Antitrust Case Over, Microsoft Ties IE 10 To Win 8 519
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the same-as-it-ever-was dept.
from the same-as-it-ever-was dept.
deadeyefred writes "With the last vestiges of Microsoft's U.S. antitrust consent decree expiring earlier this year, the company is again tying its browser tightly to Windows. In pre-release versions of IE 10 and Windows 8, IE 10 cannot be uninstalled and is required to enable the new 'Metro'-style apps."
I applaud Microsoft their tenacity. (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm glad Microsoft is taking a stand. Nobody is forcing anyone to use Windows or IE, least of all Microsoft.
And last I checked, the competition isn't exactly hurting...
Re:And Linux does too (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:No longer a monopoly (Score:4, Interesting)
I can see this as one of two things - either Microsoft is trying to bump it's browser market share or they are cutting corners in their code to have Windows depending on bits of IE10 to give the core OS functionality.
If this is an attempt at market share, I think it is rather doomed to fail. Gone are the days where people just accepted whatever browser comes with their OS. Even the very non-technical business people that I work with mostly install their browser of choice.
If this is cost cutting and an attempt to re-use code from one thing in another, then I think it will likely just be ignored by many users who don't care as much - but alienate the nerds even more. The types that frequent /. for example, are more and more likely to find reasons for pushing them into no longer using windows (for the ones who still use it that is) and thus putting even more leaks into the ship.
My mother for example uses the computer VERY little and doesn't do much with it. When it is time to upgrade (which is fast approaching) I am seriously considering ninja-installing a distro onto her machine and simply saying "This is the new computer, things are a little different" rather than going through the same thing while installing the latest and greatest from Microsoft. For her, there isn't any difference in finding all the buttons going from XP to Win 7 or Win 8. I may as well get her onto another OS totally.
The problem is IE is the source of many attacks (Score:0, Interesting)
And, since you can't get rid of it (I can install GNOME or XFCE and remove Konqueror completely), you now have a gaping hole.
There are many HTML renderers. MS USED to allow you to plug in a different HTML renderer. And there's no reason why an HTML renderer is necessary with all the whizzbang of the internet for purely system purposes. If the system libraries were IE's HTML rendering WITHOUT ActiveX, then there would have been much less of a problem with the security of Windows.
And since you cannot get away without buying a Windows license in any reasonable scenario and copyright makes DEMANDS that break the purchasing rules (try getting your money back for Windows, and merely using the OS is now constituted acceptance of the license for a pre-activated copy), the inclusion of IE is STILL a monopoly problem.