I have two points to make here.
First: How are you going to download and install the clients for Opera or Firefox if Microsoft doesn't bundle Internet Explorer with Windows?
Second: Quit with the double standards. Why is Apple and all other operating systems manufacturers allowed to bundle their respective browser but Microsoft is not? I'm not a Microsoft fan boy but seriously this is bordering harassment.

The fact the IE is dominant is not based on preference of consumers, they had NO Choice in the matter. The fact that Safari is included NOW is because IE for Mac was discontinued by MS several years ago after languishing in disrepair and lack of any good stability nor following W3C standards, Apple had to make something just to keep up. If MS includes a browser in their OS then Apple must in order to compete, monkey see, monkey do as it were. For MS to put IE and its Windows only COM model underneath the browser does not make it the better browser, no matter that you say you cant code for other browsers, its merely because you choose to code for IE specific features and traits. If you developed according to W3C standards only and left IE out in the cold, then the millions of users might finally get frustrated and let MS know that they were unhappy with IE, and tell them so, but MS knows you Dev's will wimp out and oblige their standards, so you have your troubles, from using their IE.

I accept the concept behind W3C standards, but let's be fair with ourselves it's like herding 19 million cats.

Argumentativeness ad nauseam benefits no one, who wants to really engage in the fatigue of another browser war or fight over W3C standards again? I certainly don't.

19 million cats are going to go where they want to go regardless, so what is really at the heart of the matter here? Can there be such as thing as strict standards for creativity, expansion, experimentation and exploration? A world wide web of oh no you can't do that. It doesn't conform to the standard.

IE has its flaws, but it also encourages designers to go one step beyond and take chances and it's never kept me from trying other browsers. Even during the height of the browser wars I never felt like I didn't have a choice. What is it with this industry these days anyway? Do they honestly believe that consumers are so completely clueless? Has not having Google, Youtube or MySpace tattooed onto the Windows OS vanquished these services into obscurity?

I do my best to design for all browsers, but it's not always possible and my point is this. Creativity and ingenuity cannot be categorized, classified, or reduced down to one size fits all or denounced as lazy because it doesn't. The standard competitors should be pursuing is encouraging all creative evolution including its imperfections. Who can say that an evolutionary flaw did not evolve into speech, wings or flight to the moon?

I have some points to make here. Like others said, "you need an internet browser in any operating system to actually get things going (network wise). I used Opera for a day, then uninstalled it. It's just an internet browser, chances are people who buy computers now-a-days are using IE because, well, it serves it's purpose! Firefox is my browser of choice; for the nice speed/security/bookmarking system... you can't put that on an operating system as a primary browser (as well as opera), where would the "open source pride" go? Leave things how they are: typical users with IE, and advanced users with there "pretty, and efficient" open source browsers.

I've not too fond of this cases,
FenderGuy2112

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My New Myspace Music Project.

While all the remarks are among an assortment of topics, from W3C standards support, the consumer's choice, to advanced users getting the browser they want...all of you keep overlooking one key factor...IE did not get in Windows all by itself. It got there when a Monopoly company placed it in Windows to "cut off Netscape's air supply", as well as into NT as IIS Server, for the same reason.

The fact that the browser is still part of Windows is because the US Government and Judge Colleen Kollar Kotelly did not have guts enough to hold with the original court conclusion by Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, that Microsoft was a monopoly, and was guilty of Tying the browser to the OS, thereby blocking other companies from getting fair and equal access to the market.

To continue to allow them to prosper and interfere with fair opportunity is akin to pretending the case didnt exist, and that Microsoft got their dominant position fair and square, and did it based on merits and supreme design skills, which we ALL KNOW is far from a fact, as is evidenced in the typical modus operandi that is their usual business practice even to this day.

So while you want to give them a break, or not even give a slap on the wrist, you can bet your sweet bippy, that if you were Netscape, or DR DOS, or QDOS, or Digital Equipment, Stack Systems, Sun, Novell or Apple, or any of a number of other firms hurt by Microsoft, you would expect to see them get their comeuppance.

Step back and pretend the shoes are on your feet, then see how it feels to have to take-on a company that does not operate in a fair manner. They broke the law then, and they break the law now, if Opera and the EU are able to control this animal thru sanctions, fines, and unbundling Windows, then the whole tech landscape will see opportunity to design new products, and create growth without losing their idea to theft my Microsoft. A little goes a long way, and now its time to start correcting them.

"So while you want to give them a break, or not even give a slap on the
wrist, you can bet your sweet bippy, that if you were Netscape, or DR
DOS, or QDOS, or Digital Equipment, Stack Systems, Sun, Novell or
Apple, or any of a number of other firms hurt by Microsoft, you would
expect to see them get their comeuppance."

What a load of tripe. The points of fact are;

1. It isn't Opera's OS.

2. Nothing in the Windows OS is causing Opera to perform poorly. It simply isn't a very good browser.

3. The end-user has always had the choice to install and use a competing browser.

Your statement negates the point you are trying to make. The fact is that there ARE other OS developers currently doing the exact same thing as Microsoft.

No one is or has taken Apple into court to sue them to discontinue bundling Safari; no one has taken Ubuntu into court to sue them to discontinue bundling FireFox. If someone did, I would be right there defending Ubuntu and Apple just as vehemently.

The only reason that Opera even stands a chance is because of the ridiculous precedent set by the previous case over Windows Media Player; a decision which in the long run had little to no impact as sales of Windows XP without the bundled Media Player were flatter than a pancake.

Of course they were! The consumer doesn't want less; they want more, or at least a status quo. Given a choice, they will take more every time.

There is a constant debate over the "monopoly" that Microsoft has over the personal computer market. The simple, base fact is that there is not another more robust, user-friendly or widely supported OS on the market for the PC; note that I do not say "better". I have Ubuntu on one of my laptops, and while I love using it, most of the apps are simply not on par with those developed for Windows and there is a bit of a learning curve that your average PC consumer just doesn't want to deal with.

Any time Opera or literally any other software developer wants to step up and produce a truly competitive product, they are more than welcome to do so.

When they do create their own OS, I still won't support anyone telling them what apps they can or cannot bundle with it.

That's the free market system in action; the consumer decides what they want to use, not the courts and not the government. Supply and demand. The application developers design apps to sell them and Windows is the dominant PC consumer OS. Common sense says if you want to make money, you develop your software to function on the largest number of PCs that it can.

Bill Gates and company have taken almost every idea and marketed it as their own intellectual property. There are hundreds of legal cases that track this record. The fact that Bill's Daddy was a lawyer, and a good one, at Preston Gates and Ellis in WA was one of the reasons he was able to STEAL so many ideas and wear out the opponents in court...the same style of creative legal wrangling they do to this day.

With heads in the sand you folks want to give the Dahmer of software, a chance to keep on doing it..perhaps using the idea "better the devil you know, than the devil you dont"..but I digress. I dont care what court slaps microsoft, US or EU, or Korea, but sooner or later "when you live by the sword, you die by the sword" and to have MS in court taking hits for doing wrong, is exactly where they should be, they brought this on themselves.

Its not that Opera is not a better browser, or that they dont build an OS to go with it, its precisely the opposite, that Microsoft builds an OS, and injects the browser in it, as they have done with almost ANY other good product idea that a 3rd party built for the OS. It might be wise to also fault the makers of the apps, since they are dealing with a company that has this dirty dealing history, they shouldve known better. Many people want to build Windows apps, and perhaps some want to "cash out" hoping MS will buy them, but most likely they will be consuned when MS just asks to see the books, the technology notes, appearing to be bargaining in good faith...then they decide to Not Buy the company, and then bundle the feature into the next version of windows. So while you say Consumers are helped, because now Windows has another bloated feature, a feature they didnt ask for, they are actually dealing with stolen goods, and furthermore the other company and its developers and "consumers" are tossed to the rocks, left to go broke or try to reinvent themselves, due to theft of their idea.

So its probably a case of blindly working on Windows apps, howver blind you can be to not see the M.O. of MS is theft of ideas, and remarket them as their own. Look at a few ideas that were 3rd party designs that somehow got improvised or polluted as they were added into Windows: Internet Connection Sharing, Drive Compression, Firewall, GUI, Network APIs, Real Player Video, Java, and Internet Browser.

The fact that Microsoft did not become dominant by playing fair is reason enough for them to suffer the court cases they are seeing now. I hope the EU keeps on putting it to MSFT. I dont care how MS gets taken down a few notches, they deserve every bit of it. I use and support their OS weekly and it never fails to amaze me that anyone would build such garbage, and then it dawns on me, that Windows was not designed, it was cobbled together with many parts of other people's Intellectual Property, and that not having a real road map designed by MS, means that an arm, leg, head and other parts are merely tacked on whenever they see an opportunity to remove a 3rd party company from relevancy, by adding that part to Windows. They are getting the court headaches they deserve.