Last year Microsoft agreed with the European Union to offer their users an option to upgrade to a newer web browser for Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.

Microsoft came to the agreement after they were forced to introduce a browser “ballot box” when the EU accused them of being anti-competitive by pre installing Internet Explorer on new computers.

Starting this week, users will be given a choice to upgrade to one of 12 newer browsers, which will be delivered as part of the Windows update.

Users who use a different default browser such as Firefox, Chrome of Safari will not get this option. Only users who have Internet Explorer set as default and automatic updates enabled will have this choice. If updates are turned off then users can use the Windows update site to download it.

The software will present a screen to Internet Explorer users with the title “An important choice to make: your browser”. Once they click OK, a list of 12 browsers to choose from will be shown.

There will be 5 main browsers displayed in the first section, which will be Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, Chrome and Opera. The next section will display 7 other less known browsers including Sleipnir, Green Browser, Maxthon, Avant, Flock, K-meleon and Slim.

Below each browser will be some information and then a link to take the user to download each browser.

Users can ignore this screen and make a decision later, but they will be prompted until they upgrade to another browser. If users want to stay with Internet Explorer then they will be prompted to upgrade to IE8.

Experts say that this could confuse computer users as they might think their computer has been affected by a virus or compromised by hackers.

It isn’t clear as to what effect this might have on the large market share of IE but according to a web stats firm called Net Applications, IE has a 62% market share with Firefox at 24%.

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1. HTML 5 – Browser Support
2. Governments Say No To IE!
3. Happy Birthday Firefox!
4. Internet Explorer 9
5. Twitter’s @Anywhere Platform

Posted By: Oli

I’ve been interested in web design for a while and I went to university to study a degree in media and graphics. While at university I developed my design skills using Adobe Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver and Adobe After Effects.

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Tags: Firefox, Internet Explorer, Microsoft

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 5:04 pm and is filed under Latest News, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.