Comments on: One Windows. Multiple Browsers. Bundled. I Like It!

By: rosewater

rosewater — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 18:25:05 +0000

I use all of those web browsers mentioned, except for Safari (which last time I used it, was pretty slow on windows) and Flock, which I have not investigated yet.

By: Chris Peterson

Chris Peterson — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:06:46 +0000

After years of complaining about windows “bloat” it seems strange to be calling for more stuff. The fact is that every OS needs a default browser, and the reason is the users. I’m sorry but the average user does not really care which browser they use, they just want one, and having internet services built into the OS is critical.

MSFT is slowly losing browser market share, even with their silly bundling practices, its so 90′s to be still arguing about this.

By: ediedi

ediedi — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:56:13 +0000

All MS have to do to make it right is to make IE easily and cleanly unistallable. I don’t think it would make sense to make them bundle other companies’ browsers (even so, it would have to apply also to Apple)

By: pond

pond — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 13:19:19 +0000

It seems to me that with the windows-live and ms-cloud services coming, and msft eager to chow down on subscription plans and dominating anything that goes beyond the desktop-client model, that IE becomes even MORE important to them. Getting a built-in browser that fully accesses the ms-cloud services and subscriptions is something vital; can msft be sure that opera, safari, firefox would do that well? But they can make sure that ID does.

My understanding of Windows7 is that whatever version you buy, or comes bundled on your new pc, it will have portions of windows missing – portions that always used to come with windows. Things like Outlook Express, for example. Losing these modules means that new machines boot faster, run leaner; but many users like these modules, and of course msft would like us all to use them. So it provides methods to download them.

I don’t know if these modules will be free, or for pay. But it’s also been said that Windows7 lower versions will be able to be upgraded to higher versions via simple click and pay, built in to the OS. This requires some sort of internet handling, and the easiest way to do this is via IE.

Once you are fed up with 3-apps only Win7 starter edition, you will want to give msft your money (and your credit card info) to upgrade, seamlessly, over the net. And now msft has that credit card info, and it becomes Amazon-simple to buy other services and features from msft. Voila, msft has now moved seamlessly, if only partially, into cloud computing, subscription-based software, and SAAS.

Having a Firefox-edition Windows7 sounds great to me, but it does further complicate the whole bundling/buying process – 6 versions of windows7 now become 36? Nightmare! – and it doesn’t further msft’s ultimate goals of maintaining predominance and de facto monopoly over the pc.

By: CS Clark

CS Clark — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 13:12:13 +0000

How would they respond if Microsoft suddenly renounced its browser boogeyman status forever? They would say ‘That was easy, let’s see what else we can make them eat.’

By: Harry McCracken

Harry McCracken — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 01:59:15 +0000

In case it wasn’t clear–my reference to wacky Europeans was in jest. And I agree that Microsoft’s intermingling of Windows and IE hasn’t done anyone any favors in the long run.

–Harry

By: L1A

L1A — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 01:56:00 +0000

“Once again, those wacky Europeans are making life difficult for Microsoft.”

I think MS made life difficult for themselves when they made EI part of Windows, instead stand alone app that you can actually delete.