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Microsoft began introducing its “Web browser choice screen,” which presents European users of Windows 7 with a randomized list of popular browsers to choose from in addition to Internet Explorer, on March 1. The measure is designed to assuage antitrust concerns over Internet Explorer 8 being bundled with Windows 7, and while the European Commission-Europe’s antitrust regulatory body-issued a public statement approving the measure, operators of smaller browsers seemed to have concerns.
“Web browsers are the gateway to the Internet,” Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia wrote in a March 2 statement posted on the European Commission’s Website. “Giving consumers the possibility to switch or try a browser other than that included in Windows will bring more competition and innovation in this important area to the benefit of European Internet users. More competition between Web browsers should also boost the use of open Web standards which is critical for the further development of an open Internet.”
The European Commission expects that the browser ballot screen will be displayed on more than 100 million PCs in Europe by mid-May.
A Web version of the ballot screen can be found here. Its browsers include Safari, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer 8, Mozilla Firefox, Opera Browser, FlashPeak SlimBrowser, K-Meleon, Avant Browser, Flock, Sleipnir, GreenBrowser, and Maxthon. Underneath the icons and descriptions for all these browsers are two tabs, marked “Install” and “Tell Me More.” The more popular browsers, such as Firefox and Chrome, are displayed alongside Internet Explorer, while the browsers with smaller market share are exposed when the user scrolls the window sideways.
Microsoft originally proposed the browser ballot screen in 2009, after months of suggesting that it might strip Internet Explorer from Windows 7 altogether. In a Feb. 19 posting on the Microsoft On The Issues blog, Microsoft’s vice president and deputy general counsel, Dave Heiner, suggested that the design and operation of the choice screen had been “worked out in the course of extensive discussions with the Commission.”
Starting this week, Heiner wrote at the time, “the browser choice screen software update will be offered as an automatic download through Windows Update for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. The software update will be installed automatically, or will prompt you to download or install it, depending on which operating system you are running and your settings for Windows update.”
Smaller Companies Speak Out
However, a number of Microsoft’s competitors, including Mozilla and Google, all reportedly asked the Commission for last-minute changes to the agreement. Opera CEO Jon Tetzschner told eWEEK in an October 2009 interview that his company had concerns over the original proposal, which would have listed the browsers in alphabetical order, and said it would be best if browser placement on the ballot screen were randomized.
“Today is a victory for choice on the Web and the myriad benefits choice brings,” Hakon Wium Lie, CTO of Opera, wrote in a March 2 statement posted on Opera’s Website. “The Choice Screen is a critical milestone in the evolution of the Web, for Web users, Web developers and everyone else who wants to see the Web remain a healthy platform for innovation, information and communication.”
But some smaller browser companies seemed to be preparing a more negative response to the ballot-screen rollout.
“Under Microsoft’s current choice screen design, users are presented with a screen that shows only the top five largest browsers,” a representative for Flock wrote in a March 2 e-mail to eWEEK. “There is no indication that users have to scroll to the right, ‘off-screen’ to find the other seven browser choices. This system encourages only choice among the largest, corporate players and it doesn’t do what the EU intended, which is to encourage a wider selection of choices.”
The CEO of Flock, Shawn Hardin, had not yet been reached by eWEEK’s press time.
The ECIS (European Committee for Interoperable Systems), a nonprofit organization devoted to creating market conditions favorable to interoperable IT solutions, is also pushing for the ballot initiative to be expanded beyond Europe. In a March 2 statement, the organization wrote that it “calls on competition agencies around the world to give consumers the benefit of browser choice, which will spur competition and improve the Web experience for all.”
ECIS counts Opera among its members. “Consumers deserve the same unbiased browser choice on all the world’s more than 1 billion personal computers,” the organization’s statement continued.
In his March 2 statement, Competition Commissioner Almunia also suggested that PC manufacturers in the EU would be able to install competing browsers on Windows PCs “instead of, or in addition to, Internet Explorer.” Furthermore, he suggested, “Microsoft further committed not to retaliate against PC manufacturers who pre-install a non-Microsoft Web browser on the PCs they ship and make it the default Web explorer.”