Microsoft behind $12 million payment to Opera

CNET News ^ | May 24, 2004, | Evan Hansen

[1L]

This is not a case of the site did not work with opera, this is a case where MS made the site intentionally not work with opera.

Your statement is contradictory. Since it is MS's site, they can do whatever the hell they want. There is no right to view a specific site with a particular browser.

Don't let any hatred you may have of MS cloud your judgment here. There's nobody's data being screwed up; there's no harm being done. MS simply wrote a site that won't display using a browser they don't like. That's the market. Opera users can go to other sites, and if those don't work, they need to get another browser.

[N3WBI3]

Then why did they not target Mozilla, or Netscape? They (for whatever reason) picked out Opera.. If you can not see this is a totally unethical (and by the way they have been found guilty of using illegal tactics to push their software in the past) and probably illegal attach on a competitor.

If you cant see this was unethical then I am sorry for you and perhaps I am not the one letting my 'loyalty' to a certain set of software cloud my judgment.

[Golden Eagle]

And quit trying to compare intellectual property with real property.

Forget it. They're both property, and the rights of the owners need to be protected, and more importantly it doesn't need to be flat out given to US adversaries for free.

[wideminded]

I thought this was going to be an article about singing and Microsoft's failure to support the arts. I'm so out of it I have never heard of the Opera browser.

[antiRepublicrat]

Forget it. They're both property,

Now go back and read your Constitution again.

[Golden Eagle]

Denying it's not even property is absurd. Socialistic, if you ask me.

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[antiRepublicrat]

Denying it's not even property is absurd. Socialistic, if you ask me.

I take it you didn't read.

[The_Royal_Navy]

there latest cup hilder dosn't fit corectly? uh oh,...

[The_Royal_Navy]

Hey, i heard ford's bringing the capri back :)

the mark 4 was shite, good job ford never sold it in Britain tho,...

Mustangs still strong in America tho, i take it?

But if they so much as even "THINK" about makeing a new capri that is not Rear wheel drive, they'll be just waisting there time.

Why dosn't anybody make 'PROPER' car's anymore?

[Bush2000]

Then why did they not target Mozilla, or Netscape? They (for whatever reason) picked out Opera.. If you can not see this is a totally unethical (and by the way they have been found guilty of using illegal tactics to push their software in the past) and probably illegal attach on a competitor. If you cant see this was unethical then I am sorry for you and perhaps I am not the one letting my 'loyalty' to a certain set of software cloud my judgment.

What is this "targeted" bullsh*t? How do you know they did this intentionally? Opera is a tiny blip in the browser market. It poses no threat to IE. Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by error.

[N3WBI3]

And yet a specific style sheet was put in for opera which broke the view. If opera used any other css (IE/NS/MOZ) or even the default sheet for a 'tiny blip in the browser market' it fully renderd all the content just fine.

So for some reason MS decided this 'tiny blip in the browser market' was important enough to create a specific sheet for? and this sheet just happened to be really broken (this shee would not render right under IE/NS/MZ or any other browser, so in creating this sheet did they not even test it in IE?

[Bush2000]

And yet a specific style sheet was put in for opera which broke the view. If opera used any other css (IE/NS/MOZ) or even the default sheet for a 'tiny blip in the browser market' it fully renderd all the content just fine. So for some reason MS decided this 'tiny blip in the browser market' was important enough to create a specific sheet for? and this sheet just happened to be really broken (this shee would not render right under IE/NS/MZ or any other browser, so in creating this sheet did they not even test it in IE?

Again, more speculation. Thanks for the conspiracy theories. Give my regards to Grassy Knoll.

[N3WBI3]

Evidantly MS felt there was enough of a case to pay Opera off..

[Bush2000]

Evidantly MS felt there was enough of a case to pay Opera off..

Evidently, MS didn't want to waste money on more lawyers; hence, it made sense to settle.

[antiRepublicrat]

Mozilla is a whole package, browser, email, chat, composer, and it's also the base technology behind everything. Firefox is the browser component only. I'm actually not sure why Firefox is only .8, but it is a fully-functional stable browser. Maybe after Mozilla 1.7 is released (a stable point of the technology, which all other apps based on the tech will be built from), they'll finally take Firefox to 1.0.

Neither messes with your system, and if you want to install you can look in the documentation and find every file and registry key it wrote on installation in case an uninstall didn't go correctly.

I haven't used Opera in a while, but users I know love it.

[antiRepublicrat]

MS simply wrote a site that won't display using a browser they don't like. That's the market. Opera users can go to other sites, and if those don't work, they need to get another browser.

Using underhanded tactics or lies to disparage another's product in the marketplace is subject to a civil suit.

By purposely breaking Opera on a site visited by millions, Microsoft tried to make those users with Opera think their browser was broken, casting doubt on the functionality and usability of that browser, which can be incentive for people to switch to a more "compatible" browser, such as IE. Such action is bad enough, but coming from a convicted monopolist known for anticompetitive behavior is that much worse.

[antiRepublicrat]

It poses no threat to IE.

Actually, it does. Opera is growing rapidly in the browser market, while Microsoft considers Netscape/Mozilla dead. But what they really fear is that Opera gets credibility as a good browser because Opera is poised to be the browser of choice on handheld devices -- a market that Microsoft desperately wants.

[antiRepublicrat]

Again, more speculation. Thanks for the conspiracy theories.

I have to hand it to you. If nothing else, you're consistent. When the argument goes against you, you claim speculation and conspiracy, ignoring the whole context, and go skulk.

People actually did a test of this. To make sure style sheets and HTML were correct, they used wget to pull an MSN page with style sheet, setting the user-agent in the HTTP header to identify itself as Opera, IE and Netscape. They then analyzed the files that the server returned. Here were the results:

• MSN sent a larger HTML file to Opera with less actual content
• MSN sent a style sheet much smaller than the other two, a broken and less complex sheet that purposely moved content off the visible page
• Changing the user-agent to "Oprah" instead of "Opera" (a neat feature of Opera) resulted in retrieving a page and style sheet identical to that for IE6, which rendered perfectly
• Opening the intended Opera HTML and CSS in an IE browser resulted in the same broken page as seen in Opera

Basically, all MSN pages would have rendered perfectly on Opera if MS had just ignored the fact that Opera exists. But no, Microsoft purposely set up broken pages specifically for the Opera browser.