Google Joining EU Antitrust Complaint over IE?

On Tuesday, February 24, an announcement was made on the Google Public Policy Blog by Product Management VP Sundar Pichai that Google would be applying to join the European Commission's proceeding against Microsoft and its bundling of Internet Explorer with the Windows operating system.

In this post, Pichai remarks, "...Google believes that the browser market is still largely uncompetitive, which holds back innovation for users."

Hmm. Is this why Firefox continues to gain ground on IE? Does Google really think this is the reason people aren't flocking in droves to Google Chrome?

I can't argue with the fact that the preinstallation of IE on Windows systems makes it the easier "choice" for most users, but that's not the only thing at play here, especially when it comes to Chrome. While I appreciate that Chrome seems to be a much faster browser and that it was designed with security in mind, I find that I'm unable to use it as my default browser for the simple reason that many web sites I visit are basically unviewable in Chrome.

I may be missing the point here, but I rather like the fact that a browser, even if it is IE, comes preinstalled on Windows systems. Downloading Firefox may be the first thing I do with IE on that new system, but at least the browser is there so that I can do that.

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