[ScHwErV]

To me, and of course, this is just opinion, Opera is whining by their actions because they know they cant win, I believe they are doing it for the publicity. The monkey said it best.

"my marketing department sucks....the other guy's marketing department doesn't suck...maybe i can sue them and call them a monopoly so that my crappy marketing department doesn't have to work harder"......there have been VERY VERY few true monopolies in modern history (check your zipper...does it say YKK on it? i bet it does) there are many companies who have a vast majority of their market share but how can you fault them for being good at what they do? they're in business to make money...if they're better at making money than the other bunch of yahoos...then so be it....

Also, of course people can go and download another internet browser. Do all users know this? No. Do all users know there is a choice? No. Will ignorant users do this if/when they find out there is a choice? Possibly. Will this spur more innovation and better access to all websites by all browsers across the board? I certainly think so.

The monkey also answered this. Opera's advertising campaign, what there is of it, sucks. Do new users know about this "Firefox" thing, most do. Because their advertising and community is everywhere.

You can use FireFox to download MS updates. There are extensions that can do this, and websites dedicated to it. Google is their friend. While not a perfect solution, you can use IETab to do everything in FF that you need to do in IE. Its basically IE loaded in a FF shell, but it allows you to still use your FF addons like flashblock, adblock, and noscript.

IE is not the only program out there that resets to defaults when updated. Its probably not even the first software to do it.

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The monkey said it best.

GASP!!! a "compliment" out in the open?!?!?!
*dsenette faints

Also, of course people can go and download another internet browser. Do all users know this? No. Do all users know there is a choice? No. Will ignorant users do this if/when they find out there is a choice? Possibly. Will this spur more innovation and better access to all websites by all browsers across the board? I certainly think so.

of course a lot of users won't know that they can go out and replace IE the first day they run their computer....but those same customers won't know what else to pick when they're customizing their computer on the dell website, nor would they know what to get if they got a computer that came loaded without a browser (plus if there's no browser loaded...how do you download a new one?)...also....I've got a theory...

you know how there are a TON illegitimate antimalware programs on the market...that are in fact malware themselves? Why are these people able to get away with making these programs? How do they get people to download them? is it because your OS doesn't come preloaded with an effective antimalware program? i think it is......so you could transfer that over to the browser argument....IF your machine came without a browser....it's possible that some group of naredowells decides to make a browser that follows the same rules? well i got my PC and i don't know anything about using it...this browser has a lot of info on the web (ever notice that malware people's marketing group seems to be awesome at their job?)...let me download it? wait...why is my machine so slow?

there are some places where having a 1, 2, or 3 company "monopoly" is a good thing

[dsenette]

The monkey said it best.

GASP!!! a "compliment" out in the open?!?!?!
*dsenette faints

Also, of course people can go and download another internet browser. Do all users know this? No. Do all users know there is a choice? No. Will ignorant users do this if/when they find out there is a choice? Possibly. Will this spur more innovation and better access to all websites by all browsers across the board? I certainly think so.

of course a lot of users won't know that they can go out and replace IE the first day they run their computer....but those same customers won't know what else to pick when they're customizing their computer on the dell website, nor would they know what to get if they got a computer that came loaded without a browser (plus if there's no browser loaded...how do you download a new one?)...also....I've got a theory...

you know how there are a TON illegitimate antimalware programs on the market...that are in fact malware themselves? Why are these people able to get away with making these programs? How do they get people to download them? is it because your OS doesn't come preloaded with an effective antimalware program? i think it is......so you could transfer that over to the browser argument....IF your machine came without a browser....it's possible that some group of naredowells decides to make a browser that follows the same rules? well i got my PC and i don't know anything about using it...this browser has a lot of info on the web (ever notice that malware people's marketing group seems to be awesome at their job?)...let me download it? wait...why is my machine so slow?

there are some places where having a 1, 2, or 3 company "monopoly" is a good thing