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Article:
Will Microsoft Lose The Browser Wars? by: Jim Edwards Until recently, software giant, Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser enjoyed a relatively unchallenged position as the most popular Web browser in the world. Despite lawsuits and charges of unfair competition from the likes of Netscape and others, Microsoft dominates browser software with over 90% market share. Microsoft's dominance of the browser market stems mainly from the simple fact that the majority of computers get delivered with Microsoft Windows as the default operating system. Internet Explorer (IE) comes standard with all Windows software and, thus, virtually everyone automatically gets the IE browser. By default, Microsoft owns the browser market because they catch consumers early, get them conditioned to using the IE software, and, until recently, no other software offered a compelling enough reason to switch. However, with a seemingly endless rash of security problems, consumers started looking elsewhere for alternative Web browser options. This consumer demand may well spell the end of Microsoft's dominance in the browser marketplace. In response to severe security vulnerabilities, several alternative Web browsers recently gained significant market share. ** Opera.com ** One of the original 'alternative' browsers, 'Opera' offers a significant number of interesting tweaks over Internet Explorer, including the ability to open more than one html page within the browser, as opposed to one page per window with IE. The free version of Opera carries advertising messages, but for $39 you can turn off the advertising and unlock additional features. ** Mozilla.com ** Mozilla actually offers two choices for alternative Web browsing. Mozilla 1.'7
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