Opera Sues Microsoft For Antitrust

It seems that Microsoft gets sued all the time (mostly for good reasons), but Opera just filed in Microsoft’s least favorite place of all, EU. Opera claims that the corporate giant is killing competition by bundling IE with Microsoft’s OS. Opera would like the EU commission to force Microsoft to remove IE from their OS or include other browsers with it, namely Opera. Opera claims that web designers build sites with IE in mind due to the fact that it is the most widely used browser. As such, other browsers won’t render pages correctly, forcing users to use IE.

Now I find this kind of lawsuit kind of strange because if consumers truly want to use another browser, they can. I’m not sure if Opera is pissed that Microsoft is giving their browser away, and Opera would like the world to start paying for browsers. All Opera has to do is make a better browser than IE, and people will find you. Just like people have found FireFox, which is a superior browser than IE. I can’t see how forcing Microsoft to remove IE will make web designers create web pages for all browsers.

I use FireFox for 99% of all my browsing needs, and if a page won’t render correctly, I suck it up and stomach IE for the 1% of the time required. Opera should stop the madness and just make a browser that people want to use. Trust me, if we like it, we’ll use you.

[Engadget]

Any I.E.8 Info? Any At All???!!!

At first I thought this important article would come down to industrial espionage, and I was firmly in Microsoft's court. That idea may still be true; but there is an angle about competitive advantages that also is important. Other companies make plug in's and other extras and they don't want to have to wait and be a year behind on R&D. It isn't good for these companies, and it ultimately isn't good for Microsoft: Because believe me; every day Microsoft doesn't share info like API's is a day their competitors like Firefox and Opera get more user friendly and reliable.

Read this article by Mary Jo Foley of ZDNetand read some of the talkback on her site. Please share your ideas back here at Cowbell; I'd really like to know what you all think!

Firefox Reaches 400 Million Downloads

I want to say congratulations and thank you to the company who created my favorite web browser, Firefox. Mozilla has had their free web browser downloaded 400 million times since its launch on November 9th, 2004.

I've tried Internet Explorer, Opera, and even Safari, and none of them has measured up to the love that Firefox has given me. All the free plug in's, the memory tab recovery, the video capture features, yes Firefox, you've made my life easier.

I love you Firefox!!!

[spreadfirefox via Gizmodo]

Update [Malcolm]: Thought you'd get a kick out of my dog imitating the Firefox logo.