including it in the shrinkwrap), and intertwining it to such an extent that ‘the OS will be degraded without it’, intentionally or not.

By your logic the entire car stereo industry can’t exist because companies like chevy offer free ac-delco cd players bundled with their cars.

“I can think of dozens I’ve migrated over to Mozilla or Firebird in the last 6 to 12 months – quite a few of them because they asked me about it first. Be patient, it’s taken *Microsoft* 7 years to get to the stage Netscape used be at.”

Curious. You obviously deal with more savvy people than I do. Most computer users I know MIGHT have heard of Linux, but if you ask them what Mozilla is they’re going to say it’s a Japanese monster movie. One old guy asked me the other day if the CPU was that big box you hook up to the monitor. Most people in these forums don’t take me seriously when I tell them the state of computer users as I know it, today, but that’s the way it is.

Most people in these forums don’t take me seriously when I tell them the state of computer users as I know it, today, but that’s the way it is.

Can I ask you if you see anything wrong with this? I see computers moving towards more of an appliance in the future, and generally less background knowledge required to operate a computer. I don’t think there is anything wrong with just using a computer for email and internet, and having it come set up the way you need it.. As long as the operating system stays out of the way, this should be perfectly maintainable.

“Can I ask you if you see anything wrong with this?” No, I don’t. I usually one of the first to remind geeks that most people have better things to do than stare at a computer all day.

It’s just that some people in these forums use this mythological Windows user friendliness as an excuse why they couldn’t possibly use Linux on the desktop, when the truth is, to a lot of people, ALL computers are user UNfriendly. That being the case, it won’t matter what OS their using. Computers won’t really be user friendly, until they’re voice activated Star Trek style.

I give newbies no credit at all… heck, I even said that.

There is a difference between a newbie and an average user.