When Windows 7 ships without IE8 will it be good news for free software browsers

[ Thanks to steve hill for this link. ]

"How much will actually change?
Microsoft have admitted that OEMs will be able to install a browser of their choice before shipping the PC. In practice this is likely to mean very few PCs will not end up with IE on them as I’d imagine Microsoft are banking on the fact that most OEMs will install IE8 anyway. They’ll probably claim that it’s what their customers demand. That’s one of those oft-made claims along the lines of “everybody does it” where the claimant has not actually asked even a subset of the amount of people they refer to. In addition if you consider Microsoft’s relationship with OEMs, it’s not a huge jump to guess that some kind of financial pressure could be placed upon the OEM to ensure they deliver with IE anyway."

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• Weekly Ten: Intel Can't Do Cellphones, ID Chip Implants, Firefox's Challenging Future(Jul 07, 2009)
• Apple Wary of Ogg Theora: No Agreement Yet on HTML5 Video Standard(Jul 05, 2009)
• 5 Free and Open Source Web Browsers That You May Have Never Heard Of(Jul 01, 2009)
• Firefox 3.5: Back on top... for now(Jun 30, 2009)
• The World Wins South Korea for Firefox(Jun 27, 2009)
• Opera 10 Beta - Preview & Screenshots(Jun 23, 2009)
• Taking Microsoft to Task Over IE8 �Myths�(Jun 21, 2009)
• Opera Unite alpha lets you share files -- but is it safe?(Jun 18, 2009)
• Unbundle IE in Europe? Why stop there?(Jun 15, 2009)