Well, the point is to make an application available to the user; the changes are required by how the OS is designed. It's an accident of history that things like PATH in Windows are world-writable. Things like Metro apps have far less ability to modify the wider system.
The tech company response to this kind of application infighting is likely to be more sandboxing and lockdowns. Everything will move in the direction of an iOS like model where the platform owner can just veto apps and ban developers, as that's the only way to deal with "abuse".
Unless the adults aka the state steps in and orders them to do their jobs instead of bullying each others and the users they are supposed to serve.
Chrome is not part of the OS.
> It is pretty unlikely that legally it would be possible to have such fine grained differentiation between replacing and appending.
It's not only possible but easy to differentiate between installing software which includes registering it in the appropriate places and changing user settings for anticompetitive reasons. Unlike some corporations' customer support departments, the court system is not only staffed by actual humans with brains, they're even allowed to use them.
> And I'd prefer voting with my wallet than to forcing tech companies to involve legal in the development process.
I prefer solutions that have a chance of working, but to each their own.
Legally irrelevant. If that was relevant, Microsoft wouldn't be attacked for bundling IE.
> It's not only possible but easy...
Please tell us how, then. Preferably in a way unlike the whole GDPR cookie policy fiasco.
> I prefer solutions that have a chance of working
Where you can impose your wishes on other's product choices? This is not a company usurping its monopoly, it's a niche product tweak.
> Legally irrelevant. If that was relevant, Microsoft wouldn't be attacked for bundling IE.
I would argue that this shows that it is legally relevant. Because it is possible to say that IE is not part of the OS but an application, we can talk about “bundling” products together at all. If IE and Windows were one indecomposable unit, I don’t think the EU would have had a case.
They never were. But is very successful and impressive PR by MS that you think that this is what the problem was.
What is this, a court of law?
> Please tell us how, then. Preferably in a way unlike the whole GDPR cookie policy fiasco.
You don't get to blame the GDPR for those pointless pop-ups webmasters choose to display that are not even remotely compliant.
> Where you can impose your wishes on other's product choices? This is not a company usurping its monopoly, it's a niche product tweak.
Microsoft is the one which tries to impose its choices on others. In any case it wouldn't be me but us, we live in a democracy.
MS Office and Google search aren't niche products either.
