US district court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson found Microsoft uses monopoly power to harm consumers, competitors, and customer companies. He may have to decide on a remedy next year.

Last week, US court of appeals Judge Richard Posner of Chicago agreed to mediate the case, acting in a private capacity. Any compromise would require remedies.

A Microsoft spokesman said the suggestion by Nader and Love is on the wrong track.

Much of the trial concerned the "browser war" between Microsoft and Netscape for control of software to surf the Web.

The government argued that Microsoft bundled its browser into its monopoly operating system. But Microsoft said Internet Explorer was an integral, unremovable part of its Windows 98 operating system.

Jackson found otherwise and said the browser could be removed. Microsoft said the court's technique merely hid browser software instead of removing it.

Long-time antagonists of the firm reported recently that Microsoft itself used the same "hiding" technique to remove functionality from one of two versions of its Windows NT.

Love and Nader, of the consumer group Consumer Project on Technology (http://www.cptech.org), said removing the browser should be part of any solution because the issue took up so much time at the trial. The consumer advocates argue that if Internet Explorer "was a separate divestiture, the entire browser market might well become competitive once again."

Microsoft spokesman Mark Murray said: "This proposal seems particularly groundless. While we were disappointed in many of the court findings, the court itself found our actions benefited consumers and accelerated the growth of the internet."

Jackson said in his findings that Internet Explorer "contributed to improving the quality of Web browsing software, lowering its cost, and increasing its availability, thereby benefiting consumers."

But Jackson also found that Microsoft used monopoly power to muscle Netscape so that it ultimately "surrendered itself to acquisition by another company."In fact, Microsoft has overwhelmingly won the "browser war" against Netscape, according to (http://www.statmarket.com).

A few years ago four out of five surfers used Netscape, but now four out of five use Internet Explorer. And for critics that raises the technical question of what can be done.

Government witness Edward Felten, a Princeton University computer science professor, testified it was possible to remove Internet Explorer by changing settings in the computer's registry, a database that keeps tracks of what software is installed and key settings controlling how programmes operate.Microsoft witnesses replied that Felten's programme merely disabled Internet Explorer, rather than removing it.

But Tim O'Reilly wrote in online magazine Salon (http://www.salon.com), that Microsoft used exactly the same technique itself.