Ballot Screen: Opera is pleased

Proposal for European users of Windows from March 1, the selection screen of the browser collects positive and negative comments from several major software companies. Opera has found a significant increase in downloads from Europe, while six of the seven companies overshadowed require greater visibility.


The selection screen browser, also known as Ballot Screen, has indeed the top five browser market: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari, in a theoretical chance, nor dictated by market shares or by an alphabetical list . To view the other side browser, the user must open a window horizontally. So here Avant Browser, Flock, GreenBrowser, K-Meleon, Maxthon, SlimBrowser and Sleipnir (proposed in alphabetical order this time and not random).

Six of these companies (except for K-Meleon) have appealed to the European Commission, as they believe “that the presentation of Ballot Screen does not allow most users to know other browsers than the five shown in the foreground.

The companies concerned do not require the immediate display of their browser, no installation required, but “simply inserting a few lines of description or a graphic that would help the internet user to choose.” The EU has so far communicated this request to Microsoft, which promises to respond quickly.

Opera, one of the protagonists of the complaint from which the Ballot Screen, but indicates that more than half of downloads of its browser are from the screen of choice. The number of downloads has tripled during the first few days, reflecting the interest and curiosity of users. As decided by the European Commission, the owners of new Windows-based computers will be invited to choose one of these browsers at the first start. The aim of companies is to extend the Ballot Screen all computers in the world and not just in Europe.