Official Ares Free Download

“Millions of European Internet Explorer (IE) users will have the option to choose an alternative browser from 1 March, Microsoft has announced”, said an item in yesterday’s p2pnet world headlines, quoting a BBC story, and going on:

“It follows a legal agreement between Microsoft and Europe’s Competition Commission in December 2009.”

What it comes down to is: having force-fed Internet Explorer to consumers for so long, Microsoft itself is now being forced —-

—- to compete.

Starting around the beginning of March, users in Europe will be able to pick the browser they want.

Because now it doesn’t have a choice. It’s ‘allowing’ people to decide for themselves.

Says a Microsoft post >>>

In December, the European Commission and Microsoft arrived at a resolution of a number of long-standing competition law issues. Microsoft made a legally binding commitment that PC manufacturers and users will continue to be able to install any browser on Windows, to make any browser the default browser, and to turn access to Internet Explorer on or off. In addition, Microsoft agreed to use Windows Update to provide a browser choice screen to Windows users in Europe who are running Internet Explorer as their default browser. This browser choice screen will present a list of browsers, with links to learn more about them and install them. The design and operation of this choice screen was worked out in the course of extensive discussions with the Commission and is reflected in the commitment that Microsoft made. Users who get the choice screen will be free to choose any browser or stick with the browser they have, as they prefer.

Internal testing of the choice screen is underway now. We’ll begin a limited roll-out externally next week, and expect that a full scale roll-out will begin around March 1, a couple of weeks ahead of schedule. If you are an Internet Explorer user in Europe, here is what to expect.

Says Nick Gilbert in a comment to the MS post:

“Seriously, after reading a BBC article about this blog I had to spend a good ten minutes looking for the source.

“Seriously though, it’s a shame that this is not going to help much. It’s now mostly companies that use IE, and they’re often still on IE6. I’m interested to see the change in the European browser market though. I’m a little bit hopeful too; Internet Explorer is still the most difficult browser to develop for. Mainly due to lack of features rather than opaqueness now, but nonetheless a reason to support other browsers wherever possible.”

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