BrowserChoice.eu
BrowserChoice.eu is a website that was created in March 2010 as the result of the European Union Microsoft competition case which involved legal proceedings by the EU against Microsoft that found that, via market dominance of the operating system market with Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer's inclusion with Windows had abused their market dominance by also creating a dominant market position in the web browser market. The website was created by Microsoft to allow users that had not made, or were unaware of, a choice to try other browsers, and thus comply with the European Commission's ruling.
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[edit] Web browser choice screen
The web browser choice screen also known as the web browser ballot box is a screen displayed in Internet Explorer that offers twelve browsers in a random order.[1]
The screen is presented only to Windows users whose default web browser is Internet Explorer. It currently affects only the European Economic Area.[2]
A patch was made available via Windows Update to provide the screen to users. It will be displayed to anyone who has not chosen another browser as their default browser.[3]
[edit] Browsers listed
The browser choice screen lists 11 browsers in random order: the top tier of five are immediately visible and the remaining six can be seen by scrolling the list. The order of the browsers on the page was initially planned to be alphabetical, however after criticism a random system is now used with two groups. The first group includes the five most used web-browsers: Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Opera. This group contains browsers representing the four major rendering engines: Trident, Gecko, WebKit and Presto. The second group contains six less well-known browsers also in random order: Avant Browser, K-Meleon, Maxthon, Lunascape and SRWare Iron.
[edit] Revisions
In August 2010, Microsoft removed GreenBrowser and Sleipnir from the choices, replacing them with Lunascape and SRWare Iron.[4]
As of November 2011, Microsoft has reduced the number of second tier browser from previously seven to now six. They removed Flock and SlimBrowser, but re-established Sleipnir.
[edit] Results
Competing browsers have seen their traffic increase,[5] suggesting that these smaller competing developers are gaining users.
[edit] Criticism
The way the page has been written has come under criticism. The random order of the browsers on screen is done via JavaScript[6] rather than being determined by a server-side script. In addition, the randomization of the order of the browsers was previously implemented incorrectly, which led to uneven distribution.[7] This was however altered and is now fixed by Microsoft.[8]
The choice of browsers has also been criticised.[9] Half of the suggested browsers use the Trident (Internet Explorer's) rendering engine, thus, users who choose web browsers other than Internet Explorer for the intention of avoiding Internet Explorer, are still using the same Trident layout engine that Internet Explorer uses.[9] This has resulted in criticism amongst the web development community, despite Microsoft insisting the list "is based on the 12 most widely used browsers that run on Windows 7 measured by an agreed methodology."[9]
Opera Software complained that the ballot screen could not be reached in some cases because of the start configuration screens of IE.[10]
[edit] Petition
The second-tier browsers Flock, Avant, GreenBrowser, Maxthon, Sleipnir, and Slim have sent a petition to the EU to get Microsoft to add text or a graphic (rather than just the slider) indicating that there are more than five browsers.[11] Microsoft has responded by stating: "We (Microsoft) do not plan on making any changes at this time."[12]
[edit] References
- ^ "The Browser Choice Screen for Europe: What to Expect, When to Expect It". Microsoft. 19 February 2010. http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_on_the_issues/archive/2010/02/19/the-browser-choice-screen-for-europe-what-to-expect-when-to-expect-it.aspx. Retrieved 24 June 2011.
- ^ http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2009/dec09/12-16Statement.mspx
- ^ Microsoft liefert Web-Browser-Auswahlfenster ab 17. März aus
- ^ Site as at 2010-08-22 and 2010-08-28 from Internet Archive
- ^ Eric Pfanner (8 March 2010). "Microsoft Gives Rival Browsers a Lift". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/08/technology/08browser.html. Retrieved 7 March 2010.
- ^ How Random Is Microsoft’s Random Browser Choice Screen In Europe?
- ^ Coding error leads to uneven EU browser ballot distribution
- ^ Microsoft rejiggers EU browser ballot after complaints
- ^ a b c Microsoft browser ballot criticised for being 'limited'
- ^ Clarke, Gavin (3 April 2010). "Opera alerts EU to hidden Windows browser-ballot". San Francisco: The Register. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/03/windows_ie_browser_ballot_screen/. Retrieved 8 April 2010.
- ^ Petition To The European Commission[dead link]
- ^ Minor browsers seek more prominence in Europe
[edit] External links
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