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Yeah as someone living in Europe, I'm not really happy about that. Internet Explorer is an excellent tool to download Chrome or Firefox. It's like a bootstrappi

Yeah as someone living in Europe, I'm not really happy about that. Internet Explorer is an excellent tool to download Chrome or Firefox. It's like a bootstrapping browser. Very useful.

jsonscripter 17y ago
It would be nice if there was a dialog that lists a number of browsers that can be downloaded and installed automatically.
froo 17y ago
I'm curious if Europe will enforce the same policies on Apple - eg, ensuring that safari does not come pre-installed on snow leopard. If not, blatant double standards given Apple's market share is increasing. EDIT - another thought, since access to internet via phones is becoming more widespread, will the EU start imposing the same policies on mobile phone manufacturers... EDIT #2 - Personally I think if the EU wants to force competition in the browser market, they should ensure that users get a choice of browsers with the pre-installed OS, otherwise with the browser not being included is potentially stumping the growth of internet availability to people who otherwise wouldn't have it. Just to be clear, I'm not anti-Apple, I just dislike silly rulings that in themselves are anti-competitive, given they only apply to one company.
- AlisdairO 17y ago
  Anti monopoly rules are usually unfair sounding. Why shouldn't a larger company use its position and money to dominate a new market? The thing is, monopolies can be so damaging to society that treating them in a manner that seems instinctively fair is often bad for us. Like it or not, they are different, and they must be treated differently. It's important to remember that corporations are not people, so if they're treated unfairly the only reason it's a big deal is if society as a whole loses out as a result. That said, I think the browser market is competitive enough nowadays that MS including a browser really is not that big a deal - OSes include browsers in the same way that cars come with steering wheels. I think this is more about punishing MS for past transgressions than anything else.
deleted 17y ago
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- froo 17y ago
  Quite simply, the people who know how to use command line tools to install their favourite browsers would be significantly smaller than the number of people who would install firefox as a default browser when IE comes pre-installed. So in essence, all this does is penalise everyone else except the command-line users, which would be a quite small subset of the total possible userbase. Essentially hurting the web rather than helping it.
  - sounddust 17y ago
    Ok, in all seriousness, It's very likely that there will be an icon on the desktop, such as "Set Program Access and Defaults," which will open an application to let you choose from a number of popular browsers, in which people can rate the browsers. That's how the search engine selector works in IE. In most cases, the OEM/vendor will have already chosen a "bootstrap" browser. From the article: The company said it would make it easy for PC makers and users to get at and install the web browsing program.

Yeah as someone living in Europe, I'm not really happy about that. Internet Explorer is an excellent tool to download Chrome or Firefox. It's like a bootstrapping browser. Very useful.

jsonscripter 17y ago

It would be nice if there was a dialog that lists a number of browsers that can be downloaded and installed automatically.

froo 17y ago

I'm curious if Europe will enforce the same policies on Apple - eg, ensuring that safari does not come pre-installed on snow leopard. If not, blatant double standards given Apple's market share is increasing. EDIT - another thought, since access to internet via phones is becoming more widespread, will the EU start imposing the same policies on mobile phone manufacturers... EDIT #2 - Personally I think if the EU wants to force competition in the browser market, they should ensure that users get a choice of browsers with the pre-installed OS, otherwise with the browser not being included is potentially stumping the growth of internet availability to people who otherwise wouldn't have it. Just to be clear, I'm not anti-Apple, I just dislike silly rulings that in themselves are anti-competitive, given they only apply to one company.

AlisdairO 17y ago
Anti monopoly rules are usually unfair sounding. Why shouldn't a larger company use its position and money to dominate a new market? The thing is, monopolies can be so damaging to society that treating them in a manner that seems instinctively fair is often bad for us. Like it or not, they are different, and they must be treated differently. It's important to remember that corporations are not people, so if they're treated unfairly the only reason it's a big deal is if society as a whole loses out as a result. That said, I think the browser market is competitive enough nowadays that MS including a browser really is not that big a deal - OSes include browsers in the same way that cars come with steering wheels. I think this is more about punishing MS for past transgressions than anything else.

deleted 17y ago

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froo 17y ago
Quite simply, the people who know how to use command line tools to install their favourite browsers would be significantly smaller than the number of people who would install firefox as a default browser when IE comes pre-installed. So in essence, all this does is penalise everyone else except the command-line users, which would be a quite small subset of the total possible userbase. Essentially hurting the web rather than helping it.
- sounddust 17y ago
  Ok, in all seriousness, It's very likely that there will be an icon on the desktop, such as "Set Program Access and Defaults," which will open an application to let you choose from a number of popular browsers, in which people can rate the browsers. That's how the search engine selector works in IE. In most cases, the OEM/vendor will have already chosen a "bootstrap" browser. From the article: The company said it would make it easy for PC makers and users to get at and install the web browsing program.