Open question to all:

Can, or better still: Is Netscape still a competitor to Internet explorer in the browser market?

I thought Netscape was a dead product. Mozilla as revived Netscape browsing engine in the form of its Mozilla browser, but Netscape; definitely out. I recently bought a Media Center PC from HP (a m7560n model) which contain Windows XP Media Center edition. It comes preloaded with a lot of software and I think according to instructions from DoJ, it installs some non Microsoft software for browsing and accessing media content.

To be fair, it contains Real Player for media, but for web browsing HP is giving out Netscape. Frankly I think it is doing just lip service to the DoJ ruling. I don't know what other PC manufacturers are doing, but I won't be surprised if it is the same as this. There are much better options out there for browsing than Netscape, like Firefox and Opera. Even if they are just alternatives to Internet Explorer. I don't see IE losing its market domination any time soon, though Firefox is making some inroads in the market share. See related story here. The fact that the PC manufacturers are not keen on providing alternatives is going to stunt the growth of open source and open standards. I know it is very easy and free to just download it from the internet (You can download one from my website if you want), but the point is that average joe user would not want to do it because for him it does not matter. As long as he can get to his favourite websites and email, he is happy.

What can be done to ensure that the hardware manufacturers include some workable alternatives on the bundled PCs? For one thing, the hardware manufacturers would not care what browser is installed as long as their product is being sold. So is it very hard to make them provide Firefox or Opera (Both are free)?