Microsoft rivals challenge EC plan for Internet Explorer

After all, Microsoft’s rivals in the browser market are not satisfied with the option of giving the user the choice of browser in the initial Windows 7 configuration.

Opera Software, Mozilla and Google sent letters to the European Commission to challenge the proposal and suggest changes. The problem is not so much the possibility of choice, which is welcome, but the fact that it is already done within Internet Explorer, writes the international press.

“If we want to provide a balanced level of competition, we don’t want to be presented as subservient to Internet Explorer. You wouldn’t want a system of choice that would show the main rival’s logo in the upper left corner, would you?” Explains Hakon Wium Lie, CTO of Opera, to Computerworld.

The system had already been approved by the European Commission and guarantees new Windows users in Europe the possibility to choose which browser they want to install, with five possibilities presented. A preliminary image in the window presented was shown in July and is shown below.

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The European Commission also made several changes to Microsoft’s preliminary proposal.

Opera, which initiated the complaint that led the European Commission to demand the possibility of choosing the browser within Windows, wants the option to be given to users within an application specially designed for this purpose, and not in Internet Explorer.

Mozilla makes a similar suggestion, but criticism has arisen from several quarters, including the alignment of browsers in this option open to users, with some even accusing the choice of alphabetical order to give preference to the Apple browser.