Every person who owns a computer with Microsoft Windows is to be offered their choice of internet browsers in an automatic pop-up menu following an agreement today between the software company and the European Union.

In March next year all PCs will be sent a software update that will cause a window to appear on screen offering them options to the pre-installed Microsoft Explorer.

Under the terms of the deal, Microsoft will give users a choice of up to 12 other web browsers when they are using computers running on Windows, the operating system which runs the vast majority of the world’s computers.

Computer manufacturers will also be able to produce PCs without Internet Explorer in Europe.

The ballot screen will list the 12 most popular Web browsers running on Windows, with five featured prominently. Users will be able to choose Apple's Safari, Google’s Chrome, Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Mozilla's Firefox, Opera, AOL, Maxthon, K-Meleon, Flock, Avant Browser, Sleipnir and Slim Browser.

For details see: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6958942.ece

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bksening
In March next year all PCs will be sent a software update that will cause a window to appear on screen offering them options to the pre-installed Microsoft Explorer.

Thank god, the first thing I do after install a Windows OS, and before connect it to the Internet, is to disable the Automatic Updates service.

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bksening
The ballot screen will list the 12 most popular Web browsers running on Windows, with five featured prominently. Users will be able to choose Apple's Safari, Google’s Chrome, Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Mozilla's Firefox, Opera, AOL, Maxthon, K-Meleon, Flock, Avant Browser, Sleipnir and Slim Browser.

For details see: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6958942.ece

Anyway, is nice to know that EU considers K-meleon one of those 12 most popular browsers and to have in mind as an option to change to

For me, it's not enough.

OS must not to be pre-installed, or the price of OS must be clearly indicated when buying a computer. And obviously, with the possibility to be repayed of the price of the OS if not used.

In France, forced sale is prohibited (and I think elsewhere too), but nobody (government) wants to contrain the sellers to respect laws.

A+

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Mozilla/5.0 (x11; U; Linux x86_64; fr-FR; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Ubuntu/12.04 K-Meleon/76.0

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Web: http://jujuland.pagesperso-orange.fr/
Mail : alain [dot] aupeix [at] wanadoo [dot] fr

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Ubuntu 12.04 - Gramps 3.4.9 - Harbour 3.2.0 - Hwgui 2.20-3 - K-Meleon 76.0 rc

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bksening
The ballot screen will list the 12 most popular Web browsers running on Windows

How do You find out what is the 12 most popular Web browsers while some browsers are expluded from service by monopolists. Hotmail, Yahoo... Facebook... Google services.... just to mention a few frequently visited pages arbitrarily exclude a number of browsers from service.

I have Opera 10.10 as my default browser. I had problems trying to set K-Meleon as default but I am not that bothered that I can't. I have had Opera as default for a long time anyway.

What I really want to know is how this 'ballot screen' will work? Will it pop-up every time I boot or will it not apply to me as I don't have IE 8 as my default setting?

Will I have to uninstall IE 8 if I don't use it as default?

Whilst I think that this may be a good idea in some ways I think it may be very confusing. :s

K-Meleon ~ Not a Melon!