Opera, Google Want More Than Just An Uninstaller for IE

If the European Union wasn’t heading down a slippery slope, Opera and Google seem to want to be. After its loss in the courts in Europe, Microsoft added functionality to the not-yet-released Windows 7 to allow IE to be uninstalled. Opera and Google don’t seem to think that allowing the browser to be installed is enough, however. The CEO of Opera, Jon S. von Tetzchner, recently told betanews in an interview that he thinks that the best way would be to present a list of browsers for a user to choose from during the Windows installation. Google also released a statement stating that the choice needs to be one that is continually being asked of its users.

All this choice of browsers is fine and dandy, but how does one decide which browsers are popular enough or should be included in the list of choices. In theory, there could be an indefinite list of choices presented to users. Then, why should this freedom stop at web browsers? The Windows explorer FTP client is all right, but I really like FileZilla better. Should Microsoft also allow users to choose which FTP client they want to use? Heck, should a user then get a choice of what OS to install? Clearly we’re trying to even the playing field a little and Linux is a great choice of OS. A choice of whether or not to install IE in the Windows installer would be great and is a step further in the right direction but it needs to stop there. Of course, once one does choose not to install IE, the next step is to install the browser of their choice with… uh-oh…