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Microsoft, the once and future monopolist, has once again bowed to the
wishes of European regulators. As before, the issue remains the
default installation of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser with
Windows.
Purloined Programming
As Microsoft critics will gladly point out, Microsoft has grown its
monopoly on the shoulders of others. Its first program, BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose
Symbolic Instruction Code), was released in 1975 for the MITS Altair
8800 hobbyist computer. The BASIC language was first developed at
Dartmouth in 1963 and released to the public domain in 1966. Microsoft
began to build its empire on the work of others, and Microsoft BASIC
became the first widely pirated software.
As personal computer market launched in 1997, versions of Microsoft
BASIC were built into the Commodore PET, the Radio Shack TRS-80, and
the Apple II+. Built into the computer's ROMs, piracy wasn't an issue.
And when IBM brought its PC to market in 1981, it also had a version of
that BASIC built into its ROMs.
Microsoft's next great success was licensing a disk operating system
(DOS) to IBM on a non-exclusive basis. Known as PC-DOS in its IBM guise
and MS-DOS to the rest of the computing world, this operating system
was built on QDOS
(a.k.a. 86-DOS), which itself was an 8086 port of Digital Research's
CP/M operating system, which had been designed for the Zilog Z-80 and
Intel 8080 and 8085 CPUs.
Microsoft BASIC was developed from Dartmouth BASIC. MS-DOS was
designed to work just like CP/M. And Microsoft Windows was created in
response to Apple's work on the Lisa and
Macintosh
computers. (Apple's work built upon a foundation developed at Xerox PARC,
and in exchange for the right to adapt that technology, Apple allowed
Xerox to invest $1 million in the privately held company. Despite the
assertions of some, Apple did not use Xerox technology without
permission.)
Browsers
The Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989. The first browsers
were strictly text-based, and the first graphical browser, Mosaic, was
developed by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications in
1993. (For the record, this project was funded by High Performance
Computing and Communications Act of 1991 - Al Gore's role in "creating
the Internet".)
Mosaic begat Netscape
Navigator in 1994, the first commercial browser, which soon became
the most popular browser, thanks in no small part to its liberal
licensing policy - it was available at no cost for nonprofit and
educational use. Netscape became synonymous with the Web, much as
Google has become synonymous with Internet search.
Never content to play second fiddle (as attested to by several
attempts to unseat the iPod), Microsoft developed Internet Explorer to
take on Netscape. Version 1 shipped with the "Microsoft Plus!" pack for
Windows 95, and the battle was on. Netscape's dominance peaked in 1996
at nearly 80% of the browser market - and in 1999 Internet Explorer
surpassed it as the world's most popular browser. By 2002, Netscape had
faded to insignificance.
How had Microsoft accomplished this? In large part by leveraging its
dominance in the operating system realm. Internet Explorer (IE) was
available for free, was part of Microsoft's Internet Starter Kit in
1996, and when newer versions of Windows were released, IE was
installed by default. Microsoft also ported IE to the Mac, where it was
first available in early 1996, and in 1997 Apple agreed to make it the
default browser on Macs, displacing Netscape. (Microsoft gave up on IE
for Mac in 2003, when Apple made its own Safari browser the default on
Macs. IE for Mac development stopped almost immediately. As I said,
"never content to play second fiddle".
The Issue
Since then, Microsoft has embedded Explorer more and more deeply
into its Windows operating systems - and this has been a huge factor in
antitrust investigations at home and abroad. At one point, Microsoft
went so far as to explain that Windows could not function without
Windows, a lie that was quickly disproved. And to placate European
regulators, Microsoft actually sold a special version of Windows that
did not include IE on the European market - and doomed it by selling it
for more than the regular version of Windows.
This did not make regulators happy, and they have been working with
Microsoft to devise a system whereby anyone installing Windows will be
given several browser options when they first set up their computers.
It looks like there will be some sort of ballot box or "click on the
icon" screen that will offer the option of installing one or more
browsers. Options are likely to include Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Chrome in addition to or instead of
Internet Explorer.
How About It, Apple?
Apple has had an interesting history with browsers. Netscape was the
earliest one available to Mac users, and Cyberdog was Apple's first
attempt at creating a browser. IE became the default Mac browser in
1997, and Safari the default in 2003. Where Apple had once included two
or three browsers with new OS installs, like Microsoft it now includes
just one - its own.
Fortunately for Mac users, we're a minority platform that antitrust
regulators have pretty much ignored, and Apple has not gone out of its
way to enmesh its browser with its operating system. Mac users can
easily avoid using Safari - once they've downloaded and installed an
alternative.
As a Mac user who rarely uses Safari, always has Camino and Firefox running, and dabbles
in Opera a bit, I would love to see Apple actively promote the use of
other browsers on Macs. This would demonstrate that Apple isn't
insecure about its technology, that it believes that Safari will stand
or fall on its own merits. It would also show Apple's commitment to
choice, a key argument it uses in promoting OS X as a real
alternative to Windows.
Whether Apple ever does that or not, it's nice to know that all but
two of today's top browsers - IE and Chrome - are available to Mac
users, that several browsers (Camino, OmniWeb, and
iCab among them) are Mac only, and that
Google is promising to bring Chrome to Macs someday.
If you haven't already tried an alternative to whatever browser
installed on your computer by default, I hope you'll take the time to
download one or two alternatives and try them out. You may find that
something other than IE or Safari better fits your needs. I know I
have, and Camino has been my default browser for years. (By the way,
Camino 2.0 Beta 4 is
extremely stable. I'd call it release quality based on months of using
this and earlier betas as my primary browser.)
Dan Knight has been using Macs since 1986,
sold Macs for several years, supported them for many more years, and
has been publishing Low End Mac since April 1997. If you find Dan's articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.
Links for the Day
Mac of the Day: Blue & White Power Mac G3, introduced 1999.01.05. The most colorful Power Mac introduced an innovative 'drawbridge' enclosure.
