I can't believe this! Microsoft is actually thinking about releasing Windows 7 for Europe, without Internet Explorer. IE has reached version 8 by this time, quite a change, considering the difference between IE 6 and later editions.

There has been serious discussions about Microsoft's monopoly of the Browser industry for Windows OS.

For those of you that might not know what I'm talking about, when you install Windows (any version, since '95 or 3.1 - can't remember) you automatically had Internet Explorer installed as part of the OS.
You can't delete it (and you shouldn't) mainly because in previous versions, IE was part of Explorer, that window that you used to see the files on your computer.

Well, this way of deployment led IE to become the leading browser on the web, even if it had (and still has some) major security flaws, and made all web developer's lives much harder.

Microsoft it's now thinking about releasing Windows 7, the apparently refurbished version of Vista, without an Internet Explorer, in Europe. This is because Microsoft has been, repeatedly, accused of abusing it's position to force the user to choose IE over other browsers.

I bet there are still a lot of users out there that have no idea what Firefox actually looks like, or even what it does, even though they use IE and are familiar with the Internet and browsing is an every day operation. Shame on you!

60% of world users use Internet Explorer, while Firefox is used by 30%. Take into account the fact that IE only works on Windows, while Firefox comes for all OS platforms, so people using a Mac OS, Linux, Windows, all can use Firefox. Given this fact, that 30% actually means that more than 60% users really use IE on Windows. Take a couple of minutes to do the math for yourself if something doesn't fit. (or view the following image 10% - other browsers)

Now, the thing that made me write this article. A simple joke you might have seen circling the web for some time now: "Q: What is Internet Explorer? A: A program with which you download Firefox." This joke will only be funny for those of you that use Firefox.
Now, I put to you the following question: "With what program or method will we be downloading Firefox, or other browser for that matter, after installing a fresh new copy of Windows 7 if it has no IE?"