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Originally Posted by towny
I think what we're coming up against here, in that case, is the question, where does the browser end and the OS begin? A computer needs TCP/IP and other networking protocols in order to connect to the internet, and od other stuff, but it only needs a browser interface if it wants to access the www (a simplification I know, but you get the idea). There was an internet before there were web browsers.
So, is that part of Windows that deals with TCP/IP etc really part of Internet Explorer, simply because Microsoft says that it is? I suggest the answer is 'no', because there is ample evidence from other operating systems that there is no necessary link between your web browser and the inclusion of TCP/IP protocols in the OS.
When you set about removing IE from Windows, you can just remove the browser inteface, or you can go wild and delete anything with the name 'IE' on it from the entrie OS. If you do that, as you say, you're in trouble. But this is not a technical problem - it's a conundrum created by Microsoft's marketing department. They would have you believe that IE is part of Windows simply because they choose to brand the bits that deal with TCP/IP etc as 'Internet Explorer'. A classic case of smoke and mirrors.
If you can remove the browser interface - as you clearly can - then you have achieved exactly what Netscape and others long argued for, which is the possibility of a rival browser supplier gaining exclusivity on the desktop (ironically, exactly the same argument is behing the current spat with the EU over Windoze Media Player). And, with the browser interface gone, surely it becomes irrelevant that M$ chooses to 'brand' that part of Windows that deals with networking as 'Internet Explorer', or locates it in folders with that name?
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I do agree with you actually. I was being very picky.
I think MS bundled the TCP/IP stuff in with IE because at the time it was originally specified (IE this is), Windows didn't use TCP/IP for networking by default, so the rest of the Windows OS wouldn't have much use for TCP/IP (and remember, Microsoft at that time thought that the Internet wasn't really worth bothering about). Obviously, that is not the case now.
I actually think that TCP/IP is as much part of the OS as the functions used to write to disk.
On a related note, While I do not think that Microsoft should be forced to remove IE, I do think that they should be forced to include other browsers (in a similar way to Mac OSX including IE and Safari), and allow users to choose which browser they use.