Archive

While it will take months to see the clear picture of how the Internet Explorer browser ballot screen is affecting market share, Opera is already reporting spectacular changes.

Opera Software has announced that downloads of its latest web browser product have more than doubled since the Microsoft introduced the Browser Ballot at the beginning of the month.

The software company is reporting that more than 50% 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.

Opera’s chief technology officer , Håkon Wium Lie, said “the figures justified the decision to force Microsoft to run the Browser Ballot screen”.

"When users are given a real choice on how they choose the most important piece of software on their computer, the browser, they will try out alternatives. A multitude of browsers will make the web more standardised and easier to browse,"

Figures for other alternative browsers which feature on the ballot screen are not currently available to judge (namely Modzilla Firefox, Apple Safari & Google Chrome) - nor are the figures 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 lost users.