• Recommend:
• 0 Comments

A Customer View of Browser Integration

When Microsoft built Internet Explorer into Windows 98, did we all benefit?

By Lincoln Spector, PCWorld   

I tell them that this is one of the "benefits" of Internet Explorer's tight integration with Windows. A handy feature in Windows Explorer--if you close Windows with a file folder open, that folder will be open again the next time you boot up--is now an annoying feature in Internet Explorer.

This integration is a central part of the federal government's lawsuit against Microsoft. And according to Judge Jackson's findings of fact, turning Windows and Internet Explorer into the same program was an improper move intended to limit competition. Microsoft says that it was a useful innovation intended to benefit users, and that Web browsing is a natural job for an operating system.

What's Good for Us?

Is this integration good for users?

Putting the browser on the CD-ROM saves you from the inconvenience of downloading a large file, which is not an easy task if you don't yet have a browser.

But if IE didn't come with Windows, system vendors would probably include a browser or two with each computer.

And integration is more than that.

The most obvious feature of the tight integration is the Active Desktop, which allows you to have a Web page running behind your work. You can, for instance, have an investment ticker running in the background. But would you want to do so? Not if you have a modem connection. And even if you don't, the ticker is hidden, less convenient than if you ran one as an application or in a browser window.

And making Windows and Internet Explorer the same program causes its own set of problems.

For one thing, it makes Windows bigger, and bigger means slower. On a computer where Windows 95 takes less than 13 seconds to load, Windows 98 can't get up in less than 20. And Windows Explorer, now based on Internet Explorer, becomes the world's slowest file manager.

Windows 98 won't allow you to uninstall Internet Explorer. You can install another browser, and even select it as your default, but as Judge Jackson points out, Windows 98 "requires the user to employ Internet Explorer in numerous situations that, from the user's perspective, are entirely unexpected."

Windows/Internet Explorer integration means a bigger, slower Windows, and one that doesn't make switching browsers easy. If Microsoft's motive was to benefit users, it has failed utterly. But if its goal was to crowd Netscape out of the market, it's enjoying a big success.