4 ms·
It did to some degree. MS wanted to be able to heavily restrict things like shipping third party browsers with Windows. If they had been able to monopolize the
by _ea1k 3y ago
It did to some degree. MS wanted to be able to heavily restrict things like shipping third party browsers with Windows.
If they had been able to monopolize the web to just IE compatibility, what impact might that have had? Could Chrome and Webkit have taken off?
Well, maybe, but I can at least see a good case that things could have been much different.
- scarface_74 3y agoThere was never a time in the US where IE wasn’t bundled with Windows after the anti-trust trial. Chrome took over because it was heavily advertised on what was already the most heavily trafficked site and it was bundled with other downloads. WebKit “took off” because Apple by then had the resources to port over another open source project and it came with iPhones. It’s still a relatively non contender on the desktop.
- r00fus 3y agoIf they had carte-blanche they could have simply modified Defender anti-virus to see key components of Firefox (and later Chrome) as malware. They have done this kind of thing before: https://www.justice.gov/atr/memorandum-opinion-us-v-microsoft-corp#:~:text=The%20consent%20decree%20limits%20certain,any%20of%20Microsoft%27s%20applications%20software https://www.justice.gov/atr/memorandum-opinion-us-v-microsof....