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Opera Software has filed a complaint with the European Commission about Microsoft claiming, among other things, that the company holding developers back by not following accepted web standards.
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Opera Complains to EU About Microsoft
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HardOCP News
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You know, one of the things I used to like about Opera as a company was the fact that they didnt complain like this
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GilmourD
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Can anybody get ahead on their own merit instead of by lawsuits? Jeezy Chreezy...
oROEchimaru
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Putting this aside... Microsoft was sued when I was younger over similiar stuff related to IE. I thought they would really distance themselves in vista...
currently the official, easy way for the use to get security updates, protect their system (updates) via windows updates, is IE only. How is this allowing the user to have choice? Why is IE required anyway?
currently the official, easy way for the use to get security updates, protect their system (updates) via windows updates, is IE only. How is this allowing the user to have choice? Why is IE required anyway?
This is one of the few complaints about microsoft that I might actually have to agree with. Microsoft does hold a large part of the market, yet they don't fully comply with some standards and/or allow for fuzzy following of the standards so that something that follows the standards exactly may not work properly in IE and something that doesn't follow the standards correctly might work in IE. An example is missing closing tags for some things, IE will just assume that you meant to have them there, while others following standards won't display the page correctly.
While I think that running to the EU is a little childish, it would be nice if Microsoft did have IE follow standards a little more than what they do.
While I think that running to the EU is a little childish, it would be nice if Microsoft did have IE follow standards a little more than what they do.
jaegertech
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I guess I won't be checking Opera out to see what has changed recently. Frankly, Opera should be eternally grateful that IE is bundled with Windows. IE is pretty much the best arguement you can make for using alternative browsers.
Well the did move away from it with Vista. Windows update is its own little app in Vista. Even if you into IE and click on Windows/Microsoft update in the tools menu, it doesn't go to the web page, it opens up the windows update application.
MS also made it so that you don't need IE to download files from them that need verification. They have a plug in for Firefox that allows you to verify that windows is legal.
The only thing I can really see is them complaining about active X controls being IE only. At work we have quite a few web apps that require IE because they use active x. I don't see how MS will be able to open it up. It needs the OS integration that only IE gives you to really work properly. (I think)
If I was MS, I would just bring a big chart that shows the market share for all the browsers and how they changed over the past couple of years. IE has been consistently losing ground to Firefox and Safari. IIRC in Germany Firefox has over 25% of the market and over 10% world wide. The rapid growth of Firefox and to a lesser extent Safari basically disproves Operas complaint.
Opera needs to spend less time on shit like this and more time on making a browser the people actually want to use. That or it needs to sue not only MS but Apple and Mozilla too because it is getting its ass kicked by all 3 of them.
Wow, what a bunch of whiners. 10 years ago I would have believed them, however with Firefox running incredibly well in all the newer Windows OS's, Opera needs to pull their heads out of their asses and code something.
Really, the only thing I've used IE for in the last few years is to update Windows.
Really, the only thing I've used IE for in the last few years is to update Windows.
Bone_Enterprise
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Opera: The new Netscape.
Didn't Netscape try and sue over the whole "monopoly" BS quite a few years ago?
Now Opera has to try and do the same thing, yet they cower under the EU's wing.
"We can't deal with our own problems, since you sue everyone else sue someone for me please."
Can we just get rid of the EU all together?
Would make the world a better place =P
Didn't Netscape try and sue over the whole "monopoly" BS quite a few years ago?
Now Opera has to try and do the same thing, yet they cower under the EU's wing.
"We can't deal with our own problems, since you sue everyone else sue someone for me please."
Can we just get rid of the EU all together?
Would make the world a better place =P
That's not quite what they're complaining about. Opera just wants Microsoft to follow established web standards. Microsoft makes a web developer's life vastly more difficult than it needs to be, so Opera's sort of "sticking up for us" more than they are just senselessly whining.
Opera runs more efficiently and adheres to web standards more accurately than IE7, so they really have very little coding to do. Microsoft, on the other hand, has a good deal of catching up to do.
As for the idea of forcing Microsoft to include alternative browsers with Windows -- that's just plain retarded. This is just a lame attempt to increase their market grab.
HardOCP News
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I liked them better when the most outrageous thing the company said was that its CEO would swim from Norway to the U.S. when they got a million downloads.
What ever happened to those guys?
What ever happened to those guys?
But if MICROSOFT gets blamed for making webmaster jobs more difficult, then why are most website made for IE and not Mozilla/Opera?
It seems to me webmasters PREFER to code for IE.
Why complain to Microsoft? Opera should bitch at webmasters and tell them to adhere to W3C standard instead of Microsoft's standard.
It seems to me webmasters PREFER to code for IE.
Why complain to Microsoft? Opera should bitch at webmasters and tell them to adhere to W3C standard instead of Microsoft's standard.
Believe it or not, to get your ford running again, you need ford parts.... not dodge parts.
On what planet do web designers prefer to work with IE?
My workflow is simple: I build and test simultaneously in Opera and Firefox (in other words, I design for those browsers), then I regretfully have to hop to IE6 and IE7 and fix whatever they mangle, destroy and blatantly misinterpret. A good deal of what you'll see when you browse with IE is a seemingly correct presentation, but the reality is that the code is probably laden with IE-specific hacks and cheats. A proper browser needs no such things: all they need is valid code. I don't think I've ever encountered a situation where valid code doesn't produce an expected result in either browser. If you know the specs, that's all you need to know.
Now, if you mean that we have to spend more time fixing things that IE breaks or hacking up our code, then yes, we can sometimes spend more time in IE than we do with other browsers. A good deal of the debugging for IE involves simple trial and error, and we do this tedious nonsense because the majority of the population has no idea something (vastly) better exists.
I liked them better when the most outrageous thing the company said was that its CEO would swim from Norway to the U.S. when they got a million downloads.
What ever happened to those guys?
a shark got him somewhere a little north of cuba. they found a leg and a swim cap embroidered with opera ceo on it as i recall.
Obviously you haven't tried to apply to certain jobs online. Some sites use third party people to do the first part of hiring for their stores/corporations. I'll use staples as an example of how monopolistic IE and Microshaft are. When you go to apply on-line for a job position using Firefox it will bring you to a page that says you need to have IE or Netscape and the Windows OS to use their online application. I use Linux and either Opera or Firefox for my browsing needs and enjoy myself most of the time until I run into this monopolistic shit. The fact that I do not need to download anything for their software to work and that all the browser has to do is send back what check box I clicked there should not have to be a requirement of Windows/IE. I myself am in the IT profession and most of the jobs that I apply to are on-line applications only(no walk-ins) and I run into this so often that its not even funny, and its not just Staples or Unicru that does this either. I contacted one of the places that does this BS with IE only and they replied back with that their site is encoded to work with IE's coding and that most other browsers were not displaying their web pages correctly. IE really does need to start complying with standards so shit like this stops.
THere has been a web standard long before MS decided to ship IE
THey used their usual embrace & extend to control it and stifle innovation (IE was stalled for soooo long until FF was a real threat to market share NOW we have IE7 and IE8 on its way...)
Opera/EU are not whiners, if MS or any other company want to work here and they don't want to abide by the local laws then they can get the hell out
THey used their usual embrace & extend to control it and stifle innovation (IE was stalled for soooo long until FF was a real threat to market share NOW we have IE7 and IE8 on its way...)
Opera/EU are not whiners, if MS or any other company want to work here and they don't want to abide by the local laws then they can get the hell out
This is total BS. Users DO have a choice of what Internet software they run. Windows doesn't stop them from using any Internet software made for Windows.
So what if you have to use IE to update Windows? You have to use Norton's update software to update Norton products. Whoop tee fragggin doo if you have to use IE to update Windows. You DO NOT have to use it to browse the web.
You can't blame Microsoft because companies build their software to be ActiveX only. Microsoft provides the tools. The company chooses whether to use it or not.
The only legitimate complaint they have is the standards issue.
You don't see them complaining about Safari being bundled with OS X. Well, I guess OS X would have to be relevant for them to do that.
So what if you have to use IE to update Windows? You have to use Norton's update software to update Norton products. Whoop tee fragggin doo if you have to use IE to update Windows. You DO NOT have to use it to browse the web.
You can't blame Microsoft because companies build their software to be ActiveX only. Microsoft provides the tools. The company chooses whether to use it or not.
The only legitimate complaint they have is the standards issue.
You don't see them complaining about Safari being bundled with OS X. Well, I guess OS X would have to be relevant for them to do that.
Ah, to be so young.
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/history
MS does have selfish and also backwards compatibility reasons for the uneven "standards" support in IE. But Netscape and IE were adding things even before newer recommended standards added that type of functionality.
Exactly, I've seen many "IE6 is not supported and never will be" and I agree with them.
AaronP
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If you're suing M$ why not sue Apple, they 'force' people to use Safari.
Opera has been campaigning for standards compliance forever. I suspect that this suit is primarily about that. It's also likely about how the WMV plugin no longer exists in vista and both firefox and opera have to use nasty hacks to get it to work less than 100%, and there are no other options.
I love bullshit reasoning like this. How is it MS's fault that they decided to make their page IE only? Was MS somehow holding them back or forcing them to use IE? It was that companies choice to make it IE only and you should be pissed of at the company instead of MS.
They could have easily made it only work in other browsers and not IE and place a link to download Firefox or Opera. W3C came up with one standard and MS uses a different one, deal with it.
I've seen them too. This is because MS doesn't have a browser monopoly. Any website can make people use whatever browser they choose. Everyone can freely choose to not code for IE.
If you're suing M$ why not sue Apple, they 'force' people to use Safari.
Exactly. I think that I am going to sue Nintendo and Opera because they force me to use Opera to browse the web on my Wii. Its obviously a monopoly because you can't use anything else on it.
Wow you have no clue do you.
Webmasters have to "hack" their sites to get them to display correctly in IE because IE has stupid quirks with how it renders and doesn't display everything correctly.
Here are just a few things:
http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer.html
Webmasters have to code for IE because its what the majority use (its bundled with windows) and because they (majority) doesn't know any better.
And? JavaScript allows you to code for multiple browser type. You can chose who to code for. If you don't want to code for IE, then don't.
Programmers and developers have to code for many hardwares and platforms everyday! Why should webmasters be any different? I still think Opera should blame webmasters for being lazy.
And not everyone uses Javascript, nor should every webpage require it just to fix a broken browser.
IE 6 doesn't follow the standards that every other browser uses and MS forces it upon people because its the default in windows installs.
How are webmasters "lazy" for not wanting to have to fix all of IE's bugs? I'd say MS developers are the lazy ones for not doing it themselves.
We're talking about bugs now? Bugs are by their nature unintentional, thus fixed when they come around. You're not gonna tell me Firefox or Safari or Opera doesn't suffer from bugs.
Get over IE6. IE7 is out now.
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wow, sad Opera, as said, maybe 10 years ago you could get away with this when NetScape was bitching.
but i go to back to my thought
It is THEIR OS, they can include what ever the heck they want to include!, Why dont you ask McDonalds to sell Taco Bell taco's and A&W root beer while your at it ?
but i go to back to my thought
It is THEIR OS, they can include what ever the heck they want to include!, Why dont you ask McDonalds to sell Taco Bell taco's and A&W root beer while your at it ?
Rendering bugs, which cause pages to look incorrect in IE but correct in every other browser.
You know, the ones that webmasters have to know about and fix on every page.And it would be nice to "get over" IE 6, but its still the browser that the majority uses.
I just noticed that the [H] link doesn't go directly to opera's press release but instead the AP.
http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/en/2007/12/13/
http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/en/2007/12/13/
Yes, I have applied online, and no, I haven't had this problem. Sorry, I don't buy it.
I will however concede that IE does present a challenge to developers, so now I ask this question, why does Opera care so much? There was a time when Explorer was the only thing that would work, and I would have agreed with them a few years ago. Now however, I blame the web designers who develop websites that only work in IE, and those are very few and far between.
Let me predict the remedy: Vista NB (with no browser and won't sell) and $500,000,000 for the EUC's coffers, after making up a new law that MS just happened to violate.
Just don't call it a racket, cause if you do you'll just be cast as a "M$" shill.
HardOCP News
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Because (as it is with many press releases) they are posted by the AP long before they are posted on the company website. There are literally hundreds of companies that are notoriously slow posting their own PRs. Many times, we will have them in hand (sent to us directly by the company) for hours before it finally shows up on the official press page.
So it is either:
1.) Post the whole thing and take up half of our front page
2.) Post it and link the AP
3.) Wait for hours to post it.
Yea, got to love how people want to blame Microsoft for them not being smart enough to download another browser and not smart enough to use it.
Yep, IE comes bundled with Windows. Microsoft forces no one to use it, only companies that program for it only.
If you don't like programming your web site for IE, then don't.
I agree they need to adhere to the standard but I just don't agree with this Microsoft forcing people to use it when there are so many options out there.
OMG, the world is coming to an end, Windows has a browser built in. OMG, the sky is falling. OMG sue Microsoft. OMG, we need money, I know, Microsoft is rich, we will sue them.
Yep, IE comes bundled with Windows. Microsoft forces no one to use it, only companies that program for it only.
If you don't like programming your web site for IE, then don't.
I agree they need to adhere to the standard but I just don't agree with this Microsoft forcing people to use it when there are so many options out there.
OMG, the world is coming to an end, Windows has a browser built in. OMG, the sky is falling. OMG sue Microsoft. OMG, we need money, I know, Microsoft is rich, we will sue them.
You know what's worse, is if they asked McDonald's to sell Taco Bell taco's while Taco Bell was giving them away for free. I mean, if nobody wants your product and it's FREE, it's obvious YOU are doing something wrong and not your competitor. The old monopolies were bad because there was no possible way for consumers to use an alternative. With OSes and browsers, anyone can make one at no costs and distribute it to everyone in the world at no cost, it's totally unlike railroad and phone monopolies, to the point that the all--too-often comparisons just seem downright bizarre. Software changes everything, and people want to treat it like physical products because they can't grasp the the new concepts of 0-cost development and distribution, willfully imo, in other words, they are luddites that think they can hold back progress by treating things the way things were treated hundreds of years ago, etc. It makes sense that their would be one MS, the good thing about computers is that one can function just like another, without this key ability, computers are not very useful, and computers that do this better than others are more useful. Using different OSes and browsers destroys this ability and makes the products difficult to use, which is instictively not good. It makes sense that MS OSes are therefore the de facto OSes, since they are compatible with previous MS OSes and those OSes hit the market at the right time, price and feature set. Whichever OS line dominated the market place early on because of this was almost certainly going to be the OS line used by the vast majority for as long as computers are functionally similar to what we have and have had. When the internet exploded, it became a necessity to have a web browser and other internet tools included with the OS, otherwise people would not use the OS, so it was inevitable that these internet apps had to be included with the 'majority share OS', ie, Windows, as otherwise it would not remain the 'majority share OS' and that is against the nature of instictive human progress and it was inevitable that those internet tools be good enough for most general and common needs, for similar reasons, and their inclusion in the 'majority share OS' and fact that they were good enough meant most people would use those internet tools and no others, in a similar way, most people use notepad on windows and not elitenotemakerpro v1.9 or whatever and so on. All of this is so basic and common sensical, that arguing against it is nothing more than disingenuous and ignorant point of view.
I was just posting that link as it explains exactly what they are doing more than the AP article.
There is also their letter explaining it:
http://people.opera.com/howcome/2007/msft/
I wasn't trying to say your link is a bad one, just that it might be causing some of the confusion on whats going on.