Re: Opinion

[Christopher Pall <x97pall@wmich.edu>]

  > What would happen to the Web if John "computer illeterate" Doe
  > discovers that nobody can realy surf his Stamp Collectors website
  > unless he buys Microsoft NT - because Internet Explorer can only
  > properly support the new enhanced proprietary MS-HTTP protocol?
  >
  
  This is an interesting and very important connection. MS with windows 98
  has made melded "explorer" and "internet explorer" into one. When you type
  an URL in the "location" box in explorer, it will only bring up IE to view
  the URL. This has been stated by MS themselves. They claim this is for
  "technical reasons".
  
  What will happen when the standard end-user doesn't know or understand
  that they are reading HTML, a universal document format? This is akin to
  changing all DOC, WPD, TXT file associations to attempt to load MS-Word.
  (If MS did this, it would cause an up-roar, but for some reason, this is
  different?) I'm sorry, it's not. MS would like users to believe that it
  must use IE to browse the web.
  
  MS is hi-jacking the Web. Plain and simple.
  --------------------------------------------------
                Christopher Pall
  Delphi Programmer & Western Michigan Student (CS)
                   ThinkBiz
                Kalamazoo MI USA
               X97PALL@WMICH.EDU
  --------------------------------------------------