Ben May tweeted an article on ars technica about Google's participation in the EC's efforts to regulate Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser bundling with their Windows OS.

At this point, is this really a concern? Computer users have grown savvy enough to be able to choose which browser they use, with several available in the online marketplace for free. MS's IE is a browser that works fine for many people, and those who don't like it, for whatever reason, can easily switch to another one. This is evidenced by the growing success Mozilla's Firefox browser, which in January 2009 topped 21% market share, which is a 4% increase from last year (source). Microsoft still has approximately 67% of the market, bu that number is falling quickly and significantly, .

Here's a chart showing browser market shares as of January, 2009:


You know what that tells me? People finally understand that there are choices out there! Firefox, Safari, Opera, Chrome... these are all readily available and easily installable.

As far as bundling IE with Windows, I for one think that a browser should ABSOLUTELY come installed in an operating system. Upon box-opening and setup, consumers should be able to get right out onto the internet. If they didn't have a browser, how would they go online and download the one that they want?

Now granted, MS used to make it difficult for the installation and adoption of outside browsers, but that changed in 2001 with United States vs. Microsoft. Looks like the EC wants to revisit that, and Google - champion of self-regulation - is jumping on the gravy train to try and cut IE out of Windows. Google's cash-cow deal providing the search box for Firefox, and the release of their own browser Chrome (also with built-in Google search, of course), is a great incentive to try and loosen Microsoft's hold on the browser market, but it smacks of hypocrisy. Tell you what Google: make a browser that people want to use, and they will use it! I promise you!

And what about Apple? Their OS X comes paired with their Safari browser, but no one is demanding they unbundle it. Maybe as their market share grows, regulators could take a closer look at them.

Wow! I never thought I would be defending Microsoft...