this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
321 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
37747 readers
202 users here now
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Pretty crazy to think they got broken up in the late 90s/early 2000s for simply including IE in a fresh Windows install (im probably over simplifying but still). Yet these days they're pulling this kind of shit
You aren’t really over simplifying that much. IE was installed, but on first launch it loaded a website called BrowserChoice.eu where you could pick a different browser to install. It would change the default browser setting and remove IE shortcuts. The order of the browser’s was randomised similar to the way an election ballot usually is.
Microsoft set it up to comply with an EU decision in 2010, only on devices sold in the EU. However, it was only required until December 2014, so Microsoft quietly discontinued it in an update. The functionality was never included in Edge.
Edit: the 90s-00s anti-trust stuff with Microsoft and IE wasn’t just about IE being the default in Windows. It was also because they forced Apple to include it on Mac OS as the default, otherwise they’d stop developing Office for Mac. They also stipulated that Apple couldn’t develop their own competing browser and Safari wasn’t born until later.
Ironic that Apple went on to do the same thing with Safari, and more importantly the WebKit engine, on iOS. Plus now trying to force its competitors to either continue using Webkit, or maintain two seperate versions of their apps. One for within the EU and one for everywhere else
M$. M$ never changes.