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From a rooted Android | 348 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
But IE can't be removed.
Authored by: jesse on Wednesday, April 10 2013 @ 01:34 PM EDT
If you delete the engine, the system crashes.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

From a rooted Android
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 10 2013 @ 02:13 PM EDT
"While I fully support Google in this, saying "from a rooted
Android" is the same as saying IE can be removed from a
"modified windows machine".. Those apps should come off
easily rooted or not."

I see a lot of problems with this, and I don't mean semantically :)

There are three scenarios I would address:
* Carrier subsidized phones
* Google phones
* Everything else

With a carrier subsidized phone, you get very little say. They install apps and
prevent you from removing them. They lock your phone so it only works on their
network and you get thrown in federal prison for a year+ for unlocking it. In
this scenario, quit your whining.. You gave up your rights when you asked the
carrier to let you buy the phone through a loan instead of buying it outright.

Google phones are unlocked but are protected. In this state you cannot remove
the apps. Google DOES provide easy instructions for getting root access though,
at which point it is easy to do whatever you want - including bricking the
phone. They do this to protect you from yourself, but if you are adventurous,
they show you how to grab the keys to the kingdom.

All the other Android phones are left. You are again at the mercy of someone
else. This time its the handset provider. They may choose to lock you out and
not give you the help to take control of the device. If you are lucky they post
the source code for the Linux kernel that they used. If you are REALLY lucky
they provide the source for Android too (no, they are *not* required to!). In
this case, direct your whining to the handset vendor, not Google.

So to take this idea and apply it to your analogy.. Well, you can't! On Windows
PC's, Microsoft has all the control! Not the PC vendors. If you want to remove
IE, you have to complain to Microsoft. This is a *COMPLETELY* different
situation.

One the one hand you have Google developing an open source phone OS ((*)) and
empowering other companies to build products from it. On the other hand, you
have Microsoft telling hardware companies they will not give them preferential
pricing if they do not follow Microsoft's wishes. Since the price differences
where so huge, it essentially prevented companies from competing if they didn't
bend over backwards for Microsoft. See the difference between a monopoly power
abusing its position?

((*)) - Note that its a perfectly good business model to produce open source
applications. Many governments, including the US, give preferential treatment
to open source because of the many benefits. It is NOT considered predatory
pricing.

In Google's case, they know that they have a superior product and they
acknowledge that they make more money by enabling more people to be online. The
funny thing is that they also enable their competitors AT THE EXACT SAME TIME!


So as you can see, your comparison is not at all valid.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

removing IE not so simple anymore
Authored by: nsomos on Wednesday, April 10 2013 @ 03:24 PM EDT
In the past when Microsoft was defending itself against
anti-trust charges, they lied and claimed at that time that
IE was integral to the OS, and could not be removed.

Someone though, demonstrated then, that it really could be removed.

Since then Microsoft has worked hard to change that former
lie into a truth. the guts of IE are now spread about
various critical parts of newer windows systems in such
a way that it CANNOT be totally removed any longer,
without also removing windows as well.

Totally removing windows does strike me as a good thing however.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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