And while I am at it, if the browser or "reader" isn't important, why does Adobe give away Acrobat Reader? Why is the Flash plugin free? Why is Real Player and Quicktime free? I think, rather I guess, it's because each of these companies is trying to hook Internet users into content provided by their tools thereby selling the content creation tools to web developers. Their file formats are not completely open and are not, therefore standards except in the sense they are widely used.
My claim is: IE is Microsoft's analog to Acrobat Reader, Real Player, Flash plugins etc. etc. etc. And MS Server and other tools are the other side of the equation, the same old proprietary, ie secret, equation. But it ain't working so well as it used to.
My claim is: IE is Microsoft's analog to Acrobat Reader, Real Player, Flash plugins etc. etc. etc. And MS Server and other tools are the other side of the equation, the same old proprietary, ie secret, equation. But it ain't working so well as it used to. One problem: Acrobat and Flash as proprietary formats - that which IE renders in not propriety anything. There are no IE secrets or proprietary formats. The only thing close to this is different browsers render the standards in different ways (usually slightly different ways). There is nothing proprietary about IE - it works with open standards, the same as every other browser.