10 ms·

Yeah, I still don't understand how Microsoft lost the suit back in the day just for including IE as a default web browser in windows, whereas apple can ban all

Yeah, I still don't understand how Microsoft lost the suit back in the day just for including IE as a default web browser in windows, whereas apple can ban all web browsers but their own and it's fine.

kaesar14 5y ago
What do you mean? I use Chrome on my iPhone just fine?
- dontblink 5y ago
  You are using Safari (actually webkit) with a Chrome UI.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Other web browsers are essentially just reskinning WebKit, which they have to use. So other browsers are allowed but everyone needs to use Apple's engine.
  - infogulch 5y ago
    Actually this was an option back in the IE days too. Just nobody did it because it was stupid.
    - emteycz 5y ago
      Maxthon browser used to use IE engine. It was done because Firefox engine was hard to separate from the browser (still the case today) and WebKit wasn't ready for use at least until 2005 (when it was open sourced).
  - criddell 5y ago
    And this is probably the only thing holding back Chrome's (or rather Chromium's) overwhelming dominance of the web.
- celsoazevedo 5y ago
  https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/350671/does-safari-and-google-chrome-for-macos-use-the-same-rendering-engine https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/350671/does-safari...
VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
Windows had 95% market share. Apple has barely 50. It's a big difference
- munk-a 5y ago
  50% is plenty enough for serious considerations of anti-trust actions. If our system worked Windows never would have reached 95% in the first place. There's also a significant question about what you do with that control when you have it.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  Yeah, but you could also download separate browser engines without hacking your Windows device. "Big difference" indeed.
  - VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
    you can do that on android if you want. which has 50% of the market share
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      You could also use MacOS Tiger if you wanted an OS that didn't ship with Internet Explorer installed. Problem solved guys!
      - VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
        apple doesn't have an overwhelming market position. just because you don't like it doesn't mean they have to change
    - monocasa 5y ago
      Antitrust's metrics aren't based entirely on marketshare.
      - VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
mjw1007 5y ago
One big difference (though I don't know how much it was considered in the court case) is that IE pushed ActiveX controls as the best way to get interactive content on websites, and ActiveX controls were in practice a way to run Windows-specific x86 code. For all their faults, Google and Apple haven't tried anything equivalent to that.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  > For all their faults, Google and Apple haven't tried anything equivalent to that. Google's repeatedly pushed Chrome-specific web “features” as the new way to do everything web. Sometimes they're also implemented in Firefox. Not equivalent, but similar.
  - mjw1007 5y ago
    Right, Google's misbehaviour is that they're trying to gain de facto control of the "web platform", while Microsoft's was that they were trying to prevent the "web platform" coming into existence as a competitor to Windows. I think what Microsoft was doing was objectionable in itself. I think what Google is doing is objectionable to the extent that they try to use that control to prevent people doing things they dislike (eg, their recent work to undermine ad-blockers).
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      > while Microsoft's was that they were trying to prevent the "web platform" coming into existence as a competitor to Windows. Chrome only runs on Windows, some Linuxs, and some BSDs. It includes DRM that only works on some processors… It looks like Google is trying to prevent the "web platform" from continuing to exist as a competitor to Chrome, and I don't see how that's any different.
      - gleenn 5y ago
        Chrome runs on OSX too.
granzymes 5y ago
Microsoft eventually won on appeal and the government settled rather than try to salvage the case.
tpush 5y ago
Microsoft didn't lose any lawsuit in the US for for tying its web browser to Windows; the prosecution realized how shaky the argumentation for that'd been and subsequently dropped that claim.
- mdoms 5y ago
  That's some revisionist history. You can familiarise yourself with the case here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
  - tpush 5y ago
    From your own link: "At the appellate level, the U.S. government dropped the claim of tying given that—as laid out in Section 1 of the Sherman Act—it would have had to prove that more harm than good resulted from the instance of tying carried out by Microsoft.".
    - mjw1007 5y ago
      Non-rhetorical question: did the change in the ruling party in the US (in early 2001) come between the original case and the dropping of the claim? I'm wondering whether the cause was more "a new head of the relevant department had a different attitude towards antitrust enforcement" (or possibly even "a different attitude towards Microsoft") than "the prosecution realized how shaky the argumentation had been".
      - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
        From my vague memories of the time, you are correct (or at least that's how I parsed it back then). The EU decision actually had more teeth though.
  - harles 5y ago
    It seems a fairly accurate summary. DoJ was unlikely to win the appeal, so they settled. As a side not, that Wikipedia article is far from neutral: > … Microsoft responded that the company would offer manufacturers a choice: one version of Windows that was obsolete, or another that did not work properly.

kaesar14 5y ago

What do you mean? I use Chrome on my iPhone just fine?

dontblink 5y ago
You are using Safari (actually webkit) with a Chrome UI.
ghaff 5y ago
Other web browsers are essentially just reskinning WebKit, which they have to use. So other browsers are allowed but everyone needs to use Apple's engine.
- infogulch 5y ago
  Actually this was an option back in the IE days too. Just nobody did it because it was stupid.
  - emteycz 5y ago
    Maxthon browser used to use IE engine. It was done because Firefox engine was hard to separate from the browser (still the case today) and WebKit wasn't ready for use at least until 2005 (when it was open sourced).
- criddell 5y ago
  And this is probably the only thing holding back Chrome's (or rather Chromium's) overwhelming dominance of the web.
celsoazevedo 5y ago
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/350671/does-safari-and-google-chrome-for-macos-use-the-same-rendering-engine https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/350671/does-safari...

VWWHFSfQ 5y ago

Windows had 95% market share. Apple has barely 50. It's a big difference

munk-a 5y ago
50% is plenty enough for serious considerations of anti-trust actions. If our system worked Windows never would have reached 95% in the first place. There's also a significant question about what you do with that control when you have it.
smoldesu 5y ago
Yeah, but you could also download separate browser engines without hacking your Windows device. "Big difference" indeed.
- VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
  you can do that on android if you want. which has 50% of the market share
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    You could also use MacOS Tiger if you wanted an OS that didn't ship with Internet Explorer installed. Problem solved guys!
    - VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
      apple doesn't have an overwhelming market position. just because you don't like it doesn't mean they have to change
  - monocasa 5y ago
    Antitrust's metrics aren't based entirely on marketshare.
    - VWWHFSfQ 5y ago

mjw1007 5y ago

One big difference (though I don't know how much it was considered in the court case) is that IE pushed ActiveX controls as the best way to get interactive content on websites, and ActiveX controls were in practice a way to run Windows-specific x86 code. For all their faults, Google and Apple haven't tried anything equivalent to that.

wizzwizz4 5y ago
> For all their faults, Google and Apple haven't tried anything equivalent to that. Google's repeatedly pushed Chrome-specific web “features” as the new way to do everything web. Sometimes they're also implemented in Firefox. Not equivalent, but similar.
- mjw1007 5y ago
  Right, Google's misbehaviour is that they're trying to gain de facto control of the "web platform", while Microsoft's was that they were trying to prevent the "web platform" coming into existence as a competitor to Windows. I think what Microsoft was doing was objectionable in itself. I think what Google is doing is objectionable to the extent that they try to use that control to prevent people doing things they dislike (eg, their recent work to undermine ad-blockers).
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    > while Microsoft's was that they were trying to prevent the "web platform" coming into existence as a competitor to Windows. Chrome only runs on Windows, some Linuxs, and some BSDs. It includes DRM that only works on some processors… It looks like Google is trying to prevent the "web platform" from continuing to exist as a competitor to Chrome, and I don't see how that's any different.
    - gleenn 5y ago
      Chrome runs on OSX too.

granzymes 5y ago

Microsoft eventually won on appeal and the government settled rather than try to salvage the case.

tpush 5y ago

Microsoft didn't lose any lawsuit in the US for for tying its web browser to Windows; the prosecution realized how shaky the argumentation for that'd been and subsequently dropped that claim.

mdoms 5y ago
That's some revisionist history. You can familiarise yourself with the case here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
- tpush 5y ago
  From your own link: "At the appellate level, the U.S. government dropped the claim of tying given that—as laid out in Section 1 of the Sherman Act—it would have had to prove that more harm than good resulted from the instance of tying carried out by Microsoft.".
  - mjw1007 5y ago
    Non-rhetorical question: did the change in the ruling party in the US (in early 2001) come between the original case and the dropping of the claim? I'm wondering whether the cause was more "a new head of the relevant department had a different attitude towards antitrust enforcement" (or possibly even "a different attitude towards Microsoft") than "the prosecution realized how shaky the argumentation had been".
    - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
      From my vague memories of the time, you are correct (or at least that's how I parsed it back then). The EU decision actually had more teeth though.
- harles 5y ago
  It seems a fairly accurate summary. DoJ was unlikely to win the appeal, so they settled. As a side not, that Wikipedia article is far from neutral: > … Microsoft responded that the company would offer manufacturers a choice: one version of Windows that was obsolete, or another that did not work properly.