Comments on: EU objects to browser in Windows

European regulators say they believe software giant is violating that region's antitrust laws by bundling its Internet Explorer browser in Windows.

[JJDickson]

Christ on a bike! Why does anyone take any notice of these power-crazed bureaucrats - bureaufascists more like? What do any of them know about running a business, particularly a business the size of Microsoft? JD.

[JJDickson]

EUSSR.

[kelmon]

Well, congratulations to almost everyone in COMPLETELY MISSING THE POINT. No great surprise to see the Microsoft fans turning up and suggesting that this is an attack on a US company, or that IE is vital to the computer, or that this is the same as the likes of a Linux distribution including Firefox.

The problem is that IE represents Microsoft's attempt to develop a proprietary Internet that it controls because its browser renders content in a non-standard way and includes things like ActiveX. The combination of this means that web sites must almost be written twice in order to support other browsers and given the market share that IE already has there isn't much incentive to support anything else, particularly within the corporate environment. On the Internet in general this problem is not as bad as it used to be, however, but business web applications are still very much tied to IE and Windows.

The solution to this problem is simple - Microsoft provides a standards-compliant web browser, be it IE or something else, and this issue goes away. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Microsoft including a browser in their OS but it does need to be one that is interchangeable with others without content failing to display correctly. Perhaps IE8 will deliver this solution...

[YankeePoodle]

<sarcasm>
The Russians are beating the crap out of EU for gas money, the EU solution is to swindle an American company to pay for it.
</sarcasm>

[i_made_this]

The EU's targeting the wrong program this round. Some web browser must be bundled with any operating system in order to get online. Ubuntu bundles Firefox, OS X bundles Safari, Windows bundles IE, etc. And the EU blew it last round and ticked Europeans off by forcing MSFT to unbundle WMP. There are many components of the Windows operating system which both the DoJ AND the EU could come down on MSFT hard for and the governments and the people would all win. That is, if the people largely bought operating systems directly from the software manufacturers, but the people don't. The people largely buy *systems* from HP, Dell and Acer who toss a few pieces of cheap hardware and tons of useless bloatware into a box, along with Windows, and sell the package at exorbitant margins to John and Mary Q. Public.

The monopolistic bottleneck in the marketing channel remains the three major global OEM's. They should be forced to stop throwing all sorts of bloatware (like Windows Office and Norton Symantec Security Suite Free For 90 Days Trial at the top of the list) into their boxes. Get rid of this crap and replace it with a webpage the customer sees when he or she first runs the system - the webpage can recommend the user *consider installing some basic software supported by your operating system* such as an Office Suite like OpenOffice or Windows Office, a media player like VLC or WMP, a Security Suite like Avira or Comodo, etc. That'd force a ton more fairness into the market than stripping the web browser from the operating system.

Which leaves us the only real monopolist in the global tech industry: Intel who continues laughing at all this EU nonsense.

[J_J_Phellis]

Users should be given a choice about which browser to use. For example, when you turn on the machine. Several browsers -- standars-compliant, I must add -- could come with the machine. Therefore asking "how can I get a browser if I don't have a browser" is moot.

[sirtwist]

An operating system without an included browser in this day and age is just ridiculous. As Xyraxel stated, there would be no easy way for people to GET a browser without one included.

I love how governments always want to make it seem as though they're looking out for the "little people" by protecting their rights to not have a company abuse their monopoly power. How about taking all that money that the EU is spending on going after Microsoft for ridiculous things like this and using it to EDUCATE all the stupid people out there who use computers and don't know that they have a choice of which browser to use. I would venture to say that the millions of Euros I'm sure are being spent on all this enforcement activity would go a long way to helping the computer users of Europe actually understand what it is they can do with their computers. Oh, and while you're at it, maybe educate people on how to properly protect themselves and their computers when they're going to put them on the Internet? That might just save millions or billions by keeping them out of botnets.

It's not as though Microsoft bundles IE with Windows and refuses to allow you to install a competing browser. Even though Windows is technically a "closed" platform (because it's not open source), it's still one of the most open platforms in the world in terms of what its users can do with it. There is software available, most of the time for free or very little money, that will do just about whatever you want.

There are some basic things you want a computer to be able to do out of the box, without having to install any new applications, though, and one of them is to be able to get on the Internet. If you choose to install a different browser from that point, great.

And please, please, PLEASE do not require Microsoft to bundle multiple browsers with the OS. That will just lead to them getting sued at some point by some unknown browser maker so that their browser can get included. As it stands, they'd probably have to include at least Firefox, Opera, and Chrome... maybe even Safari (shudder). I mean, that's just ridiculous. Especially since we can simply go download whichever one we prefer as soon as we install Windows.

Note that some Linux distributions are bundled with Firefox. Where do I file a complaint about this? I would like all browsers removed from all Linux distributions.