MS to offer 'browser selection' in the EU

[Trooper110]

Microsoft caves to EU pressure, will offer browser ballot - Ars Technica

Anyone else find this to be ridiculous? I'm not a fan of IE at all in the first place, but I don't think MS should be forced to bundle competitor's browsers in to their product. Heck, I use Firefox at home....but I have IE because due to all the quirks IE6 and it's predecessors contained there's stuff that just doesn't work in anything but IE.

I also find it ridiculous that the EU told them no, you can't send your OS out with no browser and let the OEMs or consumers add it, you have to include all the others instead.

[Ghost_Rain]

I know the version on win 7 I pre-orded come with IE8 on a separate CD as you can read from the link below

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/110478...l/Product.html

[juneau]

I know the version on win 7 I pre-orded come with IE8 on a separate CD as you can read from the link below

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/110478...l/Product.html

That's what i heard too.

[{CLR}geneSW]

Well, you don't really need IE to run Windows anymore IIRC...

[mapes]

Well, you don't really need IE to run Windows anymore IIRC...

Two words....Windows Update

[{CLR}geneSW]

Two words....Windows Update

Shouldn't need it for that either... Windows update can be handled by windows itself without the need for IE. Automatic updates. Just set them to download only, or to alert you when they are available and you can d/l them directly through the update manager (which doesn't require IE either) and pllay which ones you want.

[Sirex]

Plus windows 7 uses a built in program like thing now and not a webpage, least that was the plan.

So really IE is not needed.

Problem I see is, lots of things use IE, steam, xfire, napster, are just a few, to display things on screen.

This is where the issue is going to raise.

[mapes]

Plus windows 7 uses a built in program like thing now and not a webpage, least that was the plan.

So really IE is not needed.

Problem I see is, lots of things use IE, steam, xfire, napster, are just a few, to display things on screen.

This is where the issue is going to raise.

Well on some level I can understand where the EU is coming from. I mean MS does this tactic called "embrace and extend". They'll take an open standard then "add features" that breaks stuff with non MS apps that don't use those "extended features". Really people that write things should just write them browser agnostic

[Dead...Again]

I don't think they should be forced to bundle other browsers with their OS. The problem is getting the other browsers if the OS doesn't even come with IE. If you don't have a browser, how do you get on the interwebs to download Firefox?

[mapes]

I don't think they should be forced to bundle other browsers with their OS. The problem is getting the other browsers if the OS doesn't even come with IE. If you don't have a browser, how do you get on the interwebs to download Firefox?

Of course they should ship it with IE. It's just that IE shouldn't be central to the OS. You could always use FTP, or wget to get the browser

[Dead...Again]

Of course they should ship it with IE. It's just that IE shouldn't be central to the OS. You could always use FTP, or wget to get the browser

I agree with that. If you so desire, you should be able to remove IE without it messing up anything else in the OS.