cynicated.com

Yesterday morning, the European union officially dropped the antitrust charges against Microsoft with regards to their default browser, Internet Explorer. According to The Washington Post:

Under the terms of the settlement agreement, Microsoft will need to implement a ballot screen that lets users in Europe replace Internet Explorer with another browser, starting March 2010. The deal also means computer manufacturers will now be able to ship PCs in Europe that do not come pre-installed with IE.

This is great news for those living in Europe as it finally allows people to have easy choices instead of Internet Explorer.  Unfortunately, it seems that those of us in the U.S. are not going to benefit from this same courtesy.

Microsoft has long plagued web developers with it’s lack of adherence to common standards, instead choosing to forge ahead in their own little world and assuming everyone will adopt their standards.  While things have improved dramatically in the latest releases, as a web developer, I can’t help but have a bitter taste for Internet Explorer.

So now the question becomes, what can we, in the United States, do about this?  Simple.  Install Firefox, Chrome or Opera and never click on that stupid Internet Explorer icon again!