...it would have more market share than Firefox. It doesn't because it's shit.

I don't see Mozilla running to tell mum about big, bad M$ stealing their lunch. They just get on with the business of making a good browser and are steadily taking share off IE

Opera = Pack of whingeing cry babies who blame MS for their own lack of talent.

They should invite the people from Lotus software over for a moaning session about how they are all so hard done by.

In amongst all the flames and knee-jerk reaction, I suggest that in all future articles on this subject, the Register staff should include links to download a selection of browsers. For this list, I suggest Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari. ( Before anyone gets excited about the order of these suggestions, I will point out that they are listed here in alphabetical order, NOT any other preference. )

For those who say "WHY?" I will answer that this lets El Reg track and publish the cost in money and time of providing this information to the "ordinary users" that will now have to exercise otherwise-unused brain cells in order to make a choice. My working hypothesis is that this cost will be in the range of reasonable to minimal.

If nothing else, this may inject some FACTS into the debate. Hence, the heresy.

microsoft have fans?

Just do me a favour, go into your office, and your home, and maybe the computer suite at a library, and without any prompts - ask everybody to download opera and firefox from the internet, but they can't use any web browser to do it. I'm assuming even in a techie environment, maybe not even a quarter of people would have the prior knowledge to open the command line and know the relevant commands and urls. Most people who use ftp usual google for a client like filezilla or cuteftp *spits*... or use IE as an ftp browser... I know how to use ftp via command line and I still install filezilla on all my systems.

It's not all about us you know, if it was, I'm sure there wouldn't be any phishing, spam or botnets around the inter-webs!!

Opera as Payware? Where have you been? Like Mycho said, it hasn't been for over a decade.

I run at least six browsers and Opera is my first choice. For those sites that say "IE only" Opera has a fun little feature allowing you to identify it as IE. Want to view multiple tabs at the same time (say watching a woot-off and browsing at the some time), use Opera. Accidently close a tab "ctrl+z" to reopen it. Find me a browser that can do that and I 'might' consider switching from Opera.

Consider:

I used to travel from Finland to Irving, TX regularly. Whenever I arrived at Dallas Fort Worth airport, my car was waiting. I'd ordered a "Compact" - whatever that means - and was told where to collect it.

I got in the car, switched it on, drove 20 miles to my hotel, went to bed.

Following morning, I started the car, drove to work. Did it for 5 days, then drove it back to the airport, and flew home. It did what I wanted. Nothing more.

NEVER opened the hood/bonnet, never felt an urge to decompile the engine. It did what I needed. Got me from a -->b.

I use linux, OK, 'cos as an unemployed bloke I can't afford or need Vista/XP/Windows-7, nor "Office 2007" or whatever. I don't play games, I don't watch pr0n, I just wanna e-mail, Skype my kids in UK, browse for a fuc*king job, and write some application letters. Openoffice.org does for me.

In short, couldn't give a flying fuc*k what's "under the hood" so long as it works for me.

Am I alone? Or am I in the presence of bearded, pizza-chomping, sandal-wearing Demi-Gods???

"Am I alone? Or am I in the presence of bearded, pizza-chomping, sandal-wearing Demi-Gods???"

*puts pizza down*

*makes decision to shave tonight*

*kicks sandals further under the desk*

Move along. Nothing to see here.

I personally have three different FTP clients of various age on my main Mac and two more on my main Winbox. Not counting the ability to FTP using the command line. And several major download sites are bookmarked in my various FTP clients. i don't need MSIE to download anything.

That said, I still have MSIE installed on my main Mac. MSIE v5.something, that is, that being the last version that Mickeysoft released for Macs before running away with their tails between their legs. There are certain websites which simply don't work except with some version of MSIE and I often can't be bothered to launch VMWare on the Mac and load MSIE for WIndows or to walk over to a Winbox. And every time I touch MSIE 5.x I'm reminded of how absolutely crappy MSIE is, and how little has changed with it over the years despite all the work and money that Mickeysoft has tossed at it.

And then when I'm done with that particular website I go back to using Safari or Firefox. And may even see if Opera is any good on Macs. It still behaves like the poor man's Firefox, and I already have Firefox.

How did you get the FTP clients in the first place?

I see much of these comments being arguments over bundling or non-bundling of browsers or lists of browsers in an applet during setup, etc.

@Bundle? - Anonymous Coward Posted Tuesday 16th June 2009 09:39 GMT

Yes, the Opera stance is that a list of browsers is supplied by MS to install during setup, which must be done with *or without* network connection, so they must be bundled. Whether the "us" you refer to is Opera or not is not clear from your comment, so I don't know if "you" are calling for bundling or not. If you are not personally calling for it, cool. But otherwise I must be missing your point - my personal opinion won't change MS or EU actions at all, either.

But all this misses the point, I think.

IE already does a setup, at first run, for "installing" a search provider. Why can't the first run home page of IE* simply go to an EU-managed browser clearinghouse? This can be redirected from the main IE* first start page when an EU country of origin is detected (from network ISP origins) and will ensure to the EU's satisfaction that other browsers are being promoted as options because they will have control of it. Records of sales vs. hits will ensure that this is actually working or not, eh?

MS would still be required to allow the user to completely remove IE*, and I definately agree to that as well... But that may be yet another battle. :(

I now find out David Taraso is a CANADIAN, not a dumb American - thus should know better! It also appears he has spat his dummy out *without* the backing of JCXP.

Anyone fancy a #DownWithDavidTaraso topic on Twitter?

I used the ftp built into the command line on a UNIX box to get my first FTP client. This was back in 1994 or 1995. I've since replaced that client (it was for Mac System 7) and have set up bookmarks in successive new clients for useful sites. Typically it's quicker and easier to use the FTP client to grab stuff than it is to use a web browser, so I use them to this day. If I want to, for example, download all items in a particular directory using a web client, I have to click on each. If I use my FTP client, I merely direct it to select all and download. Or to select all new versions. Or to select all which begin with the letter 'a'. Or any other parameter I choose. And this way I avoid the tedious advertising which clogs up so many web sites.

Among the sites I have in my FTP bookmarks are Apple's and Microsoft's download areas. Mickeysoft sometimes has restrictions on what can be ftped out, but you'd be surprised at what is _not_ restricted. Apple couldn't care less, you can get the full versions of some older OSes off Apple's site without a problem. This has been useful when I have to fix an older machine.

This is a start at addressing the disgusting business practices of this crapware manufacturer. Microsoft's software is ubiquitous, not because it is good , but because it is pushed like heroin by a unscrupulous, malevoloent company. Anyone who thinks otherwise obviously doesn't know their MS history.

THe real issue the EU should have adressed years ago is the fact that it is nigh-on impossible to buy a PC (not a netbook) from a shop that hasn't been precrippled with an MS Windows installation. Why is this allowed to continue? It is corrupt. It is stifling technological development. It is taking away European jobs. It is siphoning European money straight to Redmond. And worst of all it is a severe infingement of the rights of gadget-buying geeks everywhere.

I'm just realizing there are people out there who actually LOVE Microsoft!! They actually DEFEND Microsoft!! That is fricking hilarious!!!! I take it all back. Microsoft are the good guys. They deserve every penny they can extract from their loyal fans.

The irony is, if you have been uing Opera for a long time, you will see that FireFox copied a lot of the ideas from Opera, so the single poster up there who stated that opera looks like a bad copy of Firefox ... sorry mate, you aint been in computing long enough, I for one am an Opera user, on both windows and Linux, my Linux came with Opera pre-installed..

I will use Firefox for sites that Opera doesn't like...I refuse to use IE and for ALL of my clients I give them FireFox or Opera, whichever they choose, but block IE...

Security to me is important and IE has holes you can fit an elephant through, and don't you even think of tellingme to patch it, as some other user said, as soon as you enable automatic updates in Windows, they screw you...

Some have questioned regulatory agencies telling a company what to do with its own products. The answer is simple. M$ has essentially a monopoly in operating systems (though I am a happy Ubuntu user) and is leveraging this to gain an advantage for its other software. That is anti-competitive. Keep in mind that M$ loses lawsuits on a regular schedule.

If folks want to boycott Opera, how about doing the same for all other victims of M$ predatory practices? Let's see, in addition to Opera that would include Apple, Corel, Netscape, RealMedia, Java, OpenOffice,org, Lindows, and anyone trying to adapt to their server protocols. The point is, M$ is a Machiavellian company and for them to whine about competition is truly hypocriical.

There is no such thing as Microsoft fans, just Microsoft employees.

never heard of them. oh well, I guess it's nice for everyone to have their say but I can't wait for this to really kick in (i just hope the EU have the balls to stick with this).

goodbye IE dominance. hello standards compliance.....