[john70t]

The Michigan state website uses the .tiff image format for their online corporate look-up.
The USPTO (fed patent office) uses the same.

I thought the .TIFF format was just a type of non-compressed image file, but neither Firefox nor IE will display it without installing a pluggin.
Odd.
I had tried downloading "AlternaTIFF" again but apparently it didn't work with Win7 (it had worked before on the XP computer).

The other pluggin available was "From DOC to PDF", a google product, which wanted to make "Ask dotcom" the default homepage and default search engine and all that integrated browser crap.
(cue AOL/Facebook World II, the redux.)
Google can keep their own prying spying little eyes to themselves, thank you.
I declined, but now an unwanted "Ask dotcom" button appears as a tab in the upper right corner of IE 11.

With that pluggin there is no menu option to copy/save the picture to the HD.
WTF???

Is .TIFF some sort of proprietary format?
If so, then why are governments using something which a single company owns?