Microsoft: No browserless Windows 7 after all | Beyond Binary - CNET News | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft: No browserless Windows 7 after all | Beyond Binary - CNET News

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10 pointsErrantX7 comments

Why force people to make a choice? It's in the best interest of the computer user to have a browser installed by default. Since Microsoft makes a browser, it makes sense to use that one with their operating system. End of story.

Yeah, there's history behind this, but really, it was TWELVE YEARS AGO. It's time to move on.

An operating system should come with some basic tools like a command shell, file manager, web browser, text editor, calculator, media player etc. As a user, if I want to upgrade any one of those things, I can do so. But please don't leave them off the system just because there are 3rd party alternatives. And please don't show me a screen full of options for every one of them.

This was a silly issue to squabble over back in the 90's, and it's only gotten sillier since.

Back then people didn't take issue with IE shipping with windows, but as Windows. MS tried its typical bullying tactics to squeeze out competitors. IE became so tightly integrated into Windows that it a) couldn't be removed without wrecking the OS, and b) enjoyed low-level (performance enhancing) OS access that was refused to competing browser/app makers.

So it was not silly to "squabble" over it. MS wanted to dominate the web as a proprietary platform and extension of Windows. This was a real threat back then.

You could be using "IE 5.8 service pack 14" right now, writing jscript (not javascript), MSHTML, and active-x plugins, enjoying horrific security issues exacerbated by a browser monoculture, and being treated as a second class citizen if you use any other browser than said IE 5.8, since you'd have to reverse engineer all the interfaces and get sued in the process to make active-x etc. work in competing browsers.

Your first paragraph made sense. I think you lost it in the IE5.8 world. Which is why you may have been down-voted.

I think the point being that removing/unbundling the browser may not be as important as making sure that users aren't only locked in to using your browser.

I think you forgot that Microsoft has a near-monopoly on the consumer OS market, and as such a company in such a position, is subject to a lot of governmental regulation and scrutiny. Microsoft's ability to do anything with windows should be looked at carefully by all anti-trust bodies in all countries.

With this in mind, the governments must create a free market for browsers where there is a mono-culture of operating systems.

This is a big win, IMO. As much as I despise Microsoft's monopoly over the desktop OS market (and to a lesser extent, the browser market), the decision to ship Win7 without a browser was douchebaggery on a whole new level. A browser is now an integral part of every OS, just like a file manager or an image viewer. Removing it does more harm than good, and only serves to confuse the average user.

I was always suspicious of this 'no browser' thing. How did they expect people to select and then download a browser without a browser already installed?

Sure you could have installed files which connect to ftp or something like that, but is it really worth making new users go through that? I think the solution they are going with is great, as it lets average users know other browsers exist. But i suspect most will still stick with IE.

I am caught wondering if the placement of Google, and the big google logo might be a boon to Chrome, as lots of people I'm sure will start and think 'oh, i want to go to google', clicking the link and thinking that is what it does.

r.e. the Google logo. That was my initial thought too - a great place to have your brand.

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