[chipperyman573]

>This is literally a repeat of Microsoft Windows shipping a browser and a media player , where any browser and media player could be used instead.

The main issue was that you couldn't uninstall or disable IE, and due to microsoft's dominance in the market the EU felt it should be possible to do so.

[DiabloD3]

Except you can never uninstall or disable MSIE period because the actual browser canvas element is depended on by both Microsoft and non-Microsoft apps and is a core service of the OS. Modern Windows Update, modern Help, Outlook/Outlook Express, anything that uses ActiveX, and third party browsers that just wrap Trident wouldn't work.

That's like telling Apple they have to unbundle Safari, then breaking all the apps that depend on the Webkit framework.... which is a shitload of apps.

The only thing N/KN editions of Windows do is force you to download the Windows Media Player if you choose to use it, and simply unhides the MSIE icon in your Start menu if you choose to enable it. And as for Windows Media Player, N/KN doesn't disable things like DirectShow and Media Foundation, which Windows Media Player is just a fancy front end for.

It was a waste of both EU and US money for our respective DoJs to have sued. Microsoft didn't stop you from using other browsers, and allowed any app to be assigned to htm/html file associations and http/https/ftp URI scheme associations, even back in Win98 when they introduced that weird "Active Desktop" shit (a Trident canvas element as a background image on your desktop, it was weird but interesting), Microsoft never stopped you from downloading Netscape Navigator and using it as your default browser.

Windows was the first OS to have a browser by default, and the second OS to have a media player by default (Quicktime came before the original Media Player in Windows 3.x, which used DShow's predecessor, Video for Windows). In fact, Apple sued Microsoft over allegations of stolen source code from Quicktime, and Microsoft settled over it.

Notice the EU hasn't sued Apple for having a bundled media player first (since 1991, or 25 years ago), nor having a bundled browser (since 2003, or about 13 years ago, or about half way between MSIE 6 and 7). Also please note that the EU antitrust case was in 2004.

Why is the EU so protectionist towards Apple? It isn't their company, they have no more interest over Apple than they would Microsoft or Google, all three are American and all three have about the same amount of involvement in the EU for local services.

[secfirstmd]

The EU could do us all a favour and get Microsoft actually respect the privacy of it's customers by properly allowing them to fully turn off the "phone home" stuff it has going on.