EU Wants PC Buyers to Pick a Browser?

By Nick Mokey Published July 27, 2014

EU Wants PC Buyers to Pick a Browser? — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Along with choosing a color, size, processor, memory and video card for your new PC, Europeans may soon have to choose which browser they want preinstalled. That’s according to Microsoft in its latest form 10-Q filing with the SEC, which alleges that such a measure is one of several being considering by the European Commission to spur competition with Internet Explorer.

“The Commission is considering ordering Microsoft and OEMs to obligate users to choose a particular browser when setting up a new PC,” Microsoft writes in the filing. “Such a remedy might include a requirement that OEMs distribute multiple browsers on new Windows-based PCs. We may also be required to disable certain unspecified Internet Explorer software code if a user chooses a competing browser.”

Recommended Videos

Microsoft has historically encountered stiff criticism from the European Commission, including investigating the company in 2007, again in 2008, and slapping it with a $1.35 billion fine, which the company later appealed. The EC’s current interest in the company stems from a complaint filed by the Opera Software company a year ago, alleging that bundling IE with Windows was stifling competition from products such as its own Opera browser.

Former Editor in Chief

As Digital Trends’ Editor in Chief, Nick Mokey oversees an editorial team covering every gadget under the sun, along with…

Computing

Parents worry AI is becoming a crutch for their kids while schools struggle to keep up, survey finds

Only 1 in 3 schools has AI guidelines as nearly 50% parents grow anxious about kids leaning on AI too much.

a boy using iPhone

Kids are using AI for their homework, and half of their parents are not sure that's a good thing. Deloitte's 2026 Back-to-School Survey, which polled 1,207 parents of K-12 students, found that 49% worry their child relies on AI too much.

The findings suggest AI adoption is moving far faster than the policies meant to guide it, leaving many parents unsure how these tools are being used in education.

Computing

Samsung wants to put its own chip in your next PC and it’s all about speeding up AI chores

Samsung Custom Chip

Samsung may be plotting a new entry into the PC chip business. A new report from the Korea Economic Daily says Samsung’s System LSI division is developing a dedicated AI accelerator for PCs called Gaia. The company has reportedly supplied early samples to Lenovo and HP for performance testing, with mass production potentially beginning as early as 2027.

Prominent Samsung leaker Ice Universe described the project as the company’s return to the PC processor market after roughly 13 years. However, the details point toward something slightly different from a traditional laptop processor. Gaia might be a specialized companion chip designed to handle artificial intelligence workloads rather than a complete replacement for an Intel, AMD, or Qualcomm CPU.

Computing

AI image generators have escaped nightmare fingers and entered the fake premium era

Meta Muse, Gemini, and ChatGPT can now make clean, usable images. They also keep making reality look like a product render with feelings.

Terminal, Railway, Train

I expected this comparison to be uglier. Meta Muse, Gemini Nano Banana 2, and ChatGPT Images 2.0 sounded like a perfect setup for plastic faces, mangled hands, fake products, and posters written in haunted alphabet soup. Instead, they were mostly competent, which somehow made the whole thing more suspicious.

These aren’t identical tools wearing different logos. Meta pitches Muse Image as a social image model living inside Meta AI and its apps. Google frames Nano Banana 2 around speed, editing, and Gemini’s broader knowledge. OpenAI sells ChatGPT Images 2.0 on text rendering, visual control, and stronger prompt handling. Different ambitions, same polished little showroom.