To an outside observer, without more, the EU's decision that Microsoft enaged in monopoly abuse by tying Internet Explorer to Windows may seem absurd. Like a service tied to a monolithic kernel, a browser tied to an OS may offer the best integration and performance.
Divorce the two and you're likely to get less performance, but better OS security. And security may be the reason that the EU, indeed, helped Microsoft out in the EU -- by having Microsoft unbundle IE from Windows and offering a choice of browsers on installation.
By unbundling IE from Windows, Microsoft may benefit from a more secure OS if they design and relegate the browser to compartments operating separately from the OS. Also, an IE crash would be even more, less likely to crash the entire OS.
With todays dual and quad core systems, just how fast do you need your browser to go anyway? I for one, would opt for a more secure browsing experience and less performance unless you told me I had to do it on an 80486.
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