[Am-info] Windows in trouble for any html use!

[John J. Urbaniak]

felmon davis wrote:

>On Tuesday 13 July 2004 11:28, John J. Urbaniak verily wrote:
>  
>
>>It's time for an all-out condemnation of the PC Press.  Back during
>>the OS/Wars, the Press undeniably took the side of Microsoft.  They
>>all but wiped out my small business, because my software is OS/2 -
>>(now eCS-) based.
>>
>>If a significant number of computers were based on systems other
>>than Microsoft, we would not be in these straits today.  If we had
>>a significant percentage of OS/2, Apple, Linux and other operating
>>systems in use, the odds of viruses propagating throughout our
>>entire computing infrastructure would be drastically reduced.
>>
>>By allowing themselves to be co-opted by the Gang of Criminals from
>>Redmond,  the Press is totally responsible for the sorry state we
>>are in today.
>>    
>>
>
>I have to agree but I wanted to add that the CERT advisory points out 
>that "Note that using a different web browser will not remove IE from 
>a Windows system, and other programs may invoke IE, the WebBrowser 
>ActiveX control, or the HTML rendering engine (MSHTML)."
>
>as I recall, the entanglement of the browser in the operating system 
>was also a point of (legal) dispute. I can't recall what the press 
>said about it but I do recall discussions on newsgroups where the 
>'ease of use' of this feature was praised.
>

The reason that IE is entwined (metastasized?) in the Windows OS was a 
ploy by MS in its attack on Netscape.  The original (1993, I think) 
Antitrust settlement had a small clause in it that allowed Microsoft to 
offer solutions that were "integrated" into the OS.

So, in order to crush Netscape and still continue to obfuscate the 
original Antitrust agreement, MS made the ridiculous claim that IE was 
"an integral Part" of Windows.  They took some dlls from the browser and 
some dlls from other parts of the OS and intertmixed them.  They claimed 
that IE was absolutely necessary for Windows to run.  Thus, they were 
able to destroy Netscape and escape the full wrath of the Antitrust 
Dept..  As later versions of Windows evolved, more and more dll 
shifting/sharing occurred.  It probably now is totally integrated into 
the OS and can't be removed.

As I recall, some pressies at that time sort of chuckled, but I remember 
NO UNIFIED OUTRAGE from them.  They should have known better, and they 
should have warned the public.  But they didn't.  They kept parroting 
the "Consumers aren't really being harmed" mantra emanating from the 
Redmond charlatans. 

The Press failed us all.

John



>
>(however a lot of systems now use browsers as file managers which 
>always unnerves me a bit.)
>
>Felmon
>
>  
>