Microsoft Busting Its Own Browser+OS Myth

An anonymous reader writes "Longtime Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley used her Redmond magazine column this month to point out that after years of arguing that the browser is 'inextricably linked' to the operating system, the company's current push to get users to drop IE 6 for newer versions, plus IE's separate release schedule, are disproving its own argument. From the article: 'Microsoft has insisted that its browser is part of Windows, and, ironically, that's coming back to haunt the company. Customers can mix and match different versions of IE with different versions of Windows. ... But Microsoft has done very little to get this message out there. I'd argue this is because it makes plain the absurdity of the company's claims that IE is part of Windows.'"

Comments

Re:Why should they care now?

[commodore64_love]

Netscape was the best browser you could buy up 'til AOL bought them out, and made the stupid decision to release Netscape 6 in 2001 (really just Firefox 0.6 beta). What a mess that was. But all the earlier Netscapes were superior to Internet Exploder. Overall my favorite browsers have been:

Mosaic Amiga
Mosaic
Netscape
Firefox 1.0-present

I sometimes use Opera X 10.5 too, but there's something not quite "right" about that browser. It consumes a lot of memory (according to task manager) and sometimes freezes-up for no apparent reason. Plus the Opera Turbo feature often doesn't work (stops loading the page at 95%) which is annoying when you're on a slow connection.

Re:Why should they care now?

[commodore64_love]

One nice thing about older programs is their compact size.

For example I have Word 97 open right now, and it's only consuming 5 megabytes. i.e. Not slowing down the system with memory swapping/drive thrashing. Similarly IE6 usually stays under 100 megabytes..... only a third as much as Firefox or Opera consume.