18 March 2010 | Author: D. Warburton Search Copywriter

Opera downloads double, thanks to Microsoft

Opera Software has announced that downloads of its latest web browser product have increased significantly since the introduction of Microsoft's browser choice screen for Windows users at the beginning of the month.

The Norwegian company is reporting that more than half of all browser downloads in Europe currently originate at Microsoft's ballot screen, which was introduced following a ruling from the European Commission to limit Microsoft's dominance and increase competition in the web browser market.

According to figures from TechCrunch, Poland is the country with the greatest increase in Opera downloads from Microsoft's choice screen, with a 328 per cent increase accounting for 77 per cent of all Opera 10.5 downloads in that nation. Downloads in Spain, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands and Portugal are all above the average increase of 130 per cent for Europe as a whole, while downloads in the UK have increased by 85 per cent compared to last month.

Opera's current share of the browser market is now more than twice its December share, though the apparent dip in the spike from earlier in the month - when Opera was boasting a tripling in download numbers - may indicate that its growth rate is waning.

Figures are not currently available to judge whether downloads of the other alternative browsers featured on Microsoft's choice screen - namely Firefox, Google Chrome and Apple Safari - have increased following its introduction, nor are figures available to indicate whether the choice screen has negatively impacted downloads of Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8.

The European Commission judged that Microsoft will continue to roll out its choice screen to all Windows users in Europe until May, after which it will only appear to users installing Windows for the first time, over a period of at least the next five years. It remains to be seen whether Microsoft will lose out on downloads of its own browser in Europe, and whether the forthcoming Internet Explorer 9 will be able to win back the defectors.