Likely being mindful of the ever-watchful eye of the European Union, Microsoft's announced its Euro version of
Windows 7, affectionately and officially dubbed Windows 7 E, will not come packaged with Internet Explorer, or any other browser for that matter. Of course that's not the whole story, as OEMs will be provided free copies of IE8 to bundle themselves alongside / instead of other browser options, and consumers can pick up their own copies via CD, FTP, or retail channels. This is undoubtedly in response to the
antitrust cases the EU keeps throwing Microsoft's way, and while we wouldn't be surprised to see it end up on almost every European computer sold, we do wonder if this will at all speed up IE's already rapidly diminishing share in the war of web browsers.
posted Jun 11th 2009 10:11PM
If only I can get my Windows 7 without IE, I prefer Firefox, IE is crazy slow
IE is awesome on 7!
Firefox is quickly getting on my shitlist. The things that are wrong with it thus far. It takes so long on my XP machine to open vs. other browsers. Not to mention the consistent memory leaks that have plagued it since FF2. My new browser of choice is Chrome 2. I find it loads quicker, surfs quicker, and there is not one single memory leak while listening to streaming radio.
Agreed. Firefox is getting pretty bloated.
I use Opera on my mac and Chrome on my PC now.
From the UK myself, and I find this to be absolute ****. A giant annoyance, but beyond that what does it achieve? Ultimately these people are still going to get IE installed. Or are there browsers on disc out there in shops I wasn't aware of?
I thought I was alone with FF loading/unloading so slowly. My main issue with IE7/8 is that the top interface is too static for my liking (the same with Chrome).
You could just use your pre-7 era computer to download it.
I find it funny that IE 32-bit is default in 64-bit windows. However, when I switched to 64-bit IE I got:
"Adobe Flash Player is not supported for playback in a 64-bit browser. However, you can run Flash Player in a 32-bit browser running on a 64-bit operating system."
Say what? Whats the deal?
In Windows 7 IE is a feature just like Paint and can be turned off. Just go to Programs and Features in the control panel.
Have you all tried the beta Firefox 3.5? It's like the speed of Chrome with the addons you love.
@Mike10010100, Agreed, I need it for development reasons and love it.
Seriously, I JUST (like 2 seconds ago) updated to the b99 release (the one right before the release candidate), and I have to admit, even going from the 5th or 4th beta to the 99, it's SUCH a huge difference. It pulled up in a half second flat.
"Say what? Whats the deal?"
The deal is that Adobe is far behind in porting their applications to 64-bit. And 64-bit browsers can only run 64-bit plugins (or at least, not without major difficulties).
Firefox has been slow for me for about the last year, I've been using Chrome since it released in September or whatever that was. But if they're getting Firefox back up to speed I'll gladly switch back for the add-ons.
OneLove
Now you see why 32 bit IE is installed by default. Adobe doesn't make a 64 bit version of Flash. Microsoft would have a lot of upset people if they had a default version of IE that didn't have flash. Not to mention all the fanbois who would be complaining that M$ is just copying the iPhone.
Straight from Adobe themselves.
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/000/6b3af6c9.html
Yeah, Firefox 3.5 would be the best time to switch back. Loads like butter.
@Setnav: if your Firefox is loading up slow, go into the options, click on Privacy and change the History from the default 90 days to something like 7 days. I had the same issue, and after I changed it to 7 days the startup time was drastically reduced
@The Angry Intern
Trust me, I have firefox set to clear out all private info, except passwords, everytime i close Firefox, and it makes not a one difference. Its funny cause my Chrome history is almost 2 months long and it loads up fine. My Vista laptop has half the specs as my desktop and it loads firefox lightning quick and they are configured the same with the same addons. IDK, but beside that, the memory leaks are a killer and i have performed every tweak known to Google on Firefox to help dampen some of the leaks, but all it does is prolong it and makes FF hangup 10x worse when it overflows memory. I have 4GB in my DT and firefox will use about 800-900MB before it starts slowing and crashing and all the tweaks in the world cant stop that. It takes down my whole system and i have to force close FF.
@Mike10010100
Maybe i will try the FF3.5B99 until the 3.5 release comes out. Test it for memory leaks.
@Jakem
The hell's wrong with Opera? I am honestly struggling to find any fault with it besides it's RAM use, and come on, if you're short on RAM, upgrade to the 21st century.
Never thought I'd say this but... Safari 4 FTW. Fastest, bestest.
Safari 4 FTW, agreed
big caveat - only on a Mac does this hold true...
in Windows it's Chrome all the way
For me that's ok as long as they provide an intuitive way for the end user to install their preferred browser.
Being a mixed Linux/Windows user, I still find some websites that require IE to show properly.
The possibility that I am seeing is that the Desktop will have an icon saying something like "Go to Internet" that will popup a combobox to select the browser to be installed. If you are running on a 3G connection this can be painful if it does not support resume.
I would like to say that I am addict to Firefox due to their wonderful extensions (25 add-ons in use at the moment).
@Mike10010100: I've been using 3.5 beta for couple of months now, and have upgraded to 3.5b99 this past few days (whenever it came out) and it's not butter for me. It's definitely faster than 3.0.1 (or whatever current version is), but it's still takes a while to load and worst part is memory consumption - I just opened it, I have two tabs, google reader and this one, and it's already up to 109MB, and it's about 70MB or so on fresh open - now, you explain to me how I need extra 40MB for an Engadget article tab. I still like Firefox and can't bring myself to use anything else consistently because I'm a slave to extensions, but the load and memory use are definitely issues for me.
As for the topic :) I think it might not be such a bad idea. So what if OEMs are provided with free IE8, every other browser is free as well. It would be interesting to see if any major OEMs start providing Firefox or Opera with their systems. After all Dell did start putting Linux on their computer (a bit different I know, but close enough) so why not this.
everyone is ignoring the fact that Windows Update will just push down IE8 as an "optional" update. Not including IE7 is actually not a bad thing as it will just speed up IE8 adoption.
Oh and the EU is stupid. This is the second time they have been made to look like fools (the first time was Windows N)
Yeah chrome with a gator toolbar is best.. for fools.
The E.U. can suck it.
How will I download Firefox now?
That's not important. What IS important is that you now have a choice! Happy?
I forsee a large market for Firefox-on-Flashdrive in Europe this fall. Sell 'em on old obsolete small capacity thumbdrives for like €0.99 and make a kliling. . . .
Don't tell anybody, but if you uninstall IE you can enter a web address in the path field of an Windows Explorer window and download FF, no problem :-P
That's my question! Is a computer with no web browser really better for the the average computer user? I guess you could open a command line and...um...ftp into a Firefox mirror? Redonk.
wget http://mozilla2.snt.utwente.nl//firefox/releases/3.0.11/win32/en-US/Firefox%20Setup%203.0.11.exe
You have to go a store and buy Opera, Firefox, IE or any web browser that is available. Presumable the price you buy for the disk covers the disk and packaging costs. Or go on another computer, download a web browser of your choice, put it into a media and then install it on your browser-less Windows 7.
Edit: How will you download Chrome now?
Very good point. How will we be able to download anything without an internet browser? This seems like a stupid call by the EU...
Your computer vendor will preinstall a web browser. This just makes it more likely that it will be one worth using.
http://en-us.www.mozilla.com/en-US/
By using the magic that is the EU.
No worries, a short video showing the use of command line FTP is included :)
That's what I was thinking. If there's no browser included, how are you supposed to download alternatives?
It's ridiculous, isn't it? The EU really should include a browser. It's 2009, and not having a browser included with the system would be annoying as hell. Even downloading another browser would be extremely difficult.
Besides, Apple gets to include Safari.
I don't understand that either. It's not like people know how to use wget (doesn't exist on windows; i guess the closest thing would be Start > Run or something)..
This strikes me as utter bullcrap. lol
probably EU thinks Firefox/Chrome/Opera instalations apear magicly on your computer. hmm... I would say before switching to 7 get the instalation on CD or Flash drive?! Stupid EU.... why can't microsoft bundle their products, apple does hey have safari in their MAC OS X. They should do that too then... and all this is like WTF?!
Yeah, thats my thought! :D
OEM's will most likely preinstall a browser of their own choosing. I hope they don't do this for retail copies of Windows though (or maybe you can just re-enable it from Programs and Features in Control Panel).
Completely agree. As much as I dislike using IE how are you supposed to get another browser without one to start with? It's all well saying OEMs can bundle what they like but what about people buying it off the shelf? What would be best surely is that it comes with IE (not like they'll ever bundle anything else in there) and have the option to fully remove it if desired without it impacting on the windows shell in any way.
i was going to ask the same thing :(
That's funny but serious. I think it would be hilarious if MS didn't install any browser and didn't let OEMs put one on. People (non geeks) would have no idea how to get access to the internet. It could be the end of the internets....j/k I wonder if the EU would sue them for selling Europe a crippled OS.
!!!!!!! I was thinking this whole time "it's about friggin time they removed IE from Windows" then I saw your comment...CRAP! How the HELL am I going to donwload Firefox now? It's like the first thing I do when I install windows, I fire up IE go to mozilla and download and install Firefox. I'm so...I'm so confused.
PC manufacturers in Europe will still have the option to add IE back to the computers they sell. (Or Firefox, or Chrome, or w/e.) But I still think this is bullshit because the EU is punishing a successful company by making it sell a product that is crappier. It's a mandated step backwards. What the fuck, EU.
Disclaimer: Calling Microsoft "M$" automatically makes you a douche bag.
Mentioning that even though no one has referred to Microsoft as "M$" in this post makes you an asshole.
That was supposed to be a reply to HardlyUncleTom. Though I agree that M$ is a douchey thing to say.
UncleTom... it would hardly be a disclaimer if I waited until AFTER people did it to warn them.. Silly man.
(and if you don't think people would have done it and unknowingly made themselves douche bags you are ridiculous! you should be thanking me)
This is another reason why I like Engadget over Crave.
You can type in the word "douche" without it being changed to ******.
Well some would like to call it Microsuck, but with WINdows 7 on its way, it really doesn't suck anymore.
"you can enter a web address in the path field of an Windows Explorer window and download FF"
I think that is using IE architecture. It would most likely not work with a totally stripped out IE version of W7.
>> "What IS important is that you now have a choice! Happy?"
You always had a choice. Having IE on a computer did not prevent you from installing another browser.
What IS the problem is the fact that now people have to do all sorts of OTHER stuff to get a browser.
Old way: IE came installed. You could use it as your default browser, or use it to download another browser.
New Way: There is NO browser installed at all. You have to use a 2nd computer, or a flash drive at someone else's house, or go to a store to get a free browser. (?)
Ryan, in Windows 7, typing in a HTML adress in Explorer, opens the web browers with that URL, aka IE or FF, etc.
So, no EU has pretty much screwed themselves when it comes to Windows 7. And, honestly, if they do try to force Microsoft to include competitors on THEIR DVDs, which THEY develop, I hope US sues them in the WTO, because this is just getting non-sensical. It's absurd to argue that Microsoft is still abusing their position, when IE has only been losing market share for the past 4 years, or h/e long it has been since the last ruling.
what about macs and safari
Shoosh! We'll have non of you reason here!
Apple doesn't have enough money for the EU to take from them. Beside, Microsoft funds their department just fine, with probably 3 course meals at a fine dinning restaurants. I won't be surprised if they have a solid gold table to work on.
Shhhhh! There will be no talk standards compliant HTML5 here, remember its IE8 not Safari, Firefox, (insert browser here). Its all about the un-operating system Windows 7! Are there DVD video decoders in that edition or is that extra too?
Exectly what I was thinking ... I don't see why apple could do it and microsoft not (I'm not fanboying on microsoft).
In any cases, what's the problem to have safari or IE pre-installed? They don't prevent users to use something else.
To me, it's like buying a car and the EU would say you can't have the seats because competitors would like theirs installed in that car ...
We actually like Safari. That is the difference.
LOL, who the hell LIKES safari?? You have to be a pretty pathetic fanboy to try and defend safari when firefox and chrome exist.
@Spaceman
You are an iDiot and the only reason you are in love with safari is because you are a fanboy
The thing is, it's Apple's hardware and software, so they can choose what to put on it. So if they want Safari on OS X, they get Safari on OS X.
Dude... if you love a web browser, you should probably get out a little bit..
@patriotsn1 I'm a big lurker but the sheer stupidity of your comment encouraged me to comment. Chrome uses Safari's rendering engine. By Google's own admission Apple has the most advanced rendering engine on the market, and yes Safari 4 even beats chrome in benchmarks, making it the fastest browser on the market currently (Even the windows port). So to answer your question *I* like safari and I was a mac user who used firefox up until a day or two ago. It has its shortcomings but everytime you switch browsers you have to give something up to get things, I used to use Opera until Fx 3, I liked firefox's UI a lot better but had to give up a lot of my favorite shortcuts and opera's other features. It's a tradeoff, for instance I'm going to miss the SU plugin but I prefer speed. and Safari has equivalents for adblock and firebug.
I like Safari. It's not my favorite browser overall, but for reading, Safari beats the crap out of the other browsers in the text rendering department. And Safari 4 is goddamn fast. And it scores 100 on the Acid 3 test.
So as someone who reads a lot and does a lot of Web development, I like Safari, but I generally live in Firefox because I cannot live without firebug.
I do, however, friggen hate IE. 7 sucks almost as bad at 6 did. Stuff that works (properly) in FF, Safari, Opera, you name it, doesn't work in IE. How the fuck can Microsoft, with a 6 BILLION dollar R&D budget, allow Apple to create the (so far) only browser that is completely CSS compliant (according to Acid)? Probably the same way they shoved Vista out the door before it was fully baked.
The EU is stupid for doing this, but anyone who chooses to use IE as their primary browser is ignorant, plain stupid, or likes the taste of steve balmer's ass.
@no.
because Apple is a computer vendor, and they are free to bundle Safari with their computers.
as for Win7 case, OEM can still bundle the browser of their choice (dont worry, IE will still be around). Only the difference is it will not being packaged as part of the OS.
get it?
btw, ZUNEHDRULEZZZ!!!MONSTERCABLESUXBALLZ!!!
.
If you want bleeding edge you have the wrong browser. Go back 4 years in time and download Opera and you'll have all the features Safari is just now getting. What is bleeding edge in Safari? What has Safari brought to the table that's never been used in a browser before? Cover Flow? In a browser?
Safari 4 actually ranks as really slow compared to almost all other browsers in almost all browser tests. Just because Apple got a result of a section of Javascript being the fastest on OS X compared to outdated browsers (and yet nobody has succeeded in getting even close to the same results as Apple) doesn't mean it's the fastest browser.
Also the problem the EU has is that you couldn't remove IE from Windows because it was integrated into the OS, but with Windows 7 it can now be fully removed without any problems. Try that with Safari on OS X...actually never mind, I wouldn't wish that on anybody. If you haven't upgraded to Safari 4 and you do want to give it a try though, I'll give you a word of advice...Make sure you back up your Time Machine. Safari has never really been able to be removed from OS X without messing up something else because A LOT of stuff in OS X has dependencies on Safari
And while Windows has taken the step as one of the first desktop oriented OS's to be able to painlessly and completely delete their default browser, Apple has decided to take a step in the other direction because, unlike IE even in the late 90's, not only have they made it impossible to remove Safari, but you now can't even downgrade to Safari 3. The only solution is to backup using Time Machine, or if for some reason you have never run Time Machine you have to re-install OS X...Fun!
Now why hasn't the EU gone after Safari for that?
This biggest problem these guys have with Safari is that it is made by Apple. Period.
The MSFanboy code dictates that anything made or associated with Apple must be derided & ridiculed at all costs, even if it has been proven to be better. That is why the MSFanboys are the least technically educated of all commenters, and their opinions are shit. MS shill robots. They say Apple fans are cult like, these guys are ridiculous.
How the hell do they do that? Aren't Internet Explorer and Explorer more or less bound to eachother? Or are they just removing the icon from the start menu?
Yeah, that's what I'm wondering. What happens to Windows help files and stuff like that?
If you set firefox as your default browser, there should be no problem with stuff like that.
It will still ship with the core Internet Explorer 8 libraries, however you won't have an executable to launch it and there won't be any short-cuts for it. It will essentially be hidden.
You can even 'uninstall' IE8 from Windows 7 now and it makes no difference to your system, just can't find shortcuts for it and the iexplorer.exe executable might be removed.
Personally I think it's absurd they can't bundle IE with it, given all browsers are free and everyone is free to choose their own browser. In my car I get an OEM headunit and I'm free to swap it out with anything I desire. I'd be very confused if my car didn't come with any headunit at all though.
I wonder what happens when you type www.mozilla.com into the address bar of Windows explorer. Oh looky! It's Mozilla's web page. How impossible.
As mentioned above, IE's libraries will remain in the system to provide HTML help functionality thus keeping the entire IE inside, the only difference in the ironically named Windows "E" is that it won't have the icon/user interface libraries for Internet "E"xplorer on board...
Not in W7, you can uninstall it for the first time successfully.
Europe is so stupid. Why the hell should a company be limited in what it offers in a product?
Europe as a whole isn't stupid... The EU on the other hand...
If you don't understand the historical context of why this ruling came to be try reading up a little.
Back in the early 90's no computer came with a web browser and people were free to chose. When the web became popular Netscape became the dominant platform of choice. M$ saw Netscape's success, said 'me too!' and developed Internet Explorer. But no matter how hard they tried, they could not compete with Netscape. Then Microsoft decided to start bundling IE with Windows, thereby giving IE to any one who bought a PC. As a result, more and more people forgot that they could download a superior web browser and got stuck with IE. Netscape released its code as open source and then disappeared off the map. Sadly, MS sat on IE and let it rot and stagnate, eventually becoming garbage.
Microsoft eventually was taken to court, found guilty of abusing its position and power to push a competitor out of the market and was convicted of being a monopoly. This happened several times. Bill Gates had to testify in front of Congress and Microsoft came very close to being split up in pieces just like AT&T. M$ used its $$ to pay their way out of that trouble in the US but the EU also launched their own anti-thrust lawsuit against Microsoft for the same reasons and with better success.
And now we have the outcome.
P.S.
- Netscape's open source code took years to evolve and eventually re-emerged as FireFox.
- Netscape itself was purchased by AOL and it was only recently that they killed the project.
- Because of MS's inability to innovate and stick to open web standards, IE has become the laughing stock of web browsers.
- IE has been steadily losing ground ever since FireFox came out. It, and Safari, Chrome, Opera, etc laugh in its face.
.
The EU stated they are in fact disappointed in MS for the decision to strip out IE, they preferred that the user would be presented a options screen when installing W7 where he/she could choose from various browsers. Kind of childish reaction of MS to do it this way, which in the end will surely hurt IE market share.
So... You buy a retail copy of Windows, you install it on your PC, and then what? How do you surf the internet? You can't even get online to download a browser! You have to download a browser off another PC, and then transfer it.
This is a terrible ruling.
I'm assuming that the seller pre-installs another browser from a disk. From what I'm getting, you can only have the core necessities for the OS to function when you sell it to the computer maker.
Exactly, you don't buy directly from MS, you get your computer from Dell, or PC World, etc. They install their browser of choice. Which will most likely be... Internet Explorer.
Sorry, just reread that, too many Canadian Clubs last night.
The point stays the same though, When you go out and buy a copy of Windows, the retailer will include a disc with a shiny new copy of IE/Firefox/whatever.
Actually, this is pure win if they can get their OEMs to bundle IE8. Yes, some will probably bundle something else, but look at it this way:
1) Instead of offering EVERYONE the option of a different web browser, the choice is only offered to those who buy from small manufacturers. Let's face it, Dell (or whatever EU equivalent) is going to offer IE8 preinstalled. You'll lose less people this way than the other way. There will probably be heavy promotion too, ala those free internet CDs at the checkout line, or sitting right next to the OS as a free CD.
2) This gets the antitrust freaks off their back, because officially it's the OEM's decision.
And yes, IE8 isn't really gone, just the executable. The libraries are required for help files and whatnot.
Just like when the EU forced MS to sell Windows without the Media Player. No one bought because the consumer wanted a fully loaded OS. Same thing will happen here. Europeans will demand from the OEM's and retailers a Fully loaded Windows 7. Majority of people only know how to use IE to access the Internet. Competitors should market their browser and let mainstream be aware instead of forcing MS or OEMs to carry their Browser.
Google and Mozilla should up their marketing game in the EU.
Without Internet Explorer you can't download Firefox.
Stupid!
This has to be some of the most ridiculous shit of all time. It had to come out of the E.U. Again. An internet browser is INTEGRAL. The very fact that you can't download another browser without already having one should have made that clear.
if you live on a planet with only one computer, maybe.
now apple will say to stupid europen people to buy a computer that have a browser!
I always used IE till Chrome came out.
I used Chrome until I found out their potential privacy risk.
This is an absolutely horrible idea... Though I refuse to use IE, that doesn't mean I don't still want it there. It's nice to know that I can't uninstall it, so it will always be there if something were to happen to my FireFox... Just the other day I was having problems connecting to any sites with FF, so I opened IE to check what was going on. I had to reinstall FF, and I don't exactly keep an installer on my desktop. What happens when one of these people accidentally uninstall it? What if for some reason FF, Opera, Chrome, or Safari aren't working properly, as in my case? What about a virus? I can see some really weak virus that uninstalls your browser just because. That's a few hours or more just to get this minor problem fixed.
In my opinion, IE shouldn't be omitted from Windows 7, but perhaps other offerings should be part of setup: "Which internet browsing software would you like installed?", you select it and it installs an uninstallable version of that browser that can be later updated to the most recent build.
i completely agree with you,
for some sites IE works much better than opera,
especially the full windows live suite sites.
an option would be MUCH better than having no preinstalled browser.
what hurts me the most in all this (im not from EU btw) is the fact that the consumers that end up having to order CD's (or go through some process) just to get an internet browser on their computer would complain about how microsoft is a stuipd company that doesnt have web browsing out of the box on their windows. and then apple fans here in the US would start picking on how microsoft doesnt care about internet usage of their consumers, and how apple is nice enough to bundle safari and not make their consumers cry. this is just a pandemic waiting to take out windows 7 rep.
Totally agree with you.
But Microsoft can't provide "Which web browser you want?" option, because that causes a big problem for new comers. What if I decide to make a web browser with it's own share of advantage... how can I be on Windows disk? And what if I call it with a bad or offensive word in the name, because my research marketing suggest that this is a great name and everyone will get it? Who is to judge that my software sucks to be on the OS disk, or has bad marketing?
Then also the version on the disk will be old after some point, how will you easily update to the latest version? use Windows update? self update system? you say. Good ideas, but why would Microsoft use their own servers for your application? And what if the program self update system has a bug, or is changed. That will annoy you.
So, to complicated for nothing. Microsoft approach is "screw you all, you want that? fine live with the downside and forced to make CD's and publish your software.", but, I must agree that this is as it's the only solution which makes everyone happy.