Europeans Get a Taste of the Browser Choice Screen

We might finally get more people off of IE, FINALLY.

It might seem like a minor thing, but it isn’t.

Microsoft has been fined billions over browser choice (or lack thereof) in Windows, and the solution that finally satisfied EU regulators was a browser choice screen, which would let users choose a web browser rather then having Internet Explorerinstalled as the default.

Now, Microsoft has posted images of what the browser choice screen will probably look like.

Here’s how it will work: The user will be presented with five major browsers, randomly ordered. He will also be able to choose several additional browsers, which are also randomly ordered. Once you install a browser, you’ll get a shortcut of that browser on your desktop, while Internet Explorer will be unpinned from the taskbar.

Since Windows 7 has been available on the European market for quite a while now, one may ask why (and how) is this happening so late? Since Microsoft needed some time to implement the browser choice solution, it will now use Windows Update to provide the browser choice screen to European users who are using Internet Explorer as their default browser. Better late than never, huh?

More precisely, testing of the browser choice screen begins next week in the UK, Belgium and France, where users will be able to download the software update from Windows Update if they like. A phased rollout of the update will happen across Europe starting with March 1.

via Europeans Get a Taste of the Browser Choice Screen.