E is for...

...Excellent. Let’s put that in to a contextual sentence: ‘It is excellent news that Internet Explorer won’t feature in the European release of Microsoft Windows 7.’ Actually come to think of it, the ‘E’ in Microsoft Windows 7 32-bit/64-bit E probably stands for Europe...as in, the European version.

What’s that you ask? What is this ‘E’ obsessed blog post actually about? OK, I’ll explain...

The saga between Microsoft and the European Union has been running longer than The Hundred Years Wars (ok, a slight exaggeration); anti-monopoly suits against the Redmond Corporation have been made for what seems to be forever, and news that the upcoming operating system will be shipping across Europe without Internet Explorer is just the latest decision passed within the courts.

But does anyone outside of Redmond...ok, Steve Ballmer’s office, actually care? I myself use up to four different web browsers, depending on the device I’m using: Opera Mini is an astonishing browser for mobile devices (I use it on my BlackBerry) that allows pretty much the whole ‘web proper’ to stream across onto the handheld. I’ve also been using Google’s Chrome browser, which certainly has a few interesting ideas, and of course Mozilla FireFox, which seems to be eating into Internet Explorer’s lead every day. I’ve also started to use Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8, the version which won’t be shipping with Win7 this autumn. IE8 certainly seems more stable than many of its predecessors...IE6 was the straw that broke this camel’s back, subsequently pushing me into the open-source glow of FireFox a few years ago.

So why is it excellent that IE8 won’t ship as part of the Windows 7 launch? Well for one thing, it’ll be interesting to see how the Microsoft app stands in an open playing field. Whilst IE8 is an improvement over its predecessors, the ruling could press the corporation into developing an even better browser to pit itself against the competition with...which is ultimately good news for us web users.

Which web browser do you use? Are you an IE kinda person (by default or otherwise) or have you jumped ship into the likes of FireFox, Opera, Chrome, or even Safari? Let me know...