Browser Wars
There are three major players when it comes to browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera. Both Firefox and Opera have more features and are faster than Internet Explorer, which in the opinion of many users makes them better browsers. With Firefox and Opera gaining popularity, we should ask ourselves a question: how did it happen that Microsoft lost a big portion of the market to these browsers? I believe that the reason was that neither Firefox nor Opera looked like dangerous competition a few years ago. Microsoft was simply overconfident, and did not realize that other browsers could be a threat. I am happy that there is competition in the browser market, as competition ensures that ultimately consumers have access to higher quality products. However, at the moment Internet Explorer is still being used by two-thirds of computer users. Why does it still have such a big market share?
That is because Microsoft has been bundling its Internet Explorer browser with various Windows versions for many years, and as a result most people use Internet Explorer. Does it mean that IE is superior? Not at all. Actually, in various tests it does not perform as well as Firefox or Opera, which are both fast and loaded with features. Unfortunately, there are not many users browsing the Web with Opera, even though it is often considered the best browser on the market. As a matter of fact, most Internet users might not have even heard about Opera. No wonder that some time ago Opera has presented the European Commission with an antitrust complaint over Microsoft�s dominance. It was requested that Microsoft be forced to unbundle its browser from Windows and this way allow other browsers to compete with IE.