EU Windows 7 to have multiple browser options?

I just got a laptop less than 2 weeks ago with windows vista and it came with google chrome as the default browser. I thought that was wierd that they didnt put IE as the default. But Chrome is way better.

I doubt the vista you got was supposed to come with chrome, it was more likely installed on you laptop at the store you bought it from or perhaps during manufacturing. There are sometimes custom OS that they load on your laptop to be sold, but microsoft wouldn't have done it.

I doubt MS will include chrome or even safari as browers to choose from, seeing as apple/mac and google are threatening rivals. Opera and firefox are less of a threat over all, except for over running internet explorer.

Good if it's true. Every browser has features people want (yes, even IE). I prefer Firefox overall (I hope Gecko is killed off to be replaced with WebKit honestly). In my opinion, take the good features of both and combine, instead of working against each other.

As a web designer, like almost everyone in the field, I am just beyond tired of making a site that works great in Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera and other standards-compliant browsers then having to fix it for IE, especially CSS and JavaScript. And of course, there are still a good number of people still using IE6, so in general for a site to be used by a wide array of users it is still a good idea to make it work (SOMEHOW) with that old, terrible browser that Microsoft still has not abandoned. The other problem is that Microsoft does not want to lose the market share, but they seemingly refuse to make a quality browser. They wanted the Internet to be "theirs" so they made and supported proprietary standards (EOT, VML, res:// URI for referencing a resource in a DLL, filter CSS (much of which is memory-intensive), expression CSS (sometimes the ONLY way to get a feature into IE6), broken box model, ActiveX and much more). Now with all these things to still support, IE can never become a truly secure browser nor a standards-compliant browser. People still rely upon IE acting a certain way, and if Microsoft abandons those people they will not buy the next OS for their thousands of computers (big companies with many workstations/servers to licence).

For my personal sites, I have dropped ALL support of IE, and if a user visits they get a nice red box saying to get a better browser (thanks Microsoft for conditional comments). IE8 is still no better in the Javascript front, but has huge improvements when it comes to CSS (still not passing Acid3 though), plus nice extra features don't even have a vendor specific equivalent in IE (except for opacity, but it's memory intensive), mainly CSS3 things.

Originally posted by tatsh:

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As a web designer, like almost everyone in the field, I am just beyond tired of making a site that works great in Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera and other standards-compliant browsers then having to fix it for IE, especially CSS and JavaScript. And of course, there are still a good number of people still using IE6, so in general for a site to be used by a wide array of users it is still a good idea to make it work (SOMEHOW) with that old, terrible browser that Microsoft still has not abandoned.

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Isn't that a pain? Specifically DIV tags are the devil. Try positioning something: it will work with FF, Safari, etc. but then have twice the margin in IE7 or be completely out of whack in IE6. It's very frustrating, since IE still has user base to make it relevant for a site to work properly with it.

Originally posted by tylerm712:

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I just got a laptop less than 2 weeks ago with windows vista and it came with google chrome as the default browser. I thought that was wierd that they didnt put IE as the default. But Chrome is way better.

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Man O man I have been a network engineer for 15 years now and heard a lot of lame things but saying Chrome is "Way better" is the one that takes the cake. Simply put, Chrome works but is massively incompatible in general and has MANY MANY MANY issues with specific tools, technologies and sites out there. BUT, it's all preference. Enjoy your "Chrome". Frankly..........who really gives a sh*t about the browser; Chrome, IE, Firefox, Opera.......it's like long distance services, so long as you can hear the person on the other end and the price is cheap................regarding browsers; so long as you can see the web page displayed properly and the price is right.

On a positive note, being that Chrome is such garbage and barely used, it's never going to be subject to attack. Firefox rules!

You must be a newbie computer user because you just gave away the fact that you bought a new laptop with Google's Chrome as the default and you just stayed with that. HA HA HA...........NEWBIE.

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Originally posted by tylerm712:

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On a positive note, being that Chrome is such garbage and barely used, it's never going to be subject to attack. Firefox rules!

You must be a newbie computer user because you just gave away the fact that you bought a new laptop with Google's Chrome as the default and you just stayed with that. HA HA HA...........NEWBIE.

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Let me think. Last time I ran Chrome, Flash worked fine, and so did every site I want to run. It's based upon WebKit so it's like another version of Safari, with a custom non-Windows-like interface (just like Safari).

Firefox is only going to get slower as time goes by. They have thousands of features in it and people, including me, want to have more. But the add-on architecture just is not good enough for those new features to be fast enough. Gecko is a good rendering engine, but it is definitely bloated in comparison to WebKit. Just use speed, and compiling time, as your base for comparison. Firefox takes 30+ minutes to compile, while Arora (a browser based on WebKit, just like Chrome and Safari) takes about 15. Chrome takes very little time to load in comparison to a Firefox with 10 or so add-ons, and some themes slow it down a lot too.

Why is Firefox popular at all? Google. Why is Google the default search? Funding. Now that Google has Chrome (and soon will have their own OS), everyone might just move to that. Who knows if Google will drop their support for Firefox in favour of Chrome?

don't need a flamewar on which browser is better so knock it off!!!

Whatever screws M$ the most is fine by me. :-)

Well I guess not having a bundled browser "could" be seen as a step forward from the masters of lock-in and restriction... but EU rules are slowly being enforced.. I guess there will be a EU version which doesn't have a bundled media player as well.

As for chrome.. installed.. checked what it did.. didn't like some of the outgoing and incoming connections it ran without my permission.. uninstalled and haven't looked at it again. I'm not sure how far I trust google.. more than M$.. but I am still wary of software which does things and has features enabled (they can be turned off.. but try finding out how) by default which try to profile and harvest information without the users knowledge.

All this does is help promote retards. Complaining about having IE integrated into the OS is one thing, but demanding that multiple browsers be included is another.

If a person is such a moron that they cannot go to their favorite browser's website and download it, then they don't need another browser. I have eight browsers on my laptop because I want to. Which should be included? I am tired of the industry having to bend over, grab their ankles, and smile for all the retards out.

Originally posted by gallagher:

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All this does is help promote retards. Complaining about having IE integrated into the OS is one thing, but demanding that multiple browsers be included is another.

If a person is such a moron that they cannot go to their favorite browser's website and download it, then they don't need another browser. I have eight browsers on my laptop because I want to. Which should be included? I am tired of the industry having to bend over, grab their ankles, and smile for all the retards out.

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THIS. Just go download it people, web browsers are free, small and easy to access/find.

While it's nice to see Microsoft being slapped a bit I believe a user would be required to use IE to access Windows Update, unless they changed that too.


I guess they could just use Automatic Updates or manually download updates but I visit Windows Updates occassionally, just as a precaution. It would be nice if they allowed other browsers besides IE.

hahahahaha.. quality.. I forgot about the "updates" .. Install a broken update to the broken by design os .. break it more.. then have to be installing broken patch after broken patch to try and repair the damage done by the first update.. and then the malware writers exploit the update system and get everybody to install their malware as a legit update.. it's already happened and will happen again.

What I want to see is the anti-trust rulings which are causing this enforced properly.. you should be able to buy a bare metal system from the high street and install anything you want on it... not the compulsory M$ tie in and kickbacks which are standard. It's illegal and it should be brought to an end.

Originally posted by Pop_Smith:

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While it's nice to see Microsoft being slapped a bit I believe a user would be required to use IE to access Windows Update, unless they changed that too.

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For XP and lower yes. Vista now has it separated from the browser (sort of making it more secure because now a person cannot visit a fake Windows Update site to get updates).

im pretty sure you can get an addon that fakes the ie browser id and allows you to use windows updates without ie...

Originally posted by tatsh:

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For XP and lower yes. Vista now has it separated from the browser (sort of making it more secure because now a person cannot visit a fake Windows Update site to get updates).

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Thanks, that's good to know. I mainly use Ubuntu for Internet activities and have an offline Windows box for gaming. However, the rest of the family runs XP/Vista (for now!).

Originally posted by Jondrew:

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im pretty sure you can get an addon that fakes the ie browser id and allows you to use windows updates without ie...

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You can somewhat easily do this in Firefox; go to about:config -> general.useragent.extra.firefox -> Double click and change the field to MSIE 7.0, or whatever IE you want to fake.

I am not sure about other browsers though.