Some of you probably know that the minority browser makers worried by the fact that people do not give a fuck about their crappy software and the useless web "standards" went to the EU Commission and asked it to make Microsoft bundle their browsers with Windows because according to them Microsoft abused their OS market share by bundling Internet Explorer. Of course Microsoft had no intention to bundle alternative browsers with their OS. At the very least Microsoft do not want to answer support calls for browsers they did not make. So what did Microsoft do. They said "
FUCK YOU" to the EU Commission and they will ship Windows 7 in Europe without any browser. There will be a separate CD with IE for OEMs. Of course all OEMs will just install IE because none of them will want to take all the support calls complaining that "The Internet is missing". Most of them probably will not bundle alternative browsers because this means they will have to support it. Basically IE will be bundled with as many Windows installations as it is bundled with now - all of them. The only people who will be affected are the 10% of the users that I (and most probably you) belong to who install Windows on their own. Now the installation will require two discs - one for Windows and one for the browser (be it IE or a minority one). How is that any other OS can ship with a browser but Windows cannot? The funny part is that IE has less than 50% usage share in Europe. Good job protecting the consumers EU Commission. FUCK YOU!
Update 03.08.2009
Microsoft has decided to include ballot screen in Windows 7 if the default browser is IE. The solution is quite interesting since the ballot screen will be presented in IE itself. It will be a web page with an option to download browsers ordered by market share. Even more interesting is the fact that the ballot screen will be pushed through Windows Update to XP and Vista machines. It will be displayed only to users that have IE set as the default browser so this can lead to users moving away from IE but not the other way around. Microsoft will be promoting direct competitors. It is not yet sure if the EU Commission will accept this offer.
One thing that is really good about this decision is that 5 years from now Windows 7 will not be shipping with 5 years old Firefox.
Q: What is worse than 8 years old browser shipping with the most popular OS?
A: Five 8 years old browsers shipping with the most popular OS.
You can read more and see a screenshot of the ballot screen
here.