bork! bork! - Humour as a publicity tool

[The ongoing browser wars, part 1]

A few weeks back, Norwegian browser company Opera published an article alleging that Microsoft had deliberately constructed the MSN website to appear broken in the Opera browser.

After a few weeks, the MSN site quietly changed, and started working properly in the newly-released Opera 7, though it's apparently still broken in earlier versions.

Opera's next step raised a few eyebrows. ( read more )

The political implications of a web browser monopoly

[the ongoing browser wars, part 2]

As many people know, the Chinese government places serious restrictions on its citizens' internet access, via the "Great Firewall". Other governments in the world have national "censorware" proxies in place, which block access to politically unpalatable sites. It couldn't happen here, though, could it?

The whole hoo-ha over Opera's Bork Edition serves as a reminder of a related issue: web browsers are fully capable of modifying the pages they display. "Bork" isn't the first browser to do this, though. ( enter tinfoil-hat territory )