Posts Tagged opera
Why the EU will not force MSFT to remove IE from Windows
It seems to be all over the news these days: companies are joining the fray left and right in the European Union’s investigation to determine whether Microsoft’s bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows violates anti-trust laws. Just this week Google became another voice in the suit initially begun by the top execs at Opera, a browser that holds around 2% of the overall market share (no wonder they’re upset!). Mozilla is also part of the suit as an “interested 3rd party.” Ultimately, it seems that the EU is more interested in protecting competitors than protecting true competition. As has been proven by Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, if you create a better product, people will actually use it!
But here’s the real problem with this case: if Microsoft is forced to remove IE from Windows, then you face numerous problems, first of which is…how do consumers initially gain access to the Internet? No IE = no browser. Buying a computer through an OEM would allow bundling of that company’s preferred browser, which would help in alleviating some of the difficulty there.
A second issue points directly at Apple. If Apple is allowed to bundle Safari with their OS, how can you possibly tell Microsoft that they can’t bundle IE with Windows? This point is further supported by the fact that most Apple OS X users prefer Firefox over Safari and make it one of the first applications they install after buying a new Mac. Clearly bundling Safari with OS X hasn’t hurt Mozilla at all. I imagine this will be further illustrated once Google releases Chrome 2.0 with support for OS X. Not to say that Safari isn’t popular–it is–but it doesn’t discourage most users from using alternate browsers. Alternatively, you actually can completely remove Safari from OS X if you like–I just tried it. But…why would you want to??
Opera is a pretty small fish in a very big ocean–who is most likely just jealous that most people prefer other browsers over theirs. This suit will get more face time in the news during the coming weeks and months, but in the end, expect everyone’s pockets to be just a little lighter. Not much else will change.
Everyone wants a world record!
It’s an inherant part of our humanity–the desire to out do or out perform “the other guy.” Everyone generally wants to be the best at something or the most reknowned, the best looking, etc, etc. Well, it would appear that the Mozilla Project is no exception to the rule. They’re the maker of one of the world’s greatest web browsers ever. Perhaps you’ve heard of it–it’s called Mozilla Firefox.
In late 2002, Mozilla began developing a new web browser originally named “Phoenix.” Due to trademark issues with another corporation, Mozilla changed the browser’s name to “Firebird,” and then again a year later due to another trademarking issue to it’s current name: “Firefox” or Fx. While it may have taken the browser some time to catch on, there’s no disputing the fact that today it is wildly popular with all flavors of people including consumers. (see Wikipedia for more information) It’s currently at version 2.0, but all that is about to change…
Firefox 3 is the next generation in browser technology. More advanced than Internet Explorer 8, Safari 3, and Opera 9.5, Fx 3 aims to be the best thing that ever happened to the Internet community. For the technically inclined, it has been proven in tests to be fully Acid2 compliant, render pages faster than any competitor (including Javascript and other ‘extra’ elements), and be incredibly effecient both in CPU and memory usage. In a nutshell, Firefox 3 is leaner, meaner, and more powerful than ever and you will definitely notice!
Hopefully I haven’t completed bored you to death with that aplethora of information, but I felt I needed to give some acclaim to the browser’s history before getting to the real point of this entry. It’s called Firefox 3 Download Day 2008 and the goal is to set a world record (determined by the Guiness Book of World Records) of the number of unique downloads of a single piece of software in a 24-hour period.
Simply stated: Mozilla wants EVERYONE to download Firefox 3 within the first 24 hours of its release.
A good idea? I think so! As a user of Firefox 3 (codename: Grand Paradiso) since Beta 1, I can assure you that by the time it is officially released, it will be rock solid–guaranteed. Current in Release Candidate 1 stage, the software is pretty much ready for release to manufacturing (RTM), so I’m expecting the official release date to be announced any day now. I’ll update you when that date is announced.
So, please make a mental note that you want to be part of this effort, and go ahead and pledge your support for Firefox 3 by selecting the link below!!
http://www.spreadfirefox.com/worldrecord – Pledge Now!