http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3993959.stm Microsoft's Internet Explorer has a serious rival in the long-awaited Firefox 1.0 web browser, which has just been released. Few people get excited when some new software is released, especially when the program is not a game or a music or movie player. But the release of the first full version of Firefox has managed to drum up a respectable amount of pre-launch fervour. Fans of the software have banded together to raise cash to pay for an advert in the New York Times announcing that version 1.0 of the browser is available. The release of Firefox 1.0 on 9 November might even cause a few heads to turn at Microsoft because the program is steadily winning people away from the software giant's Internet Explorer browser. Firefox has been created by the Mozilla Foundation which was started by former browser maker Netscape back in 1998. Several early versions of Firefox have been released since February when the browser made its first appearance. Since then the software has been gaining praise and converts, not least because of the large number of security problems that have come to light in Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Rivals to IE got a boost in late June when two US computer security organisations warned people to avoid the Microsoft program to avoid falling victim to a serious vulnerability. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3994319.stm Microsoft is to pay $536m (£289m) to software maker Novell to resolve a long-standing lawsuit over alleged anti-competitive practices. The case centred on Novell's Netware operating system - once marketed as a rival to Microsoft's Windows. Novell is to withdraw from a European Commission action against Microsoft. But it is still to pursue a similar case over claims from the mid-1990s when its WordPerfect software was in competition with Microsoft's Office. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- And what about the proposed growth of Linux? Could the monopoly on the computer market be about to be shaken up? I think it will be a positive thing for the consumer, as there is viable competition now taking Microsoft head on.
I updated to 1.0 today. I'm not a big computer guy, so I don't really notice a difference between 1.0 and what I was browsing on yesterday. All I know is that I don't have a bugmenot extension anymore.
What in the world does competition mean when both products are given away, and one is installed on every system and cannot be removed anyway?