Opera: unbundle IE - utter madness
This has got to be the dumbest thing I've heard in years. Opera, the company behind the web browser Opera have filed a complaint with the European Commission, regarding Microsoft's evil web browser Internet Explorer, and how it is bundled with Windows, and as such how it hinders free choice in the browser market, something about this rings a bell.
Mr Jon von Tetzchner, CEO of Opera doesn't seem to have any brains in his head what-so-ever. Do I have to remind people what it was like in the early and mid 1990s?
So if Europe requires Microsoft to remove Internet Explorer, this is what happens to Joe Public when they get a new shiny computer home.
"Where's the internet" says Joe.
Joe then proceeds to look in Help and Support and finds that you need to download a web browser from the internet.
"How the bloody hell can I do that without a web browser?"
Oh look there's more, in Help and Support it has a list of addresses and phone numbers of company's who make web browsers, if you send some of them a cheque for shipping and handling you'll receive some CDs with a web browser on in 6 to 8 weeks.
Or if you're somebody like me, spend 2 weeks turning the house inside out looking for an old CD with IE3 or IE4 on, only to discover them won't install on a modern version of Windows. Perfect.
Mr Jon von Tetzchner, and friends. You're a disgrace to the computer industry. Why don't you stop trying to make everybody's lives 50 times more complicated and actually develop a decent browser, one which people will want to install themselves.
This is far more retarded than even Sun were being over Microsoft bundling their Java VM with Windows. Look how much hassle that caused everybody, all these Java websites and applications just stop working and Joe Public doesn't know what to do. Sun of course knew exactly what they were doing forcing everybody to go to their website, wasting time to download Java so they can bolster the Java brand - what a joke.
We're trying to make computing more user friendly, you aren't helping guys.
13th December 2007 17:35:07, 364 words, 1138 views
2 comments
You seem a rather confused, and in the process have shot a few holes in your own rant.Sun sued after Microsoft's Java began diverging significantly from the Java standard. This was a classic embrace-and-extend move -- sitting in a dominant market position, Microsoft could ignore the Java standards, and thus create a defacto Microsoft-only Java standard.
As Java is a trademark, Sun can declare what is, and is not, "Java". Microsoft settled the lawsuit, dropped MS Java, and went on to write .NET and provide some honest competition.
Now take MSIE. By ignoring standards, Microsoft has created a defacto web standard -- IE -- to which everyone must adhere. Embrace and extend. Again.
This is a classic monopoly move on Microsoft's part, and holding their feet to the fire is clearly the only way to get them to compete honestly.
You'll always have a browser on your new computer -- but if Microsoft continues to leverage their monopoly to stifle the market, that browser should not be Internet Explorer.
Starting off with an ad hominem?Prior to Sun sueing Microsoft, Java worked, people didn't need to think about it. Now they have to look around Sun's website, try and find the right version and install it, and then you have the damn thing trying to run up start up so it can nag you for updates - which you need due to all the security holes, we didn't have that problem 5 years ago.
Monopoly move on Microsoft's part? What a joke. They haven't changed their position on the browser coming with Windows in 10 years.
If Opera were so concerned why didn't they do something then? When are they going to sue Apple and Linux distros for bundling a browser.
The market is not user-friendly, you people shouldn't bend over backwards to support it.
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