This is absolutely NOT true. They have a WANT (not a NEED) for HTML rendering to maintain their stranglehold. There are plenty of file explorers that have no need for HTML rendering (Directory Opus, as one example), and there are plenty of other OS’s that have no need for access to HTML at all (Linux, OSX, plenty more) in order to access files. This is just Microsoft’s half-hearted attempt at saying that HTML rendering is REQUIRED so as to tie everything together, thus bringing their monopoly full-circle.

As for their file explorer, see my earlier post. If Windows Explorer goes (hangs, then crashes), so goes the desktop (crashes), and therefore Windows (start over from scratch).

Steve Haney

By the way, the browser could be (chosen and) downloaded the first time you set up your internet connection (unless one has already been installed by your network admin, OEM, or whatever).

Nope. Thats not what I meant to say.
What I meant was that Windows without IE is definitely less productive than Windows with IE. A browser is a very basic piece of software that every operating system should provide out of the box.

Of course you do. Since Opera is smaller, faster, more standards compliant and more secure than Firefox, it must be bashed at every possible opportunity.

Whether Microsoft should be required to bundle every two-bit lousy browser developed is debatable. I could understand including Firefox, but Opera has an insignificant market share. Where do we draw the line?

Personally, I think Lynx is a far better browser than Opera.

So if Windows OS (monopoly) includes componets blocking competing browsers, then that would be illegal. Opera would have a strong case, but burden of proof. EC is a judge not a detective agency.

I take it developers code differently for IE, precisely because Windows OS has given IE a special treat. Coded in a competing way, eg. by following basic standards, the same web sites would not work ?

So competing browsers don’t work on sites, because of Windows OS ? Can Opera prove that ?

There wouldn’t be any IE with +80% of marketshare without Windows, Windows is a monopoly (this has been stated by the European Court) and it has been/is being used by Microsoft to extend its monopoly to other areas as well (see the MediaPlayer case), the web is one of them and IE is just the tool used to achieve it: Active X back then, the bloody Silverlight, their own modification to ECMAscript, not to mention their crappy standards support. All this breaks the web for all browers not named Internet Explorer generating huge problems for the competition (wasting money, time and resources implementing ways to make the browser compatible with IE-only code). The fact that the less advanced, more archaic browser is dominating the market speaks volumes about what is going on (this is like a 1985 Renault 5 having the 80% of cars sales market in 2007); in other words, a classic example of monopolistic behaviour from a monopolist.

Can Opera point to a fix, ie. the rewrite of Windows that would make all browsers work on all sites IE works on ?

The fix is pretty simple from a technical point of view, make IE a standard compliant browser, remove all the propietary shite and stop boycotting and undermining the standards. Of course, all this would create a truly open web which is one of the worst nightmares for Ballmer and co.

Everyone knows that Microsoft was able to use its dominant position in the desktop market (Windows) to kill the browser competition.

So competing browsers don’t work on sites, because of Windows OS ? Can Opera prove that ? Can Opera point to a fix, ie. the rewrite of Windows that would make all browsers work on all sites IE works on ?

(isn’t browser sniffing and blocking a developer / webmaster issue ?)

The implication of this statement is that other browsers are less productive than IE. Is that really your opinion?

I absolutely agree with demand #2 though.