You are never too old to be what you might have been - George (Mary) Eliot (Evans)
SOFTWARE giant Microsoft has denied anti-trust complaints about its antics coming from the browser maker Opera.
Last week, Opera moaned to the European Commission that Vole was abusing its dominant market position to lock users into the Internet Explorer Web browser.
Its main argument was that by bundling IE with the Windows operating system it was hard work replacing it with something else.
However the Empire struck back over the weekend saying that it would never unbundle IE from Windows so there.
In a press release, to News.com Microsoft said that the world rejoiced at the inclusion of IE in Windows and for every second that Windows was without IE, a baby died. Or words to that effect.
It said that consumers and tin makers were free to choose any browers they wish. However IE has been an integral part of the Windows operating system for over a decade and supports a wide range of Web standards.
A spokesVole said that it was not difficult to set Opera up as the default browser and if PC manufacturers want to preinstall any browser as the default on Windows they can do so. ยต
Opera Software is a bit late to the party. If it wanted to submit these claims it should have done it long ago when Netscape and others filed suit. Now it doesn't even have a coalition to fight Microsoft with.
Have you seen a Windows PC with preinstalled Firefox, Opera, Safari, K-Meleon, Seamonkey or some other non-IE browser?

I haven't ;)
Being one of the only people I know using opera in the states, I must say Microsoft really does monopolize on the web browser market. Altough everyones Browser is free and readily available for download. Ie remains the dominant browser because it is there for the budget pc shopper (cheapo computers). I love opera faster browsing, more tricks than you can shake a stick at and pretty reliable. I have not used ie for anything other than what windows requires, the updates. I hate even having to do that. I am not really sure why opera is complaining though, the user base has to be huge with the nintendo deal (ds and WII browsers powered by opera).
Everytime Windows boots and loads the default browser bundle, Internet Explorer, God kills a kitten. Call it a pre-emptive strike against what God knows will come later.

Users need to understand that there is a profound difference between entering into a serious relationship with a real browser such as Opera and dallying around with what Microsoft calls a browser, no matter how many times Internet Explorer throws itself at your feet, no matter how much "multimedia" Internet Explorer downloads when you are trying to quench those pop-ups.

I hope the EU decides that family is still important and places strict limits on the behavior, the enticement, that Internet Explorer offers to uninformed users.
But they are missing the IMHO most important complaint - that Microsoft doesn't follow web standards. It's the combination of making proprietary pages and giving people the only browser that can display these correctly that should be punished.
Personally i think the Opera is fighting the wrong side of the argument here. the point shouldn't be that the OS comes with IE. i think the argument should be more the fact that to remove IE is to do a couple things to the machine. One is close security concerns :-). Two would be to modify the registry and do all sorts of things that the common user has no idea trying to remove the browser completely. Three is definitely the fact that you can not even update your windows platform without IE which is bull.

I agree that opera is a little late with their argument however they still have valid points if they would only put their efforts in the right areas.
Opera should have argued that because IE's inclusion in windows that many "Web designers" are dumbasses that refuse to follow standards that allow any browser to view content properly. Seems that if anyone designes a site that work beautifully for anything but IE they tends to have problems with IE or your super duper uber vulnerable to some of the gazillion exploits out there.

Opera is a code nazi unfortunately therefore they have problems accessing many kinds of active content on websites. Personally I use Opera on all OS's I use and enjoy its features over every other browser but I always keep firefart and internet exploder (or IE's for linux) by my side just in case some half wit decides to be dumb.
I love Opera - I'm using it right now. But why can't they just get over it? Windows belongs to Microsoft who should be able to bundle anything they like into it, if you ask me. 

All Microsoft seem to do these days is bend over backwards for some flimsy anti-competitive claim from some whiny company like Google, Symantec, Adobe, Mozilla... The list goes on. 

Suck it up, guys.
No need to make a law limiting there monopoly. Teachers will help teach the way of the world to students.

I already fell into this trap too being accused of using Warez for using Firefox.

http://dissfunktional.wordpress.com/2007/12/16/high-school-student-in-detention-for-using-firefox/
i love opera too...
ROFL !
Yeah, I'm sure IE supports plenty of standards. What a shame Microsoft "forgot" the W3C ones.
Why don't you all stop moaning?

IE is free. If you love Opera then use it. If you love Firefox then use it..

When IE came out browsers were NOT free; it received much praise at the time for being free and for being an excellent browser.

I benefitted as a consumer by having a free excellent browser. 

The security thig is a red herring. When a browser is popular (just like an operating system) it becomes a target as we have seen recently. 

I used Opera a long time ago and didn't think much of it. I use Firefox and think its quite good. I normally use IE. 

Any way why should Microsoft have to stick the browsers of other companies in their operating system?

So go off and use whatever browser you want and stop moaning about something that is given free that a great many people like.
this is too funny , microsoft is windows , opera is a leach on windows , where do thy get off trying to sue to owner of the operating system for what is in the operating system, is this just a hidden tax on ms?