I actually had more problems with Opera issues than with IE problems. Anyway, I really don't like that kind of thing - companies should be allowed to do shape their products the way they want, and no, Microsoft is not a monopoly.

And I am not even an American...

Besides the European Commission whatever is definitely a bigger bane than Microsoft ever was.

In most cases I would agree with you, but in this case the free market doesn't really work that well because the stakeholders in the internet browser compatibility market are the software developers. Unfortunately internet software developers make up such a tiny portion of the actual market share of web browsers that they could all make the move to Firefox or Opera (and most of them do) and it would still have minimal effect.

The software developer is presented with two choices: 1. Continue to develop software for IE no matter how annoying and time consuming it is to nail all those annoying bugs or 2. Refuse to support IE.

Since the general public (read: the bulk of web browser users) are generally ignorant of the difference between IE/Firefox/Opera/etc these companies are really left with no choice. Either support Microsoft or die. The stakeholders are left powerless because they are participants in a market where the participants in that market don't even understand what they are consuming and why.

Of course Microsoft is not a monopoly (by the precise definition of the term), and I tend to lean away from antitrust legislation. However, the externalities their selfish decisions in this area project on the market sum to millions on millions of dollars, if this threat incites them to do something about that I am all for it.

I tend to think that if users really think they need something, they'll find a way to get it. For example, most people managed to get themselves a DVD Player. They saw that their neighbours were doing some cool thing in their homes, and m,anaged to inform themselves and buy the bloody players.

If people were so keen on IE alternatives, they would pester their bosses to be allowed to switch. Apparently, FF is not different enough for people to care.

Going the legal way might just open a huge can of worms. For example, how likely will companies be in the future to agree on standards, if next thing they know they'll end up in court for it? As a company, I'd rather stick to my proprietary stuff instead (Flash...).

Also, maybe it simply isn't so easy to be 100% compliant to a specification. Is the specification even unambiguous enough, and clear enough for every developer getting the same picture? Should we really use the courts to establish the meanings of paragraphs in specifications like that? And what about Opera, they suck pretty bad, too - if Microsoft gets some flack, they should be next.

As a web developer, I'd rather wish the EU would shoot down both IE and Opera, and simply force everyone to use Firefox. While they are at it, they should also disallow new versions of Firefox to come out, because they might force me to adapt my code. But that is not the world we REALLY want to live in, or is it?

"If people were so keen on IE alternatives, they would pester their bosses to be allowed to switch. Apparently, FF is not different enough for people to care."

This is what I am getting at. Its not enough for your average person to care, because the stakeholders in the browser war are the developers who have to put in all the extra time to make it work on IE so the average person can be browser agnostic.

In this case Microsoft is abusing their power as a large presence in the market to do whatever they want even though that is detrimental to the market. While I do think that an antitrust case would be over the top, there has to be some way to do something about this.

I think this letter is about 3 years late.

IE7 fixes most of the annoying stupid problems that used to drive me crazy; now I can develop a site in Safari and Firefox, and it usually works almost perfectly in IE7. I don't mean to say that IE7 is perfect, just that the problems aren't nearly as bad as they used to be.

Visit Acid 2 in Opera. It's fine.

Visit in in FF2. It's a little odd, but you can tell its a smiley face. In FF3 it's fine.

Visit in in Konq, or Safari, or Nokia browser. It's fine.

Visit in it IE 7.

Then make up your mind.

Yeah, theoretical tests show how shitty IE7 really is, but in practice, it works 98% of the time for me.

You're completely right - IE7 works fine for users. But that level of user support would be a lot easier for developers to achieve if we didn't have to code around its quirks.

My point is that it has like 95% fewer quirks than IE6. And I was referring to it as a developer.

It still is hideous. Why did they take they file/edit menus off? That was probably the worst user interface mistake in the history of Microsoft, only to be superseded by the Office 2007 interface.

Microsoft should file a complaint to force Opera to support javascript properly.

Perhaps web developers should stage a strike. Have a day (or more) where everyone participating turns off there work arounds for IE (and perhaps put up a link to their favorite browsers).

>For example, Internet Explorer is the only modern Web browser that does not support Acid2.

Um, no. In fact I think only Safari and Opera support Acid2.

I fully support the guys at Opera in furthering web standards, but they should make sure what they say is factual.

From the wikipedia article that he linked:

Acid2 is supported by: - WebCore-based (Safari, OmniWeb, Shiira) - Konqueror - Prince - iCab - Presto-based (Opera, Internet Channel on Wii) - Gecko-based 1.9+ (Firefox 3 beta)

It is not supported by: - Internet Explorer - Firefox 2 (Current stable version) - NetFront (PS3 browser)

So yes, technically IE is not the only browser that doesn't support it, but they are the only browser which has said that CSS compliance is not a priority for them.

I think it's nitpicking to say that the current version of FF doesn't support Acid2. It's clear that MS doesn't care to implement CSS correctly - and they only reason they can do that is because of their extraordinary market share. That's wrong.

Firefox supports Acid2 as of 3 Beta.

The obvious correct solution is to get everyone off of IE altogether.