MS removes IE from Windows7

[Rosuav]

Originally posted by Riek
Down the track there is a dirty great problem that corrupts the app, or a security vulnerability lets Bob the hacker compromise your box and do something nasty. Which Service Desk will get the calls from the user, and which should?

The app is the app. If some version is provided on the OS install CD (or on the preload image), that doesn't change matters; it's still the responsibility of Google to keep Chrome up to date, and of the Mozilla community to maintain the Fox. To be honest, I don't think either their service desks or Microsoft's will be fielding the calls - if people want to take something back to the place they got it from for repairs, they're going to take it to some local reseller of computer hardware, not to the ultimate origin of the software. And unless that local reseller is Harvey Norman, the techs there should have enough nous to comprehend that Firefox problems don't get sent to Microsoft.

The difference between IE and all other browsers, though, is that with others it's usually not difficult to pin down a vulnerability to a browser (as opposed to the OS). Perhaps not for Joe Average, but certainly for those who spend their lives tinkering with these things, it's not hard to figure the origin of a crash or intrusion. With IE, everything's so intermeshed that (a) you can't really pin down whether it's browser or OS, but (b) in many cases it hardly really even matters, because the same vulnerability can be exploited elsewhere. So who gets the calls with IE problems? Well, the same as above, only they're even more powerless to fix anything.

[Bael]

I believe Bill Gates already had an awesome quote about including other browsers with a windows install... and it went something like:

"Asking Microsoft to include Netscape with every windows installation is like asking Coca-Cola to include a Pepsi with each six-pack of Coke."

I think it's stupid, but I guess if it's necessary to get people to stop whining about Microsoft having a monopoly... whatever works. It would be good for them to separate the browser from the OS (though way, way too many apps use HTML for documentation these days)... but I don't think including alternate browsers with the OS is the way to go... maybe an option to say click on the internet link and it'll give you a list of "popular" bowsers to pull off the internet or something. But I somehow don't think that'll be the solution either. So I guess we'll see.

[Deokoria]

There was never anything stopping manufacturers from installing additional browsers on the machines they sell, and I still fail to see how this is Microsoft's fault. Every Windows PC I've bought in the last 10 years has had non-MS software installed on it -- if Mozilla and Google want their browsers preloaded on systems, talk to HP, Dell, and the rest of the manufacturers.

I don't like IE, but there's no way I would uninstall it from any of my machines even if possible. There are still sites that only work properly in IE, so even though I may only have to fire it up once a month, it's still not completely redundant.

[Maelgrim]

Originally posted by Deokoria
There was never anything stopping manufacturers from installing additional browsers on the machines they sell, and I still fail to see how this is Microsoft's fault. Every Windows PC I've bought in the last 10 years has had non-MS software installed on it -- if Mozilla and Google want their browsers preloaded on systems, talk to HP, Dell, and the rest of the manufacturers.

You're completely right Dee.

I think it's less that they haven't tried, and more that Dell/Acer/Toshiba/HP are turning around and saying "You're competing with one of our biggest customers. How much do you plan to pay us to piss them off?"

Hence, legal BAAAAWWWWW