This is the stupidest thing ive ever heard. If i dont have IE in the first place, how can i get on the net to download another browser????
Thats so true, its like someone Committing Suicide then being sent to jail afterwards since its illegal
The EU EC are a bunch of ***** morons, They are obviously too retarded about software development or why IE can not be completely removed and the real concern and issue now is how far they want it removed...
You can remove the IE application completely with Vista but its 100% unrealistic and irresponsible to have the IE Trident component removed as the EC currently wants Microsoft todo.
The IE-Trident engine component within Windows is available for all developers to use http/ftp/smtp/pop/sftp (and more) Protocols without having to write their own browser engine or include a copy of another engine saving them months and years of developement time and also saves them from worrying about the security and state of that engine
Take Valve as a really good example of the problems removing the Trident component would cause if it was completely removed, Valve uses the separated IE-Trident component for their Game updates, Server browser, Community, Profiles, Friends List, Game statistics, Ingame advertising (for their really, really, really old games) and hundreds of other things and without Internet Explorer or the Trident componenent none of it would be available as it is today.
The advantage for Valve and thousands of other developers using the IE-Trident component within their application is they can focus on their software and their features, being fully capable of accessing any web-protocol without writing millions of lines of code and without having to worry about the engine becoming outdated or insecure because Microsoft continually updates and checks for problems within the component and fixes them immediately.

(none of this would be possible without IE, the integrated online-store would also not be available)
Now the EC is asking Microsoft to completely remove everything from IE and this also includes the Trident component, That in itself will break every last application written on windows using web functionality that didn't use their own self-built web-engine or call the TCP/IP stack directly.
There is also the problem facing Valve and millions of other company's in having to write and support their own engine because Firefox and Opera do not support the use of calling into and extending their engine outside the browser like IE does.
Heres a 64K size web-browser, takes 2 seconds to load and all written on the IE-Trident component (the same one Valve and hundreds of other companys use), uses less than 100 lines of Code (Its still available in the Vista-Pro section) and I don't need to worry about updates, security problems or anything else other than user-features because Microsoft manages everything via the component.
I believe Opera and Mozilla are threatened by how easy the IE-Component can be extend to other applications because it create`s competitors for them but without an alternative component from Mozilla or Opera to allow developers to use their browser-engine as easily as IE does then its unrealistic to see IE removed completely anytime soon and as much as I dislike IE and the Standards support its just not possible to have it removed until Opera or Mozilla make a API (or similar) available for developers to use when their application is installed.
Both two company's wish they can call themselves a competitor to Microsoft`s IE but in reality their both just lazy and prefer not to support anywhere near the same level of interoperability as IE... I question Opera and Mozilla`s motives for filling anti-trust complaints with the EC because they know fully well how many applications depend on the IE components and I question why they don't provide an alternative API to counter Microsoft`s argument of being required on Windows as it would speed up the removal of IE two fold.
Opera and Mozilla are good at web-browsers for consumers but for application developers they are utter useless and they need to fill the massive gaps removing IE would create with alternatives for developers before they start trying to have IE removed from Windows.