Microsoft to warn users not to install a different browser

[Paul Boddie]

On Wednesday 12. September 2018 16.05.04 Bjoern Schiessle wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I'm sure some of you remember the anti trust case of the European
> Commission against Microsoft in 2009.

[...]

> Now, 9 years later I read "Microsoft to ‘warn’ Windows 10 users
> not to install Chrome or Firefox"[2]. So 9 years later the dialog is
> back again, but it does the complete opposite this time. It warns user
> to install anything else beside Microsoft Edge.

Why am I not surprised? Then again, I am not one of the people who claims that 
"Microsoft have changed" every time someone points out the company's poor 
behaviour.

Sadly, the proper remedy back in 2009 (or actually a lot earlier) would have 
been to mandate genuine operating system choice by forcing Windows to be 
unbundled completely. Having a choice of installable operating systems instead 
of the browser preference dialogue would have dealt with the underlying 
problem as well as other things that have been considered by the European 
Commission throughout the years.

So, the media player situation, which resulted in a ruling against Microsoft 
that, if I recall correctly, the company deliberately violated "by accident", 
would also have been solved by a more thorough remedy. And it would have 
avoided the issue of what kind of software an operating system distribution 
should provide, which was really the only controversial aspect of these 
rulings.

Paul