Dear EU: Please quit whining about browsers already

silverwave, rather than making accusations and insults, if you feel an error has been made correct it.

Dashboard = bad idea.
Getting Windows to be as open as pssible to 3rd party software = great idea.

I am no Microsoft Fan, but I agree the EU takes the piss

I won't get into an argument over Microsoft's competitors whining about Internet Explorer and using the EU courts to do so (really, it's companies, not EU itself).

Instead I will just say, I do support measures to force Microsoft to make IE work with better Web Standards. As someone who designs artwork for the web, I'm tired of having art or a site work great on every browser, then made worse just so it can fit IE better.

I wonder how the heck a browser got into my Apple and ubuntu PCs. The MAC came with Safari and ubuntu came with Firefox. Where the hell was the EU when I was sold these PCs??? I demand the EU sue both of them, and while they're at it, I want a MAC made by someone other than Apple!

(teehee ... end of rant)

It is true that the EU Commission's actions are the result of complaints from vendors of other browsers, but I don't think it is duty bound to act on every complaint it receives.

The citizens of the EU would be better served if the Commission attended to the issues such as those raised in this lecture http://policyinstitute.info/news-events/marta-andreasen-lecture/, to this day those issues have not been addressed.

The EU is a seriously flawed institution, some would say it's corrupt. It should gets its own house in order and stop trying to destroy everything else - better yet it should be dissolved, like NATO it's reached its use-by date.

lee... you are the master of trolling. gathering the applefags, with the linuxgeeks, the windowmonopoly, and the independants... put them in a blog. and you get THE TROLLING GENIUS. you people have to stop bitching about Microsoft. there are hundreds of choices. you don't have a couple grand to spend on apple... screw it. you don't like Linux? learn or gtfo. and if you just whine about windows one more time, stop the registry and install something different. stop bitching. uninstall and get on with your life. EU get used to Microsoft winning. they are pro. and your a shitty little collection of countries. old William Gates could flip the switch on you whenever he wants but he loves seeing you bicker and chew eachother apart. congrats guys you are feeding the monster with your own ignorance. hit the uninstall button and get over yourselves. ALL OF YOU

I agree 100% with this article. If you're going to make things fair, then you have to target every platform. Otherwise, you're discriminating.

Its not microsoft's fault that they managed to create something that everyone uses. they just did a better job than most others.

I'd like to see Steve Jobs letting other browsers work on the Iphone, coz we all know safari is utter shit,

Oh yeah...Pwnage!! Well done DownloadSquad, you put it down to them very well. G'd job....EU is really getting annoying, with these stupid whinnings...

This is a perfect example of how government DOES NOT belong in business or business decisions. I think Microsoft should give them the giant middle finger and stop selling windows in the EU. Great article!

MANY people in the UK have become fed up with the EU's Ultra-Nanny-Stateism policies. Free trade is all well and good, but it would happen without there intervention.
This point and others are all reasons that in current polling, UK Independence Party is behind only the Conservatives for the 4th June EU Elections... EU=nice idea, poor implementation (much like windows :D)

Seems to me that everyone is forgetting that AOL comes preinstalled on most new windows computers. There you go, if you don't like using IE out of the box you've got AOL. Situation resolved. Alternatives are already present.

Dear Downloadsquad: Please quit whining about the EU "whining" about browsers already.

This may just be the best article I have ever read on download squad. I could not agree more.

Amazing how much ignorance this article and many commentators show.

The EU has at least done something about the anti-competitive and monopolistic behaviour of Microsoft and Intel.


Microsoft is currently singled out, because they simply "own" the market. Linux market share is a joke as well as Apples. In the corporate world and in public institutions Microsoft reigns supreme.

Most commentators don't seem to understand that Windows (with all it's flaws) is an important part of modern business infrastructure. And Microsoft costs many governments serious amounts of money.

Now I already can hear the Linux advocates groaning - but switching from MS to Linux is not as easy and not as cheap as many of these geeks think. It mostly about retraining staff and the lack of standards in those gazillion Linux distros.

But back to browsers ...

The example of IE6 entrenchement in the corporate environment should be a lesson to anyone. A buggy product that stifles innovation and progress on the web - and a security headache.

Thanks to Microsoft's monopoly the resulting web infrastructure based on IE and Outlook Express has caused many costly security problems.

And ask Netscape how MS has killed them. Did the US government do anything about that anti-competitive behaviour? Not really ...

It's easy for webheads to install a new browser or an anti-virus-package, but most mere mortals hardly understand the basic concepts of security or why their computer is not secure enough. Even after several years of mainstream media reporting massive virus attacks and botnets most machines are not secure enough.

Once again: most mere mortals are unable to even understand that they can use a different browser and in many corporations wage slaves can't touch their systems anyway.

The EU push helps on several fronts:

* breaking and further watering MS stranglehold on the browser market
* pushing for more diversity & security on the browser market
* separating core OS functions from additions (look how Windows 7 is already very different in that respect from XP)
* balancing the market, so smaller competitors stand a chance against MS

The comments here really give me an insight into the American mind... no wonder your economy is in the state it is.

This is an antitrust suit. You say if Windows has to include alternate browsers then every other OS should. To put it bluntly, that's stupid. Windows, and by extension Microsoft, controls almost 90% of the market. Apple has close to 10%, and Linux hovers around 1%. Can you tell the difference? It's the difference between near-insignificance and a *monopoly*. And this lawsuit concerns that monopoly, so those numbers matter very much.

You would have to be willfully obtuse to think Windows is comparable to *any other* OS in the market. Surely you can see that whatever browser Linux distros use is utterly irrelevant compared to a mere suggestion in a Windows dialog box.

This attitude appears to be bolstered by an apparent total lack of contact with non-expert computer users. "Oh, everyone can just use Firefox if they want to!" Let me tell you something. For the average schmoe, installing and changing the default browser is TERRIFYING. White-face-wide-eyes terrifying. They barely understand the concept of what they're doing, and are being assaulted by strange windows and unknown buttons left and right. On a very deep instinctual level, people *don't like it*. I know this from the experience of many friends, and also my own. It's one of the reasons I don't have Linux installed, and I'm not the only one.

Get some perspective guys.