EU Wants Multiple Browser Bundling On New PCs 464
An anonymous reader writes with a link to Ars Technica's report that "the EU is considering forcing Windows users to choose a browser to download and install before they can first browse the Internet, according to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required). While the latest Windows 7 builds let you uninstall IE8, 'third-party browser makers like Opera, Mozilla and Google are pushing for tough sanctions against Microsoft. The EU would rather have a "ballot screen" for users to choose which browsers to download and install as well as which one to set as default. The bundling requirement might end up becoming a responsibility for manufacturers.'"
Re:Forcing OEMs? (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft's rules do not disallow OEMs bundling browsers.
Believe it or not.
Re:Forcing OEMs? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The EU is still beating this dead horse? (Score:3, Informative)
I agree that the browser wars are dead, and that there are much worse things with MS than their practices with IE. What boils my blood most is how the price of XP dropped off the market for no particular reason once we started seeing OEMs put Linux on netbooks. Why was XP still $100 about 5 years after and all of a sudden it's down to $30? Isn't this far more abusive as a monopoly? It's not even just one corner aspect of the OS, it's the entire thing that they're using to lock you in. I just don't get it.
Re:This just cracks me up... (Score:5, Informative)
Advertising revenue. Look up how Mozilla Corporation makes money from partnerships with, possibly among others, Google.
WALL ST JOURNAL PAYWALL (Score:5, Informative)
Re:They'll cock it up (Score:4, Informative)
Win7 lets you remove iexplore.exe but not Trident's libraries (the rendering engine).
Re:This just cracks me up... (Score:5, Informative)
The Mozilla Foundation makes many tens of millions of dollars from Google. If nobody installs Firefox, Google isn't going to be giving them that kind of money anymore.
Re:For fuck's sake... (Score:5, Informative)
The anti-competitive behavior is not the bundling of IE itself, but rather the conditions Microsoft imposed upon OEMs who wished to install/default to other browsers. It has at times entirely disallowed other browsers and at others given a substantial discount for making IE the only/default browser on new systems.
I don't know to what extent this crap is still the case today.
Re:They'll cock it up (Score:3, Informative)
Re:For fuck's sake... (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft wasn't doing anything wrong bundling IE in the 90's and they're not doing anything wrong now.
Yeah, except for breaking antitrust law and undermining the operation of the free market in a way that almost certainly is responsible for the fact that Web technologies have almost completely stopped advancing for the last decade.
Re:This just cracks me up... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:When Big Daddy Warbucks Leaves Town (Score:4, Informative)
Good point. However..
1) Market share. Chrome doesn't have that many takers yet in the greater scheme of things. A lot of people use Firefox. Most of those go to Firefox-ised Google as their default homepage. Not to be sniffed at.
2) Goodwill by association. Firefox is good and open source and people like it. Never hurts.
Suppose Chrome get to 70% of the browser market, Firefox 20% and the rest 10%. 20% (ish) of people going to Google as their homepage (by default) is still something you want. Yes.
Re:Read much? (Score:3, Informative)
If you were literate, you might understand that no one is requiring Microsoft to support other browsers. Microsoft is being required to make options available.
Why is this Microsoft's problem and not that of the OEMs selling the computers ?
Because Microsoft made it their problem when they dictated to OEMs what software will and will not be included on shipping computers. Abusing a monopoly ring a bell? These facts are ancient history now so I find it hard to believe your ingnorance is not intentional.
Re:No fan of MS, but... (Score:4, Informative)
This is not market regulation. It is enforcement of the law following a complaint of Opera. As simple as that. Microsoft fooled the Commission once with a soft remedy in the media player case, so the Commission won't let that happen a second time and be more specific.
Re:This just cracks me up... (Score:3, Informative)
And so you are killing ONE monopoly(IE) and strengthening another (Google). Does that make any sense? And it wasn't like it was hard to toss IE before. hell every new PC build I do here in the shop composes three steps when I have the desktop up. 1-plug in flash. 2-Install Firefox 3- Toss IE Icon in the trash and replace with Firefox Icon, which i load with ABP and Forecast Fox, which my customers really love.
Two things...
1) No law against being a monopoly. Only against abusing your monopoly status to gain undue influence in other markets.
So Microsoft, Intel, Google or anybody else is not now and never has been punished for being a monopoly. Google is close, but not yet a monopoly, and they have been given a few warnings from the EU and other organisations already to play nice or else, and have unlike MS, chosen to avoid the "or else" bit.
2) If that is your idea of "tossing" IE, then Please let me know where you work, so I can avoid getting a computer that you built. You do not fill me with confidence about the quality of your work.
To me this is just the EU being really fucking dumb, yet again. Anybody remember XP-N? For those that hadn't heard of it, the EU forced MSFT to make an sell a version of XP with no media player called XP-N. I'm sure there is a landfill in Eastern Europe filled with XP-N discs because the retailers said they couldn't give them away and it was more worthless than an AOL CD.
The dumb bit was letting MS sell Windows in something other than the N version. It was pointless then, and it is pointless now. They have however learned from this mistake, and are not being so gullible when dealing with MS these days.
And what if you don't have the Internet up yet,hmmm? Most routers require a browser to do the initial config. So if i am in the EU I have the choice of plugging my Windows machine straight into the net(and get boned) or not having the net at all because I can't set my router until i download a browser, which i can't do without setting my router. Gee, I wonder how many other ways this can go wrong? Dumb EU, just dumb.
If most routers require a browser for config, they can use the browser that the user installed during configuration of the PC, the browser that comes on the hard disk or on a CD with a selection of others from the OEM, or use any of a selection of browsers on the router CD, or a magazine cover disk. Not too hard is it? And as all PC browsers are freeware, no problem distributing them on the disk. Or are you worried about the fraction of a penny that it will add to the cost of the router to redo the master disk? And before you mention it, Joe Average doesn't set up a router himself.
In the instruction manual of the router..
Step 1) insert the router installation CD.
Step 2) choose the preferred browser from this list. Check can be made to bring up the default browser if present. and press install.
Step 3) Type (supplied ip address for router in the address box of your chosen browser)
Step 4) Enter user name and password in the Router start page (default user name and password usually written on base of router or the box)
Step others.. ) do what you need to to get it working, varies according to router.
Pretty simple hmmmm? Works just like it used to a few years ago.
My first router even came with a browser free install app. Although the instruction pamphlet did detail the manual configuration method too.
Not so long ago, a browser was an optional app. Not installed in every copy of Windows. Scary I know, but back in those days, when you inserted the ISP setup disk or an disk from a magazine cover, there was the option to install the browser of your choice. Back then, it was IE 3/4/Netscape. There even used to be Windows update patches and demo virus scanners before the net connection was pretty much assumed. That was where I got most of my software in those days.
Re:I demand multiple radios in my new car (Score:1, Informative)
Yes, and Microsoft does not have a monopoly on operating systems. Q.E.D.
American and European courts have decided that they do. You might disagree with that but MS has had the best lawyers on the planet arguing for them and failed so I doubt that you can present any arguments that would convince people otherwise. Whilst a monopoly is a "sole supplier of good or service", it is not a clear-cut line since you have to define what the product is. If it's only defined as operating systems, they don't. And if it's defined as operating systems for consumer use, you could still argue that Macintosh consitutes a different supplier but if it's defined as PC operating systems for which consumers can buy software and games in virtually every electronics store, MS does become the only supplier.
Re:Read much? (Score:3, Informative)
That's because Norton is paying the OEM's a small amount of money and Microsoft hasn't been able to convince the OEM's because of it.