BrowserChoice.eu
Encyclopedia
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.
that offers twelve browsers in a random order.
The screen is presented only to Windows users whose default web browser is Internet Explorer. It currently affects only the European Economic Area
.
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.
, Google Chrome
, Apple Safari
and Opera
. This group contains browser represented by 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
.
and Sleipnir
from the choices, replacing them with Lunascape
and SRWare Iron
.
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
.
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. This was however altered and is now fixed by Microsoft.
The choice of browsers has also been criticised. 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. 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."
Opera Software
complained that the ballot screen could not be reached in some cases because of the start configuration screens of IE.
, 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. Microsoft has responded by stating: "We (Microsoft) do not plan on making any changes at this time."
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
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
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
that found that, via market dominance of the operating system market with Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer
Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...
's inclusion with Windows had abused their market dominance by also creating a dominant market position in the web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
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
European Commission
The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....
's ruling.
Web browser choice screen
The web browser choice screen also known as the web browser ballot box is a screen displayed in Internet ExplorerInternet Explorer
Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...
that offers twelve browsers in a random order.
The screen is presented only to Windows users whose default web browser is Internet Explorer. It currently affects only the European Economic Area
European Economic Area
The European Economic Area was established on 1 January 1994 following an agreement between the member states of the European Free Trade Association and the European Community, later the European Union . Specifically, it allows Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway to participate in the EU's Internal...
.
A patch was made available via Windows Update
Windows Update
Windows Update is a service provided by Microsoft that provides updates for the Microsoft Windows operating system and its installed components, including Internet Explorer...
to provide the screen to users. It will be displayed to anyone who has not chosen another browser as their default browser.
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 FirefoxMozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. , Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers...
, Google Chrome
Google Chrome
Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google that uses the WebKit layout engine. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2008, and the public stable release was on December 11, 2008. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or...
, Apple Safari
Safari (web browser)
Safari is a web browser developed by Apple Inc. and included with the Mac OS X and iOS operating systems. First released as a public beta on January 7, 2003 on the company's Mac OS X operating system, it became Apple's default browser beginning with Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther". Safari is also the...
and Opera
Opera (web browser)
Opera is a web browser and Internet suite developed by Opera Software with over 200 million users worldwide. The browser handles common Internet-related tasks such as displaying web sites, sending and receiving e-mail messages, managing contacts, chatting on IRC, downloading files via BitTorrent,...
. This group contains browser represented by the four major rendering engines Trident
Trident (layout engine)
Trident is the name of the layout engine for the Microsoft Windows version of Internet Explorer.It was first introduced with the release of Internet Explorer version 4.0 in October 1997; it has been steadily upgraded and remains in use today...
, Gecko
Gecko (layout engine)
Gecko is a free and open source layout engine used in many applications developed by Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation , as well as in many other open source software projects....
, WebKit
WebKit
WebKit is a layout engine designed to allow web browsers to render web pages. WebKit powers Google Chrome and Apple Safari and by October 2011 held over 33% of the browser market share between them. It is also used as the basis for the experimental browser included with the Amazon Kindle ebook...
and Presto
Presto (layout engine)
Presto is the layout engine for later versions of the Opera web browser . After several public betas and technical previews, it was released on January 28, 2003 in Opera 7 for Windows, and as of Opera 11 it is still in use. Presto is dynamic: the page or parts of it can be re-rendered in response...
. The second group contains six less well-known browsers also in random order: Avant Browser
Avant Browser
Avant Browser is a freeware web browser from a Chinese programmer named Anderson Che, which unites the Trident layout engine built into Windows with an interface intended to be more feature-rich, flexible and ergonomic than Microsoft's Internet Explorer . It runs on Windows 2000 and above,...
, K-Meleon
K-Meleon
K-Meleon is a web browser for the Microsoft Windows platform. Based on the same Gecko layout engine as Mozilla Firefox, K-Meleon uses native Windows application programming interface to create the user interface, instead of using Mozilla's cross-platform XML User Interface Language layer, and as...
, Maxthon
Maxthon
Maxthon is a free web browser for Microsoft Windows. The latest release, Maxthon 3, supports both the Trident and the WebKit rendering engines....
, Lunascape
Lunascape (web browser)
Lunascape is a web browser developed by Lunascape Corporation in Tokyo, Japan. It is unique in that it contains three rendering engines: Gecko , WebKit , and Trident...
and SRWare Iron
SRWare Iron
SRWare Iron, or simply Iron, is a free and open-source web browser implementation of the Chromium source code which primarily aims to eliminate usage tracking and other privacy-compromising functionality that the Google Chrome browser includes...
.
Revisions
In August 2010, Microsoft removed GreenBrowserGreenBrowser
GreenBrowser is a freeware web browser based on Internet Explorer's core. GreenBrowser based upon the Trident rendering engine used in Internet Explorer....
and Sleipnir
Sleipnir (web browser)
Sleipnir is a tabbed web browser developed by Fenrir Inc. The browser is known for its high level of user customization and is one of the few browsers to still support Windows 98...
from the choices, replacing them with Lunascape
Lunascape (web browser)
Lunascape is a web browser developed by Lunascape Corporation in Tokyo, Japan. It is unique in that it contains three rendering engines: Gecko , WebKit , and Trident...
and SRWare Iron
SRWare Iron
SRWare Iron, or simply Iron, is a free and open-source web browser implementation of the Chromium source code which primarily aims to eliminate usage tracking and other privacy-compromising functionality that the Google Chrome browser includes...
.
As of November 2011, Microsoft has reduced the number of second tier browser from previously seven to now six. They removed Flock
Flock (web browser)
Flock was a web browser that specialized in providing social networking and Web 2.0 facilities built into its user interface.Earlier versions of Flock used the Gecko HTML rendering engine by Mozilla....
and SlimBrowser
SlimBrowser
SlimBrowser is a tabbed multiple-site web browser from FlashPeak that uses the Microsoft Trident layout engine. It incorporates a large collection of features like built-in popup killer, skinned window frame, form filler, site group, quick-search, auto login, hidden sites, built-in commands and...
, but re-established Sleipnir
Sleipnir (web browser)
Sleipnir is a tabbed web browser developed by Fenrir Inc. The browser is known for its high level of user customization and is one of the few browsers to still support Windows 98...
.
Results
Competing browsers have seen their traffic increase, suggesting that these smaller competing developers are gaining users.Criticism
The way the page has been written has come under criticism. The random order of the browsers on screen is done via JavaScriptJavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
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. This was however altered and is now fixed by Microsoft.
The choice of browsers has also been criticised. Half of the suggested browsers use the Trident
Trident (layout engine)
Trident is the name of the layout engine for the Microsoft Windows version of Internet Explorer.It was first introduced with the release of Internet Explorer version 4.0 in October 1997; it has been steadily upgraded and remains in use today...
(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. 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."
Opera Software
Opera Software
Opera Software ASA is a Norwegian software company, primarily known for its Opera family of web browsers with over 220 million users worldwide. Opera Software is also involved in promoting Web standards through participation in the W3C. The company has its headquarters in Oslo, Norway and is...
complained that the ballot screen could not be reached in some cases because of the start configuration screens of IE.
Petition
The second-tier browsers Flock, Avant, GreenBrowserGreenBrowser
GreenBrowser is a freeware web browser based on Internet Explorer's core. GreenBrowser based upon the Trident rendering engine used in Internet Explorer....
, Maxthon
Maxthon
Maxthon is a free web browser for Microsoft Windows. The latest release, Maxthon 3, supports both the Trident and the WebKit rendering engines....
, Sleipnir, and Slim have sent a petition to the EU to get Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
to add text or a graphic (rather than just the slider) indicating that there are more than five browsers. Microsoft has responded by stating: "We (Microsoft) do not plan on making any changes at this time."