Many creative people and enterprises took the risk and the time to create wonderful access tools to help you benefit from the wealth of information you can find through the Internet and the World Wide Web. Some of these tools are free, others are not, but they all help you shape the future of the Net: the freedom for everyone to access (almost) any information, thanks to the HTML standard, as defined by the W3C -- Word Wide Web Consortium.

The W3C does not work for the benefit of ONE enterprise, but for everyone and for you. In other words, they carefully watch that HTML remains an open standard and not a proprietary one. In other words still, the W3C allows for plenty of functional HTML tools to be created for your benefit, not for the sole interests of one entity which would like to redefine HTML for its own benefit, depriving you, the customer, of a most cherished good: the freedom of choice.

You probably know about this monopolistic enterprise which never took an interest in the Internet before it seemed to have a commercial value. M.cr.s.ft never did anything to promote the World Wide Web and the Internet. In fact, they even thought they could do better at one point (remember their own defunct online projects?). Now, they're jumping on the bandwaggon, hoping they'll be able to redo what they did successfully (alas!) with your desktop PC: freeze innovation, deprive you from your freedom of choice, and keep you, as a customer and user, in M.cr.s.ft chains.

Their markcom departement had the bright idea to provide you with free tools to build and browse, while adding proprietary extensions to the HTML standard (and "some" bugs). Now, many people find these extensions convenient and therefore, many Web pages are not fully enjoyable unless you have... M.cr.s.ft's Web Browser. "Works best when viewed with..." is not benevolent advice: it is a warning label. If this trend goes on, other Internet tool creators (whatever their quality: this is not the point here) will be out of business, and you'll have only one choice left in the good Ford Model T way: you'll be allowed to chose any Web browser you like, provided it is devised by M.cr.s.ft's current whims.

and others did the work!..

Why should Micro$oft take the bows?

There are still many great Web browsers available for PCs, Mac, SunOS, Solaris, Linux, HP-Unix, AIX, and many other OSes. Among them, there are: Lynx, Accent Multilingual Mosaic, Agora, Tango Multilingual, Ariadna, Cello, Chimera, DolPhinS, EINet MacWeb, NCSA Mosaic, NetRunner, Netscape, Opera, SlipKnot, SuperHighway Access, Emacs WWW, The HotJava Browser, Web-On-Call Voice Browser WebSpace ... because the world is not flat, Arena pwWebSpeak Non-Visual Web Browser, more WWW browsers etc... And this list is far from being complete. This list means freedom of access, whether these tools are free or not.

So, please think about it, and remember Robert Heinlein's immortal advice in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress:

What M.cr.s.ft (or any other company) gives you for now (tools or proprietary extensions) is not for your own good, if you are ultimately jailed in their proprietary universe. Do you really want to give up your freedom of choice for the short term convenience they may offser you?

You may visit the other sites on the Anti-MS WebRing, see the previous site, the next site or simply teleport yourself to a random site.

If you feel you are ready to say no to the monopoly, start you campain today!  There are lots of things you can do: get rid of "Works best when viewed with..." warning labels on your pages, add a link to this page, join the the International Anti-MS Network, install Linux, and don't forget to sign the guest book.

Sign the book or just look at it

© Copyright Gilles Gameiro, the author. The rewriter wishes to remain anonymous as not to be flamed for his lack of mastery in the noble art of writing English.