Bye Bye IE

I may be a die hard fan of all things open source however I do have an interest in certain Microsoft products mainly because some of them do have their advantages. One such a product I have been following the development of is Microsoft Windows 7. Now some of you may be aware of the issues Microsoft is having due to the very valid and needed point that the EU has brought up about them having supremacy over internet browser market share because MS IE is shipped with their Windows operating system. (see here for more information -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Microsoft_antitrust_case). It now seems that this means for MS to ship Windows 7 in the EU at the same time as their global launch Windows 7 (in the EU) will ship without a browser at all!

I get this information from the following quote out of the latest TechNet newsletter (from Microsoft).

You may have seen in the news a few weeks back that, in order for Europe to get Windows 7 at the same time as the global launch on 22 October, Windows 7 will have to be shipped without Internet Explorer. So, when you buy a new computer, you will not have a browser as part of the operating system.

Now to me this is not the solution what they need to do is simply change the default first run page so that it comes up with a third party comparison of the major browsers and then links to each of them followed by a list of all the other browsers.

I may be wrong here but that seems to be a better solution seen as most people setup their internet connection as the first thing they do on their computer. By shipping their OS without one they make is so that it is near impossible for the un-tech-savy users of computers out there to even connect to the internet and even make a choice about which browser they want to use let alone what news site they want to read!

Microsoft. I have a message for you. Well done on F***ing up again. Now not only do you not truly conform to web standards but now you don’t even allow your less technologically advanced users access the internet. Well done indeed.