Comment by renaudg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by renaudg | Hacker News Reader

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>If you absolutely need to read a PDF, Foxit Reader is free, as in beer.

You're actually proving his point : on Windows something as basic as reading PDFs (yes you "absolutely" need that in 2015) requires specific knowledge of obscure names like "Foxit Reader".

I'm not even going into annotating that PDF or adding your signature to it then.

The same goes for : an office suite, a file manager with decent previewing+smart search capabilities, something that quickly resizes/converts your pictures, great photo editing/cataloging software, video editing software, music editing software, e-mail client, a comprehensive development environment (1)

All of the above, which covers almost all areas of what people actually use computers for, comes as standard on OS X

(1) Pages/Numbers/Keynote, Finder+Spotlight, Preview (also your answer for annotating PDFs btw), iPhoto/Photos, iMovie, Garageband, Mail, Unix CLI/XCode

> Yes, you'll have to uncheck some boxes to avoid their bundled software. Big deal.

Hate to say it in troll-ish way but : everyone but lifelong Windows users has higher standards than this.

In fairness to Windows (and I can't believe I'm defending it because I happen to hate the platform!), bundling software is exactly what got Microsoft into trouble in previous years (Internet Explorer, MSN Messenger, Windows Defender, etc).

Hopefully the package manager in Windows 10 will offer up a happy medium between expected software being easily available, and 3rd parties not being pushed out of the market place.

> In fairness to Windows (and I can't believe I'm defending it because I happen to hate the platform!), bundling software is exactly what got Microsoft into trouble in previous years (Internet Explorer, MSN Messenger, Windows Defender, etc).

Except that bundling itself is not what got Microsoft in trouble. Having a monopoly, and then taking a coordinated series of actions relating to conditions of sale, bundling, and other steps to extend that monopoly into other markets and to eliminate threats to the monopoly -- with evidence, including fairly explicit documentary evidence from senior decision-makers at Microsoft -- that that was the intent of the action is what got Microsoft in trouble.

They got in trouble under anti-monopoly laws, not anti-bundling laws.

It's the same thing. If you don't have a monopoly then it's a feature, if you do have a monopoly then it's anti competitive.

I do agree that Microsoft did a whole boat load of other, really down right despicable, business practices as well. But in the MSN Messenger and Defender cases it was purely about shipping their own products preinstalled in Windows when competitors weren't included.

I guess you're right that my wording was perhaps a little too vague though. But my point was that when it comes to software bundling, Microsoft are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

> bundling software is exactly what got Microsoft into trouble

Yes, if "bundling" is equivalent to threatening to "cut off Netscape's air supply", then, yes, "bundling" is exactly what got Microsoft into trouble.

Otherwise, no, "bundling" doesn't properly describe what happened.

Windows 8 comes with a basic PDF reader: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/reader-app-faq

Or maybe it requires specific knowledge of obscure names like Adobe Reader. Or did I miss something and Adobe started charging for Reader once there were double - digit numbers of free alternatives including those built into the browsers?

Heck, do Chrome or Firefox actually register with the system to handle PDFs? Wouldn't surprise me if they did.

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