Notice my use of the word "probably". Also, I do read/watch/listen to the news, it just so happens that there are more important things in the world than Microsoft's penalties. And you don't know the details, very few people will. The fact being that the news is about writing something that'll sell, and you can't trust it to give you 100% of the facts, or even 100% facts, either by chance or design.

And for f**k's sake! They had to make SOMETHING the default search engine, and noone can blame them for chosing to use their own. No company's going to say "I know, lets direct our customers towards our competeters" thats just common sense. And I have a feeling that the google toolbar automatically changes the default search engine to google (but don't quote me on that, I may be entirely wrong).

Microsoft is a competitive company. The fact is they have given us a huge amount of easily accessibly software, alot of which (in my oppinion) is very good. And if everyone didn't use microsoft programs, think of the compatability issues!

I don't care that it happens to be Microsoft. If Apple had taken off the same way MS did, I would be saying the same thing, because they would have done the same thing

For a start the whole windows, graphical interface, task bar etc was lifted directly from Apple operating systems.

Notice my use of the word "probably". Also, I do read/watch/listen to the news, it just so happens that there are more important things in the world than Microsoft's penalties.

And you don't know the details, very few people will. The fact being that the news is about writing something that'll sell, and you can't trust it to give you 100% of the facts, or even 100% facts, either by chance or design.

And for f**k's sake! They had to make SOMETHING the default search engine, and noone can blame them for chosing to use their own. No company's going to say "I know, lets direct our customers towards our competeters" thats just common sense. And I have a feeling that the google toolbar automatically changes the default search engine to google (but don't quote me on that, I may be entirely wrong).
Microsoft is a competitive company. The fact is they have given us a huge amount of easily accessibly software, alot of which (in my oppinion) is very good. And if everyone didn't use microsoft programs, think of the compatability issues!

I don't care that it happens to be Microsoft. If Apple had taken off the same way MS did, I would be saying the same thing, because they would have done the same thing

MS at any time can deem it illegal for you to run Internet Explorer

I know how much their fines are and if I wanted I could go in to the court records and find out the entire details.

BBC reports:

Eu fine: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4938610.stm
South Korean Fine: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4505698.stm
USA fine http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4314989.stm

hey've never "given" people a huge amount of software

For a start the whole windows, graphical interface, task bar etc was lifted directly from Apple operating systems. Microsoft then took the interface they had stolen and made cheap deals with various manufacturers.
This is aggressive business at it's worst.

First, let us consider where Apple got the idea for a graphical user, windows, a taskbar etc. Apple got the idea for a GUI directly from the Xerox Alto, an experimental computer developed by Xerox PARC in case people would stop using plain paper.

Blah blah.

And at last: people should just use their own browser of choise, and not care about what the majority uses.

It's the bane of my existance and I hope the original creator dies a horrible death.

*Really* good ideas will break through anyway, for sure.

Dammit Rince, did you eat a library?

There is this folder: 'C:\Program Files\Xerox' (with 'nwwia' in it), what is that all about?

The Xerox folder is usually empty. It's undeletable.

probably another "omfg you removed something. Windows put it back because it thinks all users are noobs and delete 'important' programs such as internet explorer"

Hey, some users are noopbs, and would be fucked without IE, cause they dont even know that other browsers exist.

IE is integrated into the OS you can't really remove it without crippling the whole system.

That's why it's in there in the first place.

In related news. Dell are now not only going to be using AMD processors, thier PC's will also ship with Google brand software and... *drumroll* FIREFOX!
How cool is that? It's not fair, I'm supposed to dislike Dell, what's with them making good decisions all of a sudden?

I hate google software. It's too friendly.