Tuesday, January 15th 2008

Microsoft Investigated Again in Europe

The European Commission, fresh from a major court victory over Microsoft, launched new antitrust investigations into the software giant on Monday, on suspicion it abused its market dominance. Investigators will see whether Microsoft broke competition rules to help its Web browser and its Office and Outlook products, after complaints from Norwegian Web browser company Opera and a coalition of technology firms including IBM, Nokia Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc., RealNetworks Inc. and Oracle Corp. The European Commission opened two formal probes. The first one - triggered by a complaint from Norway's Opera Software ASA - will look at whether Microsoft illegally gives away its Internet Explorer browser for free with Windows. Opera had called on the EU to strip Internet Explorer out of Windows or carry alternative browsers. The second investigation will examine whether Microsoft withheld information from companies that wanted to make products compatible with its software - including Office word processing, spreadsheet and office management tools, some server products and Microsoft's push into the Internet under the name of the .NET framework. Microsoft said it would cooperate fully: "We are committed to ensuring that Microsoft is in full compliance with European law and court obligations," it said in a statement.
Sources: eitb24, Yahoo! News
Add your own comment

89 Comments on Microsoft Investigated Again in Europe

#76
Dangle
I'll NEVER use opera. I'll never even give it a chance. No way in hell after this lame, bogus lawsuit. Go F*nk yourselves, Opera! I hereby vow to NEVER surf the web on the Wii EVER again.
Posted on Reply
#77
Triprift
xfireLets leave it then. I still like opera.Period.:toast:
cool xfire i respect that i prefer ie but thts just me im not gonna bite someones head of for using sumthing different. :toast:
Posted on Reply
#78
Black Hades
I did not try to advertise Opera. I am sorry if it seemed like that.

I was writing all that in a review style comment not in the marketing kind. Anybody can use whatever browser it wants, at a certain level it's relative to the user's taste.

For me and most of my clients that I introduce Opera to (I work in IT hardware/software service) there is no way back to other browsers, I dislike bloatware in general and until the other browsers are optimized I'll continue to use it.

I was a FF supporter up to a certain version.. then things changed. If Opera will be the crappy browser I'll just defend the next best browser.

I'm not a Opera fanboy, but I am upset to see people bashing it for reasons like "it's uglier!" or "has different shortcut keys".

Everybody has the right to choose his/her favorite browser. Yes, if you're careful and you don’t like to swim with the sharks (warez sites, porn and so on) and if you're not upset that a page renders 3 seconds later than it should, you could just use IE...

By the way, I am sure that many surf for porn and warez these days :)
Posted on Reply
#79
xfire
he meant I was advertising and I just checked the identify and mask as I.E options are there in Linux versions of opera too. Just need some pages to test it.
Posted on Reply
#80
Black Hades
btarunrIrrespective of that Opera sucks. It sucks for its UI, its incompatibility with several standards, despite the Acid2 test pass it renders most common websites like crap. [...]
And I ask you, is FF any different at that? or any other browser except IE for that matter.
Posted on Reply
#81
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
Black HadesAnd I ask you, is FF any different at that? or any other browser except IE for that matter.
Despite failing the Acid2 test, Firefox 2 is the most standards compliant browser after IE. Try running a ssi script on Opera, you'll know.
Posted on Reply
#82
Black Hades
btarunrDespite failing the Acid2 test, Firefox 2 is the most standards compliant browser after IE.
I am not familiar with the Opera code since is not open source, one of it's flaws actually. It does render some pages rather clunky but that has nothing to do with it's render engine. But most of those glitches are caused by the fact that web dev's don’t always adhere to the W3C web standards. FF is more tolerant with coding mistakes that is true.
However a few months ago FF had more security flaws than IE. I have all 3 browsers installed however I do not trust FF or IE (yet) for my credit card transactions.

At this exact time this is the security status of the most common browsers:

IExplorer 7.x: 7 security holes; - Status: Moderately critical (3 of 5)

FireFox 2.x: 4 security holes; - Status: Less critical (2 of 5)

Opera 9.x: 0 security holes; - Status: Normal (0 of 5)

Safari 2.x: 3 security holes; - Status: Less critical (2 of 5)

Konqueror 3.x: 2 security holes; - Status: Moderately critical (3 of 5)

I do not want everybody to start using Opera just like that and I am certainly not trying to convince btarunr that he should just hop right back in Opera wagon just because I think it’s the better browser at the moment. Like I said it’s about personal taste at this point.
I just want to raise the level of awareness of the general public about how things really are, and about how much Opera Software contributed to what the internet is right now. I bet that many features that it has currently implemented will eventually be integrated in the other browsers, as it has happened until now.

Back on topic now, as this discussion has derailed a bit, I think it's ok for Microsoft to bundle it's explorer as version 7 is user friendly and is a huge leap (partially because it has "borrowed" code from FF and because it has a rather cleaned up interface now).
Posted on Reply
#83
Darkrealms
If we are talking about standards now as being Microsofts fault . . . then in a sad way I would say that is a good thing.
Honestly I'd hate to have Opera or FireFox trying to make the internet standards. The companies just aren't big enough to pull it off. Maybe if they pulled together a coalition of major companies to create an internet standard that would work.
Posted on Reply
#84
Black Hades
DangleI'll NEVER use opera. I'll never even give it a chance. No way in hell after this lame, bogus lawsuit. Go F*nk yourselves, Opera! I hereby vow to NEVER surf the web on the Wii EVER again.
There isn’t any lawsuit; it's just a formal complaint that will lead to an investigation. Period

However it's good to see that you are being mature and moderate about it, and that you aren’t one to see things just in black and white...
Posted on Reply
#85
Black Hades
DarkrealmsIf we are talking about standards now as being Microsofts fault . . . then in a sad way I would say that is a good thing.
Honestly I'd hate to have Opera or FireFox trying to make the internet standards. The companies just aren't big enough to pull it off. Maybe if they pulled together a coalition of major companies to create an internet standard that would work.
Everybody should cooperate & contribute at making web standards… That is the whole point. By no means should Microsoft be left out, but the fact that Microsoft is doing just that to the competition isn’t exactly a good thing for us and the dev's. :(
Posted on Reply
#86
imperialreign
MS won't ever have internet standards, because we all know Al Gore invented teh i-net; so it's his fault MS uses IE and that Opera sucks, and without approval of teh Gore, standards are subjective.
Posted on Reply
#87
Wile E
Power User
xfirehe meant I was advertising and I just checked the identify and mask as I.E options are there in Linux versions of opera too. Just need some pages to test it.
That just spoofs the browser's User Agent String. It tells whatever server you are navigating to that you are using IE in stead of what you are really using. You can do it in FF as well. It still doesn't allow IE only features to work, it only gets around a website's browser check. If the website has IE specific code, it still won't run.
Posted on Reply
#88
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
I tried the same with Konqueror (browserID manipulation)...doesn't work.
Posted on Reply
#89
Darkrealms
Black HadesEverybody should cooperate & contribute at making web standards… That is the whole point. By no means should Microsoft be left out, but the fact that Microsoft is doing just that to the competition isn’t exactly a good thing for us and the dev's. :(
I agree with that. I don't recall too many companies trying to get together to create a standard either though. If enough companies agreed on a standard and developed some good tools for it Microsoft would half to adapt. But that hasn't happened yet : (
If its going to be an all out war on it though, I was just saying MS has the most ground to stand on to standardize.
Unfortunately in my opinion Opera isn't helping a standardization out.
Posted on Reply
Add your own comment
Jan 27th, 2025 00:11 EST change timezone

New Forum Posts

Popular Reviews

Controversial News Posts