Opera, based in Norway, announced Thursday that it had filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission, alleging that Microsoft is abusing its dominant position by bundling IE with the Windows operating system. Opera also claimed that Microsoft is hindering interoperability by not following accepted open Web standards. Microsoft struck back Friday, indicating that it would not willingly unbundle IE from Windows. “We believe the inclusion of the browser into the operating system benefits consumers, and that consumers and PC manufacturers are already free to choose to use any browsers they wish,” a Microsoft representative said. “Internet Explorer has been an integral part of the Windows operating system for over a decade and supports a wide range of Web standards.”
“Internet Explorer has been an integral part of the Windows operating system for over a decade and supports a wide range of Web standards.”
Right, except the ones that matter.
No, they’re absolutely right. They DO support a wide range of web standards. The range just isn’t as wide as the rest of us would like.
It’s all dependent on what you call an ‘accepted web standard’; Opera’s definition or Microsoft’s definition.
I think the only important definition is the web developers definition.
And nearly all of them would agree with Opera, Microsoft’s standards support is lacking.
>It’s all dependent on what you call an ‘accepted web
>standard’; Opera’s definition or Microsoft’s
>definition.
not Opera’s definition. International Web Standards definition (CSS, DOM, JS, etc…)
Web developers have to do all the work twice: once for all web browsers around there and once (with hard hacking to get the stuff working) for IE (and then some more work to get it working on IE6 and also on IE7)
That’s only true if you accept that “support” can mean “implement incorrectly.”
I appreciate your sense of diplomacy, but in my experience, IE (6 and to a lesser extent, 7) unfortunately implement relatively few standards, poorly. Standards support means little if the implementation is almost unusably buggy.
I’ve seen too many brave web developers driven back to tables by IE’s “standards support”…
Prerequisite post filled with half-truths, bald-faced lies accepted as truth on ther Internet, repetition of the words “monopoly”, “lockin”, and other words that I won’t say that are only acceptable here if used against Microsoft, attacks on Microsoft for easy mod points, and shilling for the poster’s favorite browser of choice.
Good, now that we’ve got that out of the way…
Prequisite reply about the EU are all communists, that it’s shocking that anyone should think that the web should be open to all, insert irrelevant nonsense about market shares and Windows Update, all covered in a crispy coating of Stockholm Syndrome.
Seriously, network carriers suggest they should be able to choose whose traffic they carry and everyone’s up in arms – someone suggests that perhaps the web shouldn’t be controlled by a corporate behemoth that makes up its own rules and *suddenly* capitalism is aaalright. Hypocritical, no?
Corporates want more money, users want more flexibility and freedom (in terms of functionality and “do whatever I want”).
This is the ultimate clash today because software becomes more powerful everyday and it’s not that expensive ($9.95 softwares and F/OSS) as it was before. So, corporates limit users and re-sell “enablements” to extort more money from the market.
Everybody wants for theirselves and it’s *just* natural.
I’m not sure I totally understood what you were saying, but I have opinions too, so I figured I’d share.
Network Carriers shaping network traffic is a problem in the same way GE owning most of the roads, and shaping traffic (mostly though tolls I’d imagine) would be a problem for roads, and the economy that runs on them. It would stifle commerce, not enable it.
In fact, any company in an overly dominant position has the capability to stifle commerce, to bring capitalism to a halt. That’s why we need rules, and oversight to make sure those very large companies follow them.
It’s odd that there are some free market fundamentalists that can’t understand that basic fact. Laissez faire doesn’t work for stable and fair economies, and it never has. I wish we could move past all the name calling, and figure out how to provide the best rules, and oversight for the rules for our economy. As long as far right economic theorists are continuing to hold the line on any form of even slight oversight, constantly jumping straight across the vast middle ground to the label “communism”, I guess that’s not going to happen.
Finally, to be clear, Microsoft being allowed to dominate the Web Platform, and the Operating System platform (etc.) for their own profit at the expense of everyone else, is just as bad as network providers shaping traffic for their own profit, at the expense of everyone else. It’s the same problem – the problem of monopolies, a problem for which the “free market” provides no solution.
I don’t know how you got marked up to +10, while I got marked down to -5, when we’re talking about the same thing.
And I’ll have to reply here since your previous post can’t be replied to.
You forgot to mention the prequisite argument saying that Microsoft is a “Convicted Monopoly”… come on. I don’t really like MS and hate IE (really, it is the only piece of software from MS that I truly HATE), but these nonsense attacks people usually make are becoming boring. Please give us more facts so we can all hate microsoft based on truth!
PS: Although it may look (and I’m taking a hard time to understand this…) I’m not bashing Almafeta, I actually (Oh God…) agree with him this time.
What did you expect Microsoft to say?
“Oh yes we completely agree with you Opera, our browser sucks badly”
It’s natural for them to defend their product.
I run Linux here at my house and I have to say you hit that nail on the head. MS is not going to admit they did something wrong it doesn’t benefit them in the least.
Why does you running Linux have any relevance at all to this topic ?
Perhaps because as a Linux user, he feels the impact of IE-only sites most strongly?
“Perhaps because as a Linux user, he feels the impact of IE-only sites most strongly?”
Not as much now…but I suspect when the new new of Microsoft’s 500 supersites hits the web built on OOXML: and .net. He may well feel the pinch. Unless well open-standards wins the day.
There are already sites built using .NET as a backbone, the end result is just mark up so there’s no difference in what the user sees.
OOXML is a document format, which may very well become a standard in the near future.
I don’t really get what you’re trying to suggest here, or maybe you’re just hoping throwing around buzzwords will get you modded up a few points?
The point he is getting at is that the server side code generated is crud and breaks a myrade of standards – heck, I tried to check out Microsoft’s new “Office online” beta, and they can’t even code their browser detection correctly!
Yes, OOXML is a file format, but the quesiton is, how long before *.doc is replaced with OOXML or worse, how long before PDF is repalaced by XPS?
For me, I don’t hate Microsoft, I want to see more competition, but when they threaten those who implement Microsoft formats, when they riddle their products with patents to disallow compatibility without massive licence and royalty fee’s – as an end user, why should I be punished? why should I experienced a crippled internet experience by virtue of Microsoft’s monopolistic practices.
The worse part is when they try to make out that they contribute to the IT industry – they don’t contribute squat to the industry; they do very little to foster co-operation, they do little to conform to standards, and heck, when they’re involved with the standardisation process they accept the specification then come out and bad mouth it after wards – any remember ODF and Microsoft on the oasis committee?
That is the issue – it isn’t about ‘bashing MIcrosoft’ its about Microsoft realising that there is a time to fight, time to compete, time to get down and dirty, and then there is a time to put the arm’s down and sit around a table and work together to establish a standard – a standard where EVERYONE makes compromises; something Microsoft has this idea that every else should make compromises to accomodate them. Someone needs to remind them, there is no ‘I’ in team.
Edited 2007-12-18 06:48
Some of those sites use IE-only scripting as core technology. Some of the stuff built for the Web with the .NET framework works only with IE. How much depends on the developers, but I’ve seen the insides of .NET projects and it is not pretty. Not if you’re a developer that tries to make stuff that’s cross-browser. Porting the end result is an absolute bitch. So don’t tell me there’s no difference because there is.
OOXML will only become a standard if Microsoft continues gaming the standardisation process.
As it is now, Microsoft gets to vote several times, whilst everybody else gets to vote only once or gets elbowed out of the room. I would understand such behaviour from an african dictator, but not from people who have been socialized in a democracy.
.net apps run fine under mono, and xml ? I cant see many sites running in that, and even so, are Microsoft not trying to convince people that xml is open too ?
‘natural’ doesn’t mean ‘correct’
The sky is also blue, does stating the obvious make you feel good?
Did I ever say ‘natural’ did not mean ‘correct’?
yes
I expected Microsoft would ditch IE and ship Opera instead
“I expected Microsoft would ditch IE and ship Opera instead
”
I’m not sure why the mod down. Its not unreasonable that Microsoft would buy a third-party browser and label it their own, as they do most of their software. Hey hold on isn’t that what they did with Internet Explorer.
To be fair though. In the ways IE7 is a poor product. Is one of the reasons why Microsoft will keep IE7. IE7 from a *user* perspective not a bad browser. Web developers *work around* the problems with Microsoft products…but sadly not for Opera.
Now if the codebase for IE7 is really broken, as it could well be, buying Opera must seem an attractive choice legal problems of doing so aside assuming Opera’s codebase isn’t broken too. Although really all anyone can so is speculate as its all proprietary.
The origins of IE in this sense is irrelevant, as it’s been since rewritten as a complete in-house Microsoft product.
I mean, it makes sense from a business perspective. Why spend the research and development to create a product, when you can purchase and enhance it for half the cost?
They’ve done the same I believe with .NET, and the purchasing of SysInternals, etc..
I don’t think it’s a bad way to go about doing things at all, do you think so? I’m not sure what stance you’re taking here.
I do think there is a fair amount of negligence on the side of the IE team for not adhering to ready standards, and it’s something they need to come forward and fix.
I mean, their strategy makes sense from a business perspective but it’s the kind of cut throat tactics which gets them into the kind of trouble they’re in now.
Not that I agree much with Opera’s stance on the Antitrust case, but I’m talking more historically.
Is that compliment or criticism ?
So many “standards” to choose from, sigh…
no that was last time.
I don’t see what the big deal is with Microsoft bundling IE with Windows. I mean, sure, it’s not very good, but the fact is, in this day and age, any OS worth its salt *should* have a web browser included.
I mean, realistically, if Windows didn’t come with IE, how would you download Firefox?
It could be installed by an OEM, or a computer-competent relative that would handle your computer.
So, basically, a browser would come with the os. Sort of like now, only instead of ms picking the browser, an oem does it. How’s that any better?
Or is every browser in the world going to be installed? So that no one thinks their browser is being side-stepped? What if I don’t want my oem’s choice of browser? Are they going to ask people to select from a list? I guess then we’d see how many people care about browsers by how man opt for ie. I doubt many people would bother picking anything else.
If you find it is causing harm, or is a security hole, or an inlet for ads, you can uninstall it.
This is the critical bit … you can uninstall it.
You can. You get to say. YOU. The machine owner. Your say as to what software your machine ends up running.
Get it?
Are we getting it yet?
no
Set the default browser to whatever YOU want. Won’t see IE any more. That’s what I do.
Only exception is when an application is hard-coded to open up IE which is by no way Microsoft’s fault. That is also one of the reasons why IE should come with Windows.
Moreover, there are apps which need a rendering engine, IE always being there guarantees that my app will work.
Forcing Microsoft to conform to Web standards (at least as much as Firefox if not Opera) is the best way to go.
Edited 2007-12-18 17:55
But IE is still there, and that does matter: do you remember the recent FF+IE combo bug?
Until you click a link in any MS software (especially the Live suite), or open the help file in any MS software. Then, no matter what your default settings are, you get IE.
If MS would honour their OS settings for default apps, it probably wouldn’t be as much of an issue, as OEMs could just set the defaults from the get-go.
The biggest issue, though, isn’t that IE is shipped with the OS (although that’s a precursor to it, and aggravates the situation). The biggest issue is that IE doesn’t follow all the web standards (HTML, XHTML, CSS, DOM, SVG, PNG, etc). If it followed the standards as well as Mozilla Firefox, Opera, WebKit/Safari/Konqueror then it wouldn’t matter if it was shipped on every Windows PC.
Since it doesn’t follow the standards, and it ships on all those Windows PC, and since few people know enough to switch browsers, web developers have become overly complacent on coding to the standards. That, compounded by all the MS web dev software (Frontpage, MS Word, etc) that generates incorrect HTML, has led to a web software universe where most of the code is pure crap.
If Frontpage generated correct and tidy HTML, if MS Word generated correct and tidy HTML, if Publisher generated correct and tidy HTML, and if IE rendered HTML according to the standards, then it wouldn’t matter that IE was used by 90-whatever % of users and websites.
That’s the issue.
Having IE shipped on all PCs is part of it, but not the entire issue, and is being blown out of proportion.
Microsoft is one of the influential members of W3C, and therefore one of the creators of the web standards. The question is why those standards are not implemented in IE. I suspect that they can’t be. IE act as a file system browser, help viewer and functional part of some other MS applications. Maybe some of these requirements are conflicting, I am not sure.
Has anyone notice how words containing ‘-‘ break in narrow table columns, as if they have blank. As if IE has some word processing features built in.
If they can’t manage to fit all that in a single app and make it work, then either make a separate standalone browser or copy an application that does all that (and then some more) properly, eg. konqueror.
Microsoft could include this stand-alone program to optionally install:
http://home.pacific.net.sg/~kennethkwok/lynx/
http://home.pacific.net.sg/~kennethkwok/lynx/scrshot.gif
… or this one:
http://filezilla-project.org/
http://filezilla-project.org/client_screenshots.php
… or this one:
http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/
http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/features.htm
… and they would also need to include the source code of those download programs, and a README file on were to download IE, Firefox or Opera from.
Once you had downloaded a decent browser of your choice, you could optionally then uninstall the original means you used to download it.
Edited 2007-12-18 08:18
Do you really think people would want to use lynx? Your living in a dream world
It is way more secure than IE.
Lynx is after all a better option than a raw command-line ftp program.
But primarily I mention it because it does answer the question posed posed by the OP … how to download another browser without IE installed.
It turns out that there are multiple answers to that question. Lynx is one were people can at least “see” what is happening.
Freedownloadmanager is better from a GUI point of view … but you need to know a URL to download from. Lynx + google will at least let you find such a link.
http://www.vordweb.co.uk/accessible_website.htm
(link above has a small screenshot of lynx displaying the google page).
Edited 2007-12-18 09:32
Wouldn’t a better approach, and one that could be understood and actually completed by the average user, be to link to Windows Market Place browser section? Or a special web page setup by ms for people to select a browser. Could be reached by a special application.
No offence, but the idea that the average user could use lynx is laughable
Edited 2007-12-18 13:34
You STILL do not get it. It is not about Microsoft including Internet Explorer, it is the fact that Internet Explorer is so intricately linked into the operating system that it cannot be uninstalled.
And what is wrong with that? If it’s there – it’s there, if you don’t use it what’s the problem? Those, what, 20-30 MB of wasted disk space?
Have you just landed from the Moon? THAT is the problem, that’s what the whole thing is about. As long as it’s there and cannot be removed, people are going to find it in there and won’t use anything else. They’ll never find out there are better browsers out there.
It’s an evil tactic coming from a monopoly. Microsoft sells Windows, which is an OS. They have no business trying to shove other kinds of software down people’s throats. Especially if it’s obvious that they’re bundling IE in an attempt to subvert Web standards to their own twisted purposes. Especially if there’s absolutely no need to tie Explorer to the system — for updates and help you can just bundle the core libraries, not the whole browser.
As long as it’s there and cannot be removed, people are going to find it in there and won’t use anything else.
Actually, it can be hidden pretty well … but it’s not easy. For my friends/Romans/countrymen, I usually download Firefox, re-label the shortcut as “Internet” and delete the IE icons from the desktop/toolbar/program files menu.
After that, the user just clicks the FIrefox icon 99% of the time …
I don’t know who mods people down for giving sensible advice…. +1 from me
But what about, say, the embedded MSHTML engine? Sure, it’s also not very good, but it provides an easy way for developers to embed rich HTML views without a whole lot of extra coding. I think the real problem isn’t that Microsoft’s bundling IE, I think the problem is that IE just isn’t very good.
I would argue that any modern GUI based operating system worth its salt should provide an embedded HTML viewer component; Gnome, KDE and Mac OS X all provide such a thing as well.
I’d agree with you if IE were removable. The fact that it’s not is the problem IMHO
“We believe the inclusion of the browser into the operating system benefits consumers, and that consumers and PC manufacturers are already free to choose to use any browsers they wish, …”
…as long as they fire up IE just to get the alternate browser in the first place.
Which is understandable, considering Windows has no proper “package management” system… but if someone has absolutely no desire to use IE, why should they be forced to keep it installed after installing an alternate browser? Opera is just too late; they should’ve filed the suit years ago, around the time of the whole Win9x/IE/Netscape antitrust thing.
Who knows how far they’ll get after waiting so long to take action… Microsoft has already leveraged their monopoly to totally rape the Web browser market. Since then they’ve been slowly losing ground to Firefox and forced into continuing the development of their once-abandoned IE. The browser has been bundled for years, the damage done–I just don’t see this getting anywhere.
I’ve already done my part and switched operating systems a couple years ago.
That thing didn’t go as well as it should have. As you can see, Microsoft is still up to some of its old tricks even today. Opera didn’t have the money it has today back then — it takes a lot of it to sue Microsoft. And frankly, the US courts are a lost cause.
That’s why they’re doing it only today, in Europe.
I’m sure that I remember a guy a few years ago who was able to chop up Windows a bit to make it completely IE-free. That shows up Microsoft’s claim as just being hot air, that IE is (according to them) “an integral part of Windows”.
Good luck to Opera – I hope they do far better in court against MS than the DoJ did a few years ago…..
My proposed solution for microsoft is to do one of two things:
(A) Bundle all 3 major competing browsers on the install CD and give the user the option at install time…
Not really a good option because most consumers receive their PC with windows already pre-installed, leaving the decision up to the OEM or reseller – which really defeats the purpose of having a choice.
OR
(B) Upon the consumer’s first login, display a “First Time Wizard” or something that allows you to choose which default programs you would like to use and download the appropriate one (including IE) and use that. If IE really does need to be with the OS, then install it or the required libraries in the background, but dont put an icon on the desktop or the start menu. I can understand why they’d need to bundle it since a lot of 3rd party apps lazily require the IE rendering engine, whether its for HTML help or whatever…
It think this solution could work for IM clients, email clients, web browser (as above), and many other “default” software items that any OS should come with. The reason this is necessary is because MS does have a monopoly (I believe its an illegal one, you make your own mind up) and is therefore responsible to ensure it cooperates with other companies who are trying to compete in the same market place. Note that being a monopoly is not illegal AFAIK, but using a monopoly to stifle competition is illegal – and this is why MS does need to give some consideration to competing products and give the consumer a real choice.
I cant see this happening however because it benefits consumers, but not microsoft. When Microsoft say they want to benefit consumers, they really mean they want to benefit themselves….and then consumers. But ask yourself the question, if there were a technically superior browser than IE, is using the current windows marketshare to (legally or not) block any superior product really benefiting consumers?
Edited 2007-12-18 02:13
With Mac OS X you have to fire up Safari to get Camino or any other browser. Sure you could delete the Safari binary afterwards, but you can delete iexplore.exe, too. You can’t delete WebKit on OS X because many applications use it. You can’t delete mshtml.dll for the same reason. So, really, what’s the difference? Must Apple also comply, and provide Firefox, Camino, Opera, and whatever other browser exists as well, on their OS X DVDs?
Exactly what I was thinking. Or for that matter, a lot of Linux distros use FireFox as their default browser. Shouldn’t they be suing Apple and other OS makers too?
Did you even make an effort to read the posts; someone else has already pointed out here, even after downloading and setting up the new browser as default, the likes of Windows Live Messenger still loads Internet Explorer by default.
That is the issue people are getting at – and strange enough, it never happens on Mac OS X; install Firefox, and even through the MSN Messenger on Mac, it loads up with the correct default browser – same goes for Linux.
You change the default browser on any of the other major operating systems, they respect the choice, the default selection of the end user – under Windows, no way; Microsoft knows better than you, ignores your settings and still loads up Internet Explorer.
Oh, and don’t blame the software vendor; Microsoft wrote both the operating system, the browser and messenger; it either says one of two things, they’re grossly incompetent or simply that they are going to fight tooth and nail at every opportunity when it comes to consumer choices.
Oh, and a side issue; the original law suit which started off the investigation by the DOJ years ago was over the fact that Microsoft disallowed OEM’s from loading competing browsers on the computer and replacing the IE logo on the desktop with the installed browser. That is the issue. They restricted choice at the supply end.
Edited 2007-12-18 06:56
“Monopoly” is a special case. If you don’t have a monopoly share of the market then you are more free in how you can compete. Once you gain the monopoly share, laws are suposed to restrict you to explicitly fair competition.
Apple is every bit as restrictive as Microsoft. If they where 90% of the measurable consumer market then antitrust law would be applicable.
And that just illustrates how screwed up our legal systems are where different laws apply to different groups of people.
At least here in the U.S. there is **supposed** to be some notion of equal justice under the law.
Law applies differently to different groups of people everywhere*, namely the group formed by those who break it and the group of those who don’t.
Abusing a monopoly to take over other markets puts you on the former group.
*Not really, but let’s not get into bribes and stuff.
Edited 2007-12-19 14:08
‘A) Bundle all 3 major competing browsers on the install CD and give the user the option at install time…@?
You mean IE, Firefox and Safari right?
I thought IE wasn’t a separate product and was a “technology”? That’s what they’ve been saying for years as an excuse for bundling and monopolising their browser.
I’ve been using alternate browsers on Windows since Firefox (then Phoenix) 0.5 came out. And I can’t remember when the last time was that I had to fire up IE to access a website, other than Windows Update.
Opera is just pissed because nobody is using their browser, and the reason why nobody is using their browser has nothing to do with a lack of choice. It’s because Opera is a user-unfriendly P.O.S. and an all around pain in the ass. I know people are going to demand examples, so I’ll give you three of them that come to mind immediately:
1. When I was trying to figure out how to move the panel buttons to the top instead of having them on the left (just one of about 100 bone-headed defaults in Opera), common sense told me to look in the Panels tab on the Customize screen. But no, that option is actually on the Toolbars tab. I actually had to go and look that one up.
2. On voice preferences, to control the speed of the text-to-speech reader, your options are ‘Very low’ to ‘Very high’ … um, shouldn’t that be very slow to very fast?
3. Trying to make the browser more ‘SDI’ like Firefox, I finally succeeded. But now every time I double click on an html file on my hard drive, I get 2 tabs open in Opera – one with the file I opened, and one with an error message.
There are literally dozens of things like this in Opera that annoy the hell out of me, and the *only* reason I use it is because it has the best text-to-speech engine I’ve ever heard. And I just got used to having Stephen Hawking read web pages to me
If somebody ever figured out how to get this working through the text-to-speech extension in Firefox, I’d uninstall Opera in a heartbeat and never look back. Til then, I’m stuck with it.
I have installed both Opera and Firefox for other people as alternatives to IE, and I haven’t ran across anybody so far that preferred to use Oepra. The folks at Opera really need to think hard about the design of their app before they go bitching and whining to the government. You know, it’s funny.. back when Opera used to cost money, Opera fanboys would say that the only reason people weren’t using Opera is because it cost money and Firefox and IE were free.
As for IE not supporting web standards, it may not support all of them, but it supports enough. And if you can’t make a decent website with the stuff that currently works in all major browsers, you should probably go the f**k home. It’s just like the world of video games.. people made games on the Atari 2600 with 2kb of RAM that were more fun to play than some of the games released on the current gen systems. Likewise, some people made better websites in the 90’s before tables were even a reality, then some of what is being done now with all the fancy CSS and DHTML crap available now, and people are still bitching that it’s not enough.
No.
First of all, I’d like to refer to your comment’s title:
“Opera doesn’t have a leg to stand on”
Sadly, this seems to be correct, but it is not determined by the quality of their product, but to their marketing, or at least to the marketing of MICROS~1 that makes the users “know” that there’s nothing else existing than “Internet Explorer”, or, much worse, that “the ‘Internet Explorer’ is the Internet”.
Allow me to go into detail:
“Opera is just pissed because nobody is using their browser, […]”
I’m using their browser, so you have been proven wrong by antiexample over an negative-allquantified statement.
“[…] and the reason why nobody is using their browser has nothing to do with a lack of choice. It’s because Opera is a user-unfriendly P.O.S. and an all around pain in the ass.”
Hmm… this conflicts very much with the feedback from the users that have explored Opera as a viable alternative to “Internet Explorer”. Please note that this is my own individual opinion and my individual experience that makes me say this. Especially the good integration of services (www, mail, chat etc.) into one application pleases many users. On the other hand, I sometimes think that the preferences setting mechanism of Opera could be easier to use.
Sadly, you experienced many problems with Opera.
“1. When I was trying to figure out how to move the panel buttons to the top instead of having them on the left (just one of about 100 bone-headed defaults in Opera), common sense told me to look in the Panels tab on the Customize screen. But no, that option is actually on the Toolbars tab. I actually had to go and look that one up.”
Exactly, that’s what I did mention, too: Configuration could be more obvious in some points.
“2. On voice preferences, to control the speed of the text-to-speech reader, your options are ‘Very low’ to ‘Very high’ … um, shouldn’t that be very slow to very fast?”
No. Speaking from technical terminology and semantics, the option keywords are to describe the speed: low speed = slow, high speed = fast. Excuse me, English is not my native language, but do you say things like “the price is expensive” or “the temperature is hot”? Just mind what an expression is refering to: if “the price is high”, then “the product is expensive”.
“3. Trying to make the browser more ‘SDI’ like Firefox, I finally succeeded. But now every time I double click on an html file on my hard drive, I get 2 tabs open in Opera – one with the file I opened, and one with an error message.”
What does this error message mean?
“There are literally dozens of things like this in Opera that annoy the hell out of me, and the *only* reason I use it is because it has the best text-to-speech engine I’ve ever heard.”
Furthermore, I like Opera’s concept of using the mouse, and its keyboard support is excellent.
“I have installed both Opera and Firefox for other people as alternatives to IE, and I haven’t ran across anybody so far that preferred to use Oepra.”
Maybe my obervations are different because I did take the time to configure Opera into a more usable and convenient form. That’s something you can’t expect from the default settings, I think.
“As for IE not supporting web standards, it may not support all of them, but it supports enough.”
I think you should differ between “supports in basics” and “supports completely”. The quality of support is more important that the pure amount of standards that are claimed to be supported.
And hey, if you’re making the standards, you can excuse any malfunctioning support by claiming that the standard has just changed.
As another writer had explained, web developers usually end up developing things twice: One version for all the standard compliant browsers, and one for “Internet Explorer”. From my personal experiences, this is true. I finally gave up and didn’t support “Internet Explorer” any more.
Today, it’s usually the other way round. Dumb web developers code JS stuff into their pages that implement such kind of functionality that only a certain version of “Internet Explorer” can be used, sometimes another test against Mozilla follows, along with a warning advice to change to “Internet Explorer”, and the failsafe setting is just to display a message like “Your browser sucks, go buy ‘Windows’!”.
“And if you can’t make a decent website with the stuff that currently works in all major browsers, you should probably go the f**k home.”
If you’re a web developer, you’ll have to admit that it’s not as easy as it might seem. “All major browsers”, surely, if you code correctly and usually by hand, you won’t encounter problems, unless you use some W3C standardized features that the “Internet Explorer” cannot handle, while all other browsers can. But you lose control over the correctness of your HTML files when you leave development up to an automated program. Especially if it’s sold by MICROS~1, your web pages will cause problems in all major browsers that are not “Internet Explorer”.
“Likewise, some people made better websites in the 90’s before tables were even a reality, then some of what is being done now with all the fancy CSS and DHTML crap available now, and people are still bitching that it’s not enough.”
Because the web today is about interaction, streaming, multimedia and such stuff, you need to put everything together in one single concept. In the 90s, you could do the same things using HTML, but today, you need plugins for this and that, and blind users are kept off many web pages because they don’t see anything. What do I want to say with this? Of course it’s okay to use CSS, DHTML and even “Flash”, but please, use it correctly. That’s the only way everyone can benefit from it, no matter which browser you’re using. Just imagine how the web would be if you needed to download and install a special browser for each web page, depending on its content… huh… frightening… erm, that’s what some plugins (and their limited availability) are used for today, isn’t it?
Well implemented web pages can still be viewed with lany and translated onto braille and voice outputs for blind users. And they look great in standard web browsers, you can even apply a custom CSS.
So standards are about openness, availability, completeness and quality, not about oh joy oh market share. And when it’s up to HTML and XHTML, W3C’s specifications rule.
I agree with a lot of what you say WorknMan, I and just about everyone I know professionally that I have worked with over the years are all familiar with Opera. Almost all have downloaded and installed Opera at one point. And yet every single one uses Firefox as their primary browser. So as much as I could say this is just my personal preference that Firefox is better, it is now hard to argue otherwise when the closer world around me agrees.
At the heart of the issue is the OEMs, not Microsoft. If Opera can not get it’s browser as the default pre-installed that is their business to do so. For all those that seem to live their lives obsessing about Microsoft I ask you this. Replace Microsoft in this equation with Apple, or even Ubuntu. What is the primary default browser you see with Ubuntu? But, you say, Opera can be installed through a repo! Yes, and it can also be installed in Windows by downloading the same. What is vastly important before people make idiotic claims and hyperbolic statements is to find out exactly what the OEM’s response has been to Opera when they asked to have their browser pre-installed.
It is up to Opera now to show cause, otherwise they just need to go away. I have to admit if this was Firefox we were talking about I would be highly interested. But as this is Opera, well I have no sympathy for them. They make a bad product and wish to use external force and pressure to gain market share. That is just not the way to do business (unless you are Rambus of course).
It apparently works for Microsoft with Vista.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140583-page,5-c,techindustrytrend…
(Actually, I disagree with PC World here on a minor point. Vista IS awful.)
Edited 2007-12-18 09:45
I think that Opera is not as much concerned with the fact that MS ships IE with Windows (it is their product after all, although I agree that them being a monopoly should somehow face some regulation in this regard) as they are with the fact that IE is a lousy piece of crap, that can’t render proper CSS to save its life and since IE is used by the majority of web users around the world, web developers have to adapt to its quirks, rendering standards-compliant web browsers completely unusable.
It would be one thing if the buggy way that IE renders stuff could be summarized in a pattern of sorts that could then be reproduced by 3rd party developers so that they could at least have an option to use their standard renderer or choose the “broken” one at runtime. That at least would level the play field and Microsoft would have its defacto standard all over again, pissing over universally agreed standards as they always do.
But I think that IE-apologists in this site have NEVER developed one website in their lives. If they did, then they would understand all the hate and anger towards IE. But I am tired of trying to explain these things to some people: I can understand the layman not understanding what is at stake here, but not the so-called power users. With things like Silverlight further down the road and people believing Miguel de Icaza that they will be able to make an open implementation with Mono and things like SVG being dropped, I really am looking forward to one day with a web completely Microsoft-ish just to be able to tell these retards “I told you so!”…
But I think that IE-apologists in this site have NEVER developed one website in their lives. If they did, then they would understand all the hate and anger towards IE. But I am tired of trying to explain these things to some people:
I’m not an IE apologist, and I have made a website before, but that was a long time ago (circa 96-97) before CSS existed, or at least before it was widely used. Sure, you may not be able to cram all of the latest whiz-bang technologies available now into a website and have it easily work in all browsers, but you also need to stop and think whether most of that crap is really needed in the first place. Unless you’re in a very specialized field, if you can’t make a compelling website that people want to visit without having it all jazzed up with the web’s equivalent to the special effects present in a $100 million summer blockbuster movie, then you’ve got bigger problems than what IE does or does not support. Just try this as a little experiment.. create a website that you can load in old 3.x browsers, and if people still visit it, then you know you’ve done something right.
With things like Silverlight further down the road and people believing Miguel de Icaza that they will be able to make an open implementation with Mono and things like SVG being dropped, I really am looking forward to one day with a web completely Microsoft-ish just to be able to tell these retards “I told you so!”…
I dunno.. to me, seems to be going the opposite direction, as I have rarely (if ever) have to fire up IE to view a website anymore. If course, now that the sleeping giant (Microsoft) has awoken and is out to eat Firefox’s lunch, we’ll have to see what happens.
Sure, great idea if all you want is to create some webs on your parents basement and host them at lycos.
On the other hand, people making a living out of web design sure would have an easier time if simple stuff like aligning the web content so it looks the same on every browser didn’t require stupid hacks + double checking everything on several browsers just to be sure.
IE does support standards.. well.. almost.. they support most that are relevant.. (some in a buggy way but for arguments sake it’s “supported”. The worst part about IE is actually about IE containing a lot of “extensions” to current standards that is IE only. Go to one of those sites with another browser and you’re screwed.
There is another side of the Opera complaint though – is that users don’t have a choice of IE in Windows. I remember reading a article here in OSAlert a while ago where a researcher found that, for some specific things, IE will launch no matter what the “default browser” setting in Windows is set to.
Try this: click on the “Open email” icon in Live Messenger, guess what opens? IE – even though I set the default browser in Windows to be Firefox. Why? no reason. Firefox has no problems opening up Hotmail. This is the anti-competitive practice that Opera is referring to.
“Try this: click on the “Open email” icon in Live Messenger, guess what opens? IE – even though I set the default browser in Windows to be Firefox. Why? no reason. Firefox has no problems opening up Hotmail. This is the anti-competitive practice that Opera is referring to.”
Refering to the top secret MICROS~1 source code I have just received…
if $DEFAULTBROWSER == iexplore.exe then
_____/* Do what the user wants */
_____launch $DEFAULTBROWSER
else
_____/* failsafe */
_____launch iexplore.exe
fi
I can only speculate why this is so in Live Messenger. My main guess is that Live Messenger is meant to run on Windows, so they can guarantee that IE is there, and it’s easier to have one consistent, supported browser for accessing the email. Perhaps the fear is that spyware will hook into that default browser setting and make it difficult or impossible for an average user to get onto their email and get support for their problem.
You should note, however, that Live Messenger is not part of Windows. Why is this such a big deal though? Is it important to you that people not use IE at all whatsoever? Just because someone’s using IE to get onto HotMail doesn’t mean that it’s their primary browser.
It is a huge deal, and it is vitally important.
It is basically a design flaw and a security weakness to have a web browser embedded irremovably into the core of the OS.
It is a primary reason for avoiding running Windows at all. Ask homeland security about it.
IE is the primary “attack vector” against Windows, and hence is the number one vulnerability of all computers on the planet. It is by far and away the most common means via which computer systems get compromised.
The very worst part about it is that there is no way to run an up-to-date Windows OS without exposing your system to this huge security hole.
Because of Microsoft’s insistence that IE is embedded into Windows, IE becomes the number one reason why you shouldn’t run Windows. At all. A good example is quoted above. There are programs that will run IE, no matter what your choice of browser is set to. If programs can run IE because they know it is there … then external agents via the internet connection can run IE because they know it is there.
If you absolutely MUST run Windows (and my sympathy goes out to you), then the best option is to run Windows as a guest OS under a VM, with Mac OSX or Linux as the host OS. That way, when your Windows gets hosed via IE, you can just re-install your original image of it and start over.
http://linuxondesktop.blogspot.com/2007/12/running-windows-inside-y…
Edited 2007-12-18 08:37
“””
Why is this such a big deal though?
“””
A slew of “little” things which are “not such a big deal” are, to a great degree, responsible for the perpetuation of MS’s stranglehold on the desktop market. With 90-95% market share, all these “innocent” little things matter. And they matter a great deal.
Its really hard to find anyone who is pro opera in this matter.
There was a great link roundup by Aza Dotzler from Mozilla here. Pretty much from all the major tech journalism outlets, and pretty much universally hostile towards Opera in this. It is hard to claim monopoly when firefox is the rising star when it comes to marketshare
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2007/12/opera_calls_for…
Andy Clark is calling for the dissolution of the CSS working group because of it. He is basically saying that for every step forward in corporate cooperation, someone pulls a backhanded move like this and puts everyone ten steps back. Among other great points, he reminds us that…
http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/malarkey/more/css_unworking_group…,
Eric Mayer wrote a great blog post about it saying that the time to do this was 2005, when IE had been stagnating for years. But now when MS is actually making progress and listen to the community, all this has the potential of doing is putting them on the defensive and short circuiting the process (http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2007/12/13/bad-timing/)
Edited 2007-12-18 06:01 UTC
“We believe the inclusion of the browser into the operating system benefits consumers, and that consumers and PC manufacturers are already free to choose to use any browsers they wish”.
Hypocrites.
How does that statement make them ‘hypocrites’? I think you need a dictionary, sir.
quite reasonable that MS won’t unbundle IE and nobody asked for it. Opera asked for the possible removal of IE – OR, if MS won’t make IE removable, then unbundle IE.
Since Microsoft won’t unbundle IE we can expect them to make IE removable in future releases of Windows. That would be a nice SP for Win2K3
…
Microsoft’s POV can be shortened down to this: All your machine are belong to us.
I would just like to know why a webbrowser has to be an “integral part” of an operating system. It’s really not entirely clear to me. After all there are several browsers which can all be simply downloaded and used.
Precisely. Exactly the point.
In fact, originally IE itself was NOT an integral part of the Windows OS.
Edited 2007-12-18 08:42
I think they should strip down IE to a very simple browser so you can do a search and download whatever browser you like. Problem solved.
But well they won’t ever do that cause it’ll mean being fair, wich they aren’t
Not necessary. You don’t need even as much as a stripped down IE in order to download.
http://www.nsftools.com/tips/MSFTP.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/pro…
why on earth, is every new computer sold preloaded with windows?
Exactly, OEM’s should be banned from forcing windows only on people. When you buy a new laptop or Desktop PC, it should be mandatory for OEM’s to offer a choice. I’m normally against forcing rules on people, but this one would definitely improve humanity!
I’m currently in the market for 2 new laptops and a desktop PC. No way can I buy the laptops without Vista and it sucks balls! I don’t want it and don’t need it, yet it’s left up to me to do all the hard work of having to send it back stating I refuse to accept Microsoft’s Eula and try to get a refund. Not that I really care about the 20 bucks I’ll get back, just to send the message, “I DON”T WANT NO STINKING MS OS ON MY LAPTOPS!”
Not that I really care about the 20 bucks I’ll get back, just to send the message, “I DON”T WANT NO STINKING MS OS ON MY LAPTOPS!”
At the “Business” section of http://www.hp.com all of the laptops can be ordered with FreeDOS as the OS. That’s about a dozen laptops from a major OEM that can be had with no MS OS.
however, EU could mandate that each reseller must offer a laptop/desktop PC with and without Windows on it. With exact price difference of Windows license (or, if a manufacturer has a deal, they should provide exactly how much it is per PC and calculate the reduced price accordingly).
It’s no problem to reformat a drive for a buyer in spot.
It would be a huge blow for MS.
“however, EU could mandate that each reseller must offer a laptop/desktop PC with and without Windows on it. With exact price difference of Windows license (or, if a manufacturer has a deal, they should provide exactly how much it is per PC and calculate the reduced price accordingly). “
The price difference wouldn’t amount to much. Large OEMs offset the price of an OEM Windows license by getting paid to bundle crapware that relies on Windows. Each PC sold without Window is also sold without crapware and the revenue generated by said crapware. So what’s the price difference going to be? I’d guess that it wouldn’t be enough to make much of an impression on consumers.
Besides that, if I’m an OEM, what business does the EU have in telling me what OSes I install on my computers? Sure, the EU has the *power* to do whatever they want, but what *right* do they have to tell an OEM what to do? If I think I have a competitive advantage over other OEMs by bundling a particular OS and I think that the cost of offering other OS skus isn’t worth it because those skus wouldn’t have much demand, then that’s my business decision to make. By the same token, if I’m an OEM and think that offering other skus with other OSes or no OS at all provides me competitive advantage over other OEMs, then that’s my business decision to make too. It’s none of government’s business.
opera is awful, i say they seek attention =)
We believe the inclusion of the browser into the operating system benefits consumers….
I really hope their joking, because that statement is just not the case, I get no benefits from it being part of Windows…it was better when it was a separate entity.
You get no benefits from it being included, which means nobody benefits from it being included. like it or not, IE does things better for some people. And on my systems, it has quite a bit more stability than Firefox, Opera, or Safari. In fact in the 9 months since ive used ie7 in windows, it hasent crashed once… I cant say that for firefox or opera in windows or linux.
as for the other arguments people are giving…
I would agree that IE would be better as a removable product, but all this talk about non inclusion all together, or using lynx? get real, MOST people would have no clue what to do if the browser was just not there, and would flood the support lines asking wtf is up! Microsoft’s Operating systems are used by the extremely computer illiterate, and THAT is why it will be included, the arguments of “I can choose in linux!” dont even apply, because people who run linux usually are competent enough to change thier browser, where as the people who arent, wouldent even know the alternative exists even if the icon was in the start menu.
How can I remove Konqueror browser from KDE ?
Is this possible at all to use any KDE desktop without it ?
Well Konqueror was not put in like that to gain a competitive advantage, supports proper web standards, doesn’t have it’s own technologies that other browser/platforms dont work with.
I don’t think so, and the lack of ability to uninstall it from KDE system proves that I am right.
Imagine that Windows disappears from the desktop market and the Linux takes over. Until there will be no way to clean uninstall Konqueror from KDE, or choose not to install it at all during “apt-get install kde-desktop” we will have exactly the same situation in KDE like in Windows now.
choose not to install it at all during “apt-get install kde-desktop”
The choice exists, just don’t use metapackages.
You’ve not read what I said proper, it’s not about whether it comes with the OS, it’s about gaining a competitive advantage and locking out other browser technologies. Just because it comes with the DE dont mean it’s no trust worthy, if Konqueror was to become like IE then tell me how it’s not trust worthy?
There is no lack of ability to uninstall konqueror from a KDE system.
It is however possible that some distributions have a bug in the package dependencies that would mean that uninstalling konqueror results in removal of large parts of KDE. If that package dependency bug is present in your distribution, then you should send in a bug report.
emerge -C konqueror
it is an Gentoo’s equivalent of apt from Debianish distros ?
If so then whole KDE is “moving right along” (to quote that infamous “presentation” of Win98) with Konqueror.
Yes, but I don’t know if you have a modular KDE on debian.
If your package manager has its dependencies set correctly, then it should be possible to just remove the konqueror package.
apt-get remove konqueror
Be warned though that on some current distributions (I believe Ubuntu is one such), this action would end up uninstalling a large part of KDE itself. Pay attention to what is listed for removal before you approve. If removing konqueror suggests taking a large part of the rest of KDE with it, then send in a bug report to your distribution, as this should not happen.
Mind you, you aren’t required to have KDE on an Linux system in the first place. You have the option to have GNOME, XFCE, Enlightenment, Fluxbox, Blackbox, Windowmaker, IceWM or a few other options as your desktop if you so desire.
Edited 2007-12-19 00:27
In other words you admit that Konqueror is “an integral part of the KDE environment”
Great, but I asked about ability tu run KDE without Konqueror. Existence of XFCE or GNOME is irrelevant at the moment, just like the fact that I can hack Windows to run it without explorer.exe
Not a bit of it. I know you have put a smiley, but that is just utter rubbish.
Please don’t FUD … even in jest. It gets a lot of people very, very riled.
Microsoft have a multi-million dollar anti-Linux fund. There isn’t much “surface area” in reality for Microsoft to attack Linux, so they have to try to spread false impressions … in other words, FUD and astroturf.
If you keep persisting with “bad sound vibes” even though it has been explained to you, suspicion is sure to come your way that you are astroturfing.
It has already been said, several times. You can run KDE without konqueror. As long as your distribution provider has set up the package management correctly, you just need to do the equivalent of:
apt-get remove konqueror
If your distribution provider has set set up the package management dependencies incorrectly, this might (on some distributions) remove many more components of KDE than just konqueror. This is a bug. This is not the way that KDE is designed.
Even if you find that this happens for your distribution, you can of course re-install the removed KDE components without re-installing konqueror.
The answer to your question about the
is therefore: KDE is designed so that that is possible. However, some distribution’s setup of package management dependencies are buggy and they make this practically awkward to achieve, and not worth the effort.
I just tried this on a Kubuntu64 7.10 install:
“apt-get remove konqueror
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
kmplayer-konq-plugins konq-plugins konqueror konqueror-nsplugins kubuntu-desktop
kubuntu-konqueror-shortcuts strigi-applet
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 7 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 12.0MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? n
Abort.”
That is bad. There shouldn’t be a dependency on the “kubuntu-desktop” metapackage, but there is. That is a bug IMO, in the “dependency tree”.
Edited 2007-12-19 10:38
I have traced this a bit further, if you are interested.
konqeror depends on, amongst other things, konq-plugins.
If I try to remove just konq-plugins I get this:
“# apt-get remove konq-plugins
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
konq-plugins kubuntu-desktop
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 2 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 4469kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? n
Abort.”
So the link to kubuntu-desktop is via konq-plugins.
If I look at the meta-package kubuntu-desktop (which is a kubuntu thing, not a KDE thing) I find that konqeror is not itself a dependency, it is just “recommended”. This is correct. However, konq-plugins is listed as a dependency. This, I believe is where the error lies.
To get around this error for Kubuntu, and have KDE without konqueror, you would have to list all the “dependencies” for kubuntu-desktop that are installed, and save that list to a text file (copy & paste will do). Then remove the “kubuntu-desktop” package and konqueror. Then re-install all of the individual packages in the text file. This would include konq-plugins, but not konqueror itself.
A lot of effort for not much gain, IMO, to fix a bug that is a bug in kubuntu, not in KDE.
Edited 2007-12-19 10:58
toyota, GM honda etc puts tyres of THEIR choice on new car. You are free to change/replace those AFTER purchasing a car, not before.
Browser IS integral part of the OS nowdays. Anyone in right state of mind will not allow compititor to creep in with brand new product. If there is any problem with IE MS will be hold responsible. If there is problem with preinstalled Opera, who is responsible?
Passing Acid2 test doesn’t give opera right to detect terms of business..
I am requesting on this forum for past 2 years to tell me how to simple and clean uninstall konqueror from kde without severely breaking KDE and hence my linux system…apt-get remove konqueror will result in loss of kde..
konqueror is integral part of kde..kde(or other DE) is THE linux face to world
+1 from me
You’re not alone in that question.
Also, almost ten years ago, when “Windows 98 Active Desktop controversy” appeared, I still remember Linux zealots of that time arguing that they copied so called “show the desktop” button not from Win98/IE4 but from “somewhere else”
That “magical trend” of mimicking other “bad OSes” in Linux always keep me amused
Microsoft can ship windows with IE but at least make it possible to completely uninstall it from your system without side effects. Also while they are at it make Windows updates available from all browsers just to prove Microsoft is not abusing its dominant position.
I seem to remember something about the EU ordering msft to separate the OS from browser.
I don’t care if you hate MS or not, but aren’t lawsuits always ugly and to be avoided? Seriously, I’m so tired of people bullying, suing, yelling, arguing over software: it’s just not worth it. Some people act like it’s nuclear war they’re trying to avoid when really it’s something silly like “market share” (ugh). Who freakin’ cares?!
BTW, IE 7 is a lot better than IE 6, so why is everyone so angry as if IE 6 is still the latest? There’s no pleasing some people. Microsoft probably has its hands full doing other things.
I like Opera a lot, so I mainly use it (except for a few sites that only support IE or Firefox). But I don’t see the big problem with using more than one browser (currently have all of the above installed as well as OffByOne … didn’t also install Safari beta because that’d be overkill for me).
Any desktop OS has to come with a browser – period. The question I would ask is, why IE? What is the point of IE? Nobody buys it, since it’s free, and nobody buys windows because it comes with IE. MS could save a lot of money by scrapping the IE dev team and replacing it with firefox (replacing IE, not the dev team).
As for Opera, I tried to use it once. Twice, maybe. The tabs didn’t work right – it would go to the previously active tab rather than the one to the left (or even right) when closing the current tab. It wouldn’t import my Firefox bookmarks with anything like the same folder structure. It insisted on sorting my bookmarks by name. The bookmark management window was unusable. And – don’t quote me on this – I think there was a bar between the page and the bookmarks bar which was impossible to get rid of.
So, completely unusable. Fast rendering and a small memory footprint are nice, and if at some point it works exactly like firefox I’ll think really hard about switching; but for now, I’d rather put in another gig of memory and a faster processor than have to deal with it.
I’m amazed how well people have forgotten that Microsoft “integerated” the browser in their operating system because they were afraid of Netscape and Java destroying their OLE and DDE implementation plans for the “network” (which wasn’t to be what we call the Internet by the way, but something akin to it that their business partners were cooking up.)
The big problem here isn’t that the Europeans age on them about that, it’s that the Americans didn’t have the backbone to finish the job.
Microsoft has done a lot of good. So have a lot of people who are spending the rest of their lives in jail because they also killed someone.
Opera has every business calling this to the attention of the world, again, because it wasn’t settled the first time.
Let me make this clear: It’s not that Microsoft bundles IE with the operating system, it’s because it can’t be taken out, and it’s also *why* they did it, and that they continue to work the browser to the same ends.
By rights, a user should be able to completely replace IE with Firefox, Opera, or whatever they choose. The courts agreed with this view, and agreed that Microsoft was engaging in heinous activity, using the web browser as a weapon. This does *not* benefit anyone, much less consumers (except perhaps Microsoft, since their trick seems to have largely worked.)
If I could turn back the clock, I would try to do more to encourage the courts when we had the chance. As it is, Opera has a hard row to hoe, but hopefully they are successful.