Norwegian software group Opera took a swipe at Microsoft on Friday by issuing an Internet browser that converts text on Microsoft`s Web site into the nonsense language of a popular television puppet.
When Opera users visit Microsoft`s MSN site with the new browser, the text displayed there appears to them in a language mimicking that of the Swedish chef on the popular Muppet Show, Opera said in a statement.
"This joke is for real," Opera`s chief technology officer Haakon Wium Lie told Reuters.
Opera calls its new browser the "Bork edition" after the "bork, bork, bork" sound made by the Swedish chef Muppet.
In the chef`s mock Swedish, the MSN site headline "Weekend movie guide" is rendered "Veekend mufeee-a gooeede-a" and "Looking for a new car?" is "Luukeeng fur a noo cer?" to Opera browser users.
On other sites, including Opera`s own, the browser functions normally.
An Opera executive said the aim was to protest against what Opera alleges is Microsoft`s practice of making software that prevents users of the Opera browser - a rival of Microsoft`s own Internet Explorer - from viewing pages correctly.
Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler had no immediate comment on Opera`s allegations.
Lie said: "We are saying that it is wrong to corrupt the Web and distort pages like Microsoft is doing by sending Opera browsers what seem to be intentionally distorted pages."
Lie said companies, including Microsoft, needed to co-operate and act responsibly or the Internet would fail. "Microsoft seems to treat the Web like private property, and that`s wrong, and then the Web is going to fail."
He said he hoped the Swedish chef browser would make Microsoft change its ways and was an alternative to suing.
"I hope Bill Gates will download it - it`s a good laugh."
He said that Opera, based in Oslo, Norway, estimates its market share at 1% to 2%. Industry analysts put Microsoft`s share of the global Internet browser market at 96%.
"It`s not a big number, but makes us number two or three in the statistics since Microsoft has such a dominant share," Lie said.
Opera has clashed with Microsoft before. It says that in 2001 Opera users were blocked from the MSN site, but that an uproar among Internet users forced Microsoft to let them in.
"However, MSN continues a policy of singling out its Opera competitor by specifically instructing Opera to hide content from users," Opera said in the statement.
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