If it wasnt for those third parties finding the holes in the first place MS systems would be down more than up, as I said I see this as a loss leader if anything and its plain to me ms are misusing their monopoly position to drive out competition, this isnt the first time they have done this sort of thing recently, have we forgotten their refusal to co-operate with many of the larger anti virus companies and their licence scam that means developers have to pay them for a licence or win7 declares your program as "unknown" and potentially harmful ?
A scams a scam dont be fooled by the expensive suits behind it.
You still use IE6 though right. I mean you condemn the behavior but enjoy the fruits of their labor. Microsoft already have a monopoly over Computing that doesn't simply mean they should roll over and dissolve. This Anti-virus is good for consumers anyway you look at it.
If you think it isn't a good product then list a negative. And Active X always worked fine on the Mac browsers back in the day Stripes, they were 1:1 compatible with the Active X and Intranet system that Microsoft used with IE on Windows. So to say that it blocked competition and forced people to buy more Windows clients isn't true as their only real competitor was Apple and it ran fine on that system. And no one was forcing other browser makers not to conform to the standards of the day.
Every company comes up with their own proprietary standards the difference is Microsofts ones have become popular and used while others usually don't. Just look at Apple's Mini-Display Port, Firewire, Apple Display Connector (as hardware examples) or their Bonjour service, Airplay, Facetime as software examples. Sony did it too, UMD Discs, Sony Memory Sticks, Bluray.
There is a point where you just have to let the market decide what the market wants you can't just keep slapping companies on the wrist when they get popular. If anything blame the purchasing departments of these companies that enter in to huge buying contracts with companies that may end support for your software. Open standards in the work place are more important now than ever before. Open Documents, web standards on intranet and so on.
And also Silver you are talking about just one use scenario for IE. It was given for free to consumers who make up 80% of Windows users. Non-Business use, any way that you look at it Microsoft hasn't really made a dime off IE. Their original motivation for making it is they didn't want users spending money on a browser when they could be spending money on other software (like Microsoft made software, Office etc) and what is wrong with that? If you didn't want office in the first place you just got a free browser. yay competition!
This is fun
