InsideMicrosoft

Opera Files Antitrust Complaint Against Microsoft

Opera Software, makers of the greatest browser in the world, the Opera browser, have filed a complaint to the European Commission against Microsoft for antitrust violations. Opera claims that Microsoft’s bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows is stifling competition, and that IE’s noncompliance with established internet standards makes it impossible for other, standards-based browsers, to work with the same websites IE does.

On the one hand, I love Opera. There’s no browser like it on the market, no browser that is as stable or as powerful as theirs. On the other hand…

1. This issue was settled years ago.
2. Firefox is competing just fine, so competition isn’t a problem.
3. Opera filed this in Europe, which has a hostile, biased court system against Microsoft and other successful companies. I mean, look at France, which actually made it illegal for Amazon to offer free shipping. The European Commission seemingly renders decisions by looking at which company has more money and ruling against them.

That said, it is ridiculous that Opera is the most standards-compliant browser out there, yet new websites have trouble running on it, because they are developed for IE and Firefox, and not for the internet itself. However, removing Internet Explorer from Windows doesn’t increase choice, it decreases it, especially since it’s real hard to download an alternative web browser when you don’t have a browser in the first place.

I propose two usable solutions:

First, have Windows offer you all the browsers on the market, with each browser getting a listing in Windows Setup. IE can be on the computer by default, but you’ll get the option to download any other browser when setting up your computer. Each browser gets a few sentences to say how great they are, but they have to also list their market share numbers, to be fair.

Second, force major internet companies to develop for all browsers, not just IE and Firefox. Start with Google, which is probably breaking the law with half of its Web 2.0 apps. See, Google has an incestuous financial and manpower arrangement with Firefox, and is thus biased towards a browser duopoly. As a result, a lot of its more advanced apps ship with support for only IE and Firefox, and don’t work in Opera.

Worse, Google actually has its apps sometimes block Opera when they launch, even when they work in Opera! Considering Google’s relationship with Firefox, that might be illegal, and at the very least, a large company like Google should be developing for the entire internet. Force Google, Microsoft and Yahoo to make all their web properties work in all browsers, and you’ll be promoting competition. That’s my advice.

Read some more arguments at Todd Bishop’s blog.

December 14th, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Internet Explorer, Applications | 2 comments