The point is of course, that MS has a de-facto monopoly on workstation OS – giving them an unfair advantage to promote their own software. Futhermore, MS wants to define the web standards instead of W3C in order to gain monopoly of the web – just as they have achieved monopoly on workstation OS.

But as redux says, there must be a first-time browser installed so you can go online and download the others. And in some cases – e.g. Windows Update, you need the ActiveX functionality of IE.

I agree with Kevin Yanks – MS should have a first-time-on-the-web dialogue allowing you to read about and choose the alternative.

I agree that MS should include, at the very least, an option to disable IE. How much malware infects computers because of IE and the close tie to the OS? ActiveX, while allowing cool features, is a portal to the windows ‘kernal’.

It would be reasonable for the EU and America to require MS to bundle multiple browsers with their OS so there are pre-installed options for the less technically inclined users. A market share level can be used to determine which browsers to include. That would require FireFox and possibly Opera to be included out of the box.

Apple, with

Nobody is forced to follow them, especially at the expense of their own users, just because Opera says so.

I doubt very much MS made IE8 standard compliant because Opera told them to. Could it take a couple of days to do? They did because they thought it was time to do. Some people really don’t know what they talk about.

I’ve uninstalled Opera on two machines because of this move.

Well it is your right. If you think that helps. Chances are that if you now test your sites with IE8 they will be ok for your Opera users as well (without horrible hacks, see the advantage of following standards)

Look long and hard what development system YOU have been using for the last 15 years.

I’m an MS (also) this is why I complain. People complain about the software they use. It is how industry works.

Now that IE has passed the test, I’m sure the whining won’t stop, but at least maybe we can get a break from the browser side.

IE8 is not out yet in case you didn’t notice. And it will take years before the previous crappy releases will disappear. When the damage done will stop, whining will
stop. Anyway I can’t imagine who is not happy with MS finally taking standards into consideration. Point is some people like you continue to say standars are not important (at best) even now that the biggest player does. Once again innovation has nothing to do with implementing standards poorly. You are completly out of target.

if Silverlight gained a significant market share on the web, this would just mean a further block to open standards, as it would only work on IE.

I guees the author of this bit of FUD hasn’t read about Silverlight support and development for both the Macintosh and Linux platform?

There is a very simple logic about how Microsoft deals with all these so-called ’standards’ — that is, to take and use what works for them, and to EXTEND them to suit their purposes.

Standards should be in place to serve as a ‘baseline’ for compatibility, but not to restrict development of NEWER and BETTER standards.

Most of the people who bitch about ActiveX have no idea what it is, or what it was designed to do. It is only unfortunate that so many evil people twisted this very cool and incredibly powerful technology for the wrong purposes.

Another small point that most of the so-called ‘expert’ anti-Microsoft people seem to forget is that if it weren’t for Microsoft, they would HAVE NO WORK AT ALL because 90%+ of desktop and home systems simply wouldn’t exist. (Or at the very least, would be a decade behind where they are now.)

Look long and hard what development system YOU have been using for the last 15 years. Be honest with yourself if nobody else — it was NOT Linux or OSS-based.

(Oh, I forgot — probably 99% of the anti-Microsoft whiners reading this haven’t even known what a computer was for that long — oh well…)

Now that IE has passed the test, I’m sure the whining won’t stop, but at least maybe we can get a break from the browser side.

IE is an inferior product in my eyes as a developer

..and as developer I am a customer too. I don’t give a f.. f.. if Mr John Newbie doesn’t care about making his dad’s grocery-shop site cross-browser.

For my company IE is definetely a hold up to the development process. The general web design process for us is: Make things look good in Firefox the spend the next week sorting things out for IE6 and IE7.

IE is an inferior product in my eyes as a developer, as it creates so many issues. If developers controlled what browser end users would own, IE would fade into obscurity or Microsoft would have resolved these issues already.

Most IE users never experience any problems with the browser because of the extra hard work of developers accross the world. So the real victim is the web developer, spending extra time and effort for IE becomes an extra physical cost.

I dont believe this to be an ethical or fair way of conducting business. Is there anyway to hold Microsoft responsible for extra costs my company has incurred?

In my experience open source is a much better model for creating software. Problems are logged and then the problems are resolved. Where as the Microsoft model tends to be, listen for years about peoples issues with IE6 and then ignore the majority of those issues in favor of new features.

I am not a microsoft hater nor am i against windows being released with its own proprietory software (I cannot imagine users complaining if microsoft office was bundled for free, although i am sure there would be some law suits) I am just looking at the problem objectively. Microsoft should be listening to the people who create sites to be viewed on their software and listen to how they can make the product easier to use and develop for.

Competition – you can’t have any if everyone is an exact clone of everyone else on the field.

Oh god. Making your div tag or the text-align property work the f… way it is described in the W3C papers has nothing to do with competition. It is about making things work the f… way they are expected. Imagine a complex multi-levelled application with multiple developers, you need a public, common and agreed interface to access its services and its internals. If one developer finds a way to make the interface work better, this is fine. But the interface has to be agreed again and eventually modified. If you don’t follow this procedure you are talking about mess. In short you are talking about the internet and the so-called Web 2.0 as they are now.