05 March 2010 | Author: D. Warburton Search Copywriter

Smaller browsers demand greater presence in Microsoft's ballot screen

Six web browser manufacturers have complained to the EU that Microsoft's browser ballot screen does not give fair representation to their products.

Microsoft was required to offer Windows users a choice of web browsers from 1 March, following an anti-trust investigation by the European Competition Commission that found Microsoft Internet Explorer to be taking too large a slice of the browser market, due to it being the default option for Windows operating systems.

The change has seen Microsoft giving European users of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 a choice of alternative browser options, displaying Mozilla's Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple's Safari and Opera in prominent positions.

But it seems that even with this concession to fair competition, the Silicon Valley software giant still hasn't done enough - at least according to the makers of Avant, Flock, Maxthon, Slim, Sleipner and Green browsers, who have all signed a petition demanding fairer representation. These browsers are also available on Microsoft's ballot screen, but users need to scroll to the second page.

Makers of the twelfth browser offered, K-Meleon, did not sign the petition, which states: "The final choice screen design leaves the vast majority of users unaware that there are more than five browsers to choose from.

"We are only requesting the simple addition of any text or design element, that would indicate to an average user that there are choices 'to the right of the visible screen'."

The BBC reports that Microsoft's ballot screen is already leading to a rise in the number of Windows users exploring other browsers, with the makers of Opera claiming that downloads of its browser had increased threefold in the past week.

The immediate success of the ballot screen in Europe has spurred the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS) - which includes such notable Microsoft rivals as Adobe, IBM, Opera, Oracle and Red Hat - to implement something similar for Windows users in the rest of the world, calling on "competition agencies around the world to give their consumers the benefit of browser choice, which will spur competition and improve the Web experience for all."