If you have followed the news you know that Microsoft is going to introduce the browser choice screen, often also called browser ballot screen, to European users from March 2010 on. Microsoft plans to run an external test in some European countries including England and Belgium first and will expand the delivery to all countries of the European Union.
The browser choice screen will be delivered via Windows Update. Computer systems with automatic update turned on will automatically download the update to the computer system.
The browser screen will be displayed on the next reboot if the user logging on is using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer as the default browser.
The program will then unpin Internet Explorer from the taskbar and display information about the process along with the browser choice screen that displays the top five web browsers in the world in random order plus additional web browsers that become visible after scrolling vertically. The top five browsers are Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera and Safari. It is not yet clear what the other browsers are.
A browser can then be installed from the browser choice screen. It is furthermore possible to display additional information about a web browser.
There are two problems associated with the process. The first is that the update is forced upon the users meaning that many Windows users will notice that their “Internet” is gone. With Internet we mean Internet Explorer. Removing the link from the taskbar is not a very clever idea in our opinion. A better way would be to ask the user whether to remove the Internet Explorer pinned tab from the taskbar if another web browser is picked for installation in the browser ballot screen.
So, many users will notice that the Internet Explorer icon is gone and be completely clueless about it. Yes, the process is explained in the browser ballot screen but we all know that most users are not reading most of the system messages and information presented to them. This could mean chaos.
The second problem is company networks and private networks where Internet Explorer has to be used. These need to block the update so that it is not installed by accident which could turn into a support nightmare for those companies.
What is your opinion about the browser choice screen in Windows in Europe?
Related Articles:
Opera Downloads Triple After Browser Ballot Screen Goes Live In EuropeBrowser Ballot Screen Browsers
Remove An Important Choice To Make: Your Browser
Multiple Browser Bundling With Windows Is Stupid
Bad Choice: Giving The User No Choice
Enjoyed the article?: Then sign-up for our free newsletter or RSS feed to kick off your day with the latest technology news and tips, or share the article with your friends and contacts on Facebook, Twitter or Google+ using the icons below.
Thanks for all the comments here. I wold rate myself a reasonably savvy non-geek user. This window appeared and looks like a virus has hacked in. Have spent an hour trying to find an answer and thanks for these posts. I cannot believe that such a cheap looking, amateurish window with no information can be made to appear like this, yet is a product of the worlds largest software corporation.
I would complain, but have no idea to whom, whether anything would happen and, frankly, do not want to waste any more of my time.
…/browserchoice.htm is no better than email spam.
If anyone knows where I can log a complaint please post.
Cheers
Totally agree – when it popped up I thought “bugger, a virus”, followed by “a pretty crap one though, you’d think they’d at least try to make it look like the standard microsoft format”. I’m actually dumbfounded.
The first 3 times it appeared on startup I thought, Oh Oh! another computer hijacker, then I googled it and was amazed it was Microsoft themselves hijacking my PC!! This is totally out of order, I am sick of any program, legitimate or not trying to hijack my PC. but to think its MS doing it,
ITS NOT ON Microsoft,!!
GET OFF MY MACHINE!!
Thanks MS and EU – if it hadn’t been for your forcing a choice on me I wouild never have discovered this oasis of know-nothing gawks. Hardly a word of common-sense in this thread at all.
The ONLY thing that’s wrong with the screen is the lack of a button that says “No thanks – I’m happy with the browser I’ve got”
This is rubbish – I wasted an hour gettingg rid of it and running a scan as I did not know what it was & suspected a virus. How stupid can Microsoft be to just put this on with now warnings or explanation.
My older sister saw this screen on Vista and she thought it was a virus. Why is Microsoft sending users cruft over the update channels?
Plain and simple Joshua. MS was forced to do it like this by the EU. If they hadn’t done it like this, the EU would have given MS a multi-billion dollar fine and may even suspended sales of MS Windows in the entire EU.
I let Windows install all the urgent updates. When I found the Browser Choice icon on my desktop my reaction was, I didn’t install this, it must be a bit of spyware that got past my security software, I’m not going to click that!
Microsoft should know that with the level or paranoia about spyware, viruses and identity theft these days putting a new icon on everyone’s desktop is a very stupid idea.
I thought it was spyware so came on here to check for a resolution. This is a bad way of going about it.
I do not know about other countries, but here in The Netherlands MS had some sort of awarness campain running the past few days. We had people from MS on tv news reports and current affairs programs telling about the browser choice screen and saying that it would be spread using the Windows Update system as a urgent update.
I’m a web designer, and I seriously hate Internet Explorer, especially IE6. I hate spending extra hours on tuning my code just so my websites will display properly in IE, and I know that those frustrations are very common among designers.
And, since so many people use IE (even IE6), which is solely because it comes preinstalled with Windows, by the way, you really have to do all those fixes, and add all those Microsoft-specific solutions to your source code. Therefore, I welcome anything that will reduce IE’s huge usage share, or make IE interpret code in the same way as all the other browsers do.
That being said, I have to say that I find this whole thing a little strange. Are they gonna do the same thing with Solitaire? Also, does Apple have to do this on their computers? Macs come with Safari preinstalled.
If you don’t know what browser to pick, I recommend Google Chrome, which is what I use.
How do you remove the browser choice program.As i think it is a waste of time and disc space.Microsoft must be getting desperate for some thing to do.
Hello everyone
I still think yhis is an illegal download. Yes I signed up for updates to my installed programs, yes I want protection against malware/viruses etc but I did not ask for new software to be downloaded to my machines. This is Illegal if I did the same to Microsofts machines I am sure I would end up in court!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I thought it was malware. I can see I was not the first and will not be the last either.
The worst thing is that I ALREADY HAVE CHOSEN! … and even worse, I even confirmed my choice now my clicking on ‘Install Internet Explorer’ (just to be on the save side) – and still after next reboot the choice window comes up again!
So now we have a buggy browser choice window … great.
This is a menace. It looks like a virus and stinks like a virus and caused me a lot of cofusion on the day that it popped up. Leave me to choose my own browser for goodness sake! Worse, Microsoft have now fixed it so it cannot be removed by any of the methods so far posted on this and other websites. Get your filthy paws off my computer, Microsoft! There are some “updates” I just do not want.
Why on earth user has to do something about making this additional popup go away permanently? Where is “No, thanks” button, please?
If that is not new instance of Windows, user is very likely to have all set in place for his comfortable experience, and if really caring about alternative, he would have gone for it any minute without this permanent joke of design.
Users have to have choice, that’s right, but this should come before settling on any default or set of browsers, not after. Update should have checked if there are alternate browsers present on OS, then not bother at all, if IE is not the only one there – no problem to address.
I am having users calling left right and centre thinking they have some kind of malware.
Dumb & counterproductive EU move. No wonder they didnt give us a chance to vote on membership.
FFS we thought it was malware
When will this buffoon heads understand that people love Microsoft, because it WORKS! And they are very happy with it. They don’t care about your leftist agenda.
I really really regret EU decision to enforce this crap on Microsoft. And regretting this way of enforcing those crap hobby browsers on users, and yes they are crap. This leftist agenda in EU make me sick! They are possessed of hating Microsoft up to their teeth, this out of merely jealousy. EU has always been a joke.
To all those who do nothing then whining on Microsoft. Delete your pirate downloaded XP/Vista/windows 7 OS and stop complaining.
I came here to make sure whether I had caught a virus or not. I don’t like it. I’m using Firefox, I set Internet Explorer as default browser (for some reason this leads to less pop-ups) and already removed the icons from my start bar.
One of the most annoying things Microsoft has come up with since Win ME :-) .
I thought it was some malware.
What people should do after things like this is look for someplace within EU bureaucracy or Microsoft to send an invoice to get payment for lost time to get rid of this annoyance. You have to hit them where it hurts, on the bottomline.
- me too :(
Some of the worst they’ve ever done.
I would have appreciated a message telling that the pop-up was part of the newly installed update – or at least some sign that the ‘disturbance’ was from Microsoft.
LEAVE OUR COMPUTERS ALONE PLEASE…….SILLY UPDATES….IF I WANT TO INFECT MY LAPTOP WITH USELESS BROWSER LIKE FIREFOX I WOULD DO….MY CHOICE…IE FOREVER
It wasnt immediately clear this was a Microsoft imposed update, I thought it maybe some kind of scam or virus bearing trick. Checked it was ok then repinned the browser to the bar and deleted the unwanted short cut. Very poor way of doing something, but I guess Microsoft doesnt care about treating people with respect.
Hi
It is not in Microsofts interests for people to use this ‘choice’ as the EU intended.
To me it is obvious that Microsoft did it this way so that many people would circumvent it and not move away from IE, they probably spent more money on the best psychology to use than on actually developing the software.
Steve
Please stop whining..
It is not Microsoft’s fault; The EU forced it upon them.
Oh, and for those saying it is illegal, if you use their OS, they can download whatever the fuck they want to to your PC.
-Joe
However, if you really wanna be rid of it, navigate to %systemroot% and delete ‘browserchoice.exe’
Then open regedit and navigate to:
HKLMSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRunOnce
and delete the key with a value that ends in ‘browserchoice.exe’
I thought this is was a virus first. Then I googled to find out by accident, that it is from Microsoft. First thing in my mind was, that they might try to avoid legal issues delivering a browser with the operating system and this tool helps. Anyhow, I want to get rid off it asap. Soon or later most of the application are hosted via internet and hardly anybody needs Microsoft products that much, it will be just a matter of next generations entering the scene.
Gerry, Germany
A bit frustrating but not difficult to remove. Right click on icon and go to file location, then right click on the file and go to properties – security – advanced – owner – edit, then change the owner to yourself and then close all those windows. Then reopen properties – security and click on administrators (ie: you) and change the permissions to full control, close the windows and delete the file and its desktop shortcut. I restarted my computer and no annoying browserchoice. Hope that was useful to somebody and not all the geeks just whingeing:)
Just goes to show what a complete bunch of cocks the european commission is annoying us with this useless screen.
I didn’t want this splash screen in my face, I already made an educated choice about what browser I use.
This has just made me hate FireFox,Chrome, Opera and the other browsers even more, passing a law deliberately annoy anyone using IE, it’s a disgrace
Due to this I will never choose another browser other than IE, there rest can go **** themselves!
This smacks of a pissed off 10 year old been told what to do, everything from how it was included with auto-updates to its crappy and amateurish appearance. MS clearly got some student programmer to make this GUI and give him 5 minutes to do so. As mentioned in comments above, the fact that it gave no warning to being installed and that it clearly looked like malware and there was no choice to so “No Thanks” is not on.
Not at all what one would expect from a giant such as MS. Tastelessly done……
Mozilla all the way….
What are some people talking about???
I here read this MS “worm” is to make users aware they use an “old” browser.
First: perhaps people want to use this old browser. That’s their own concern, if microsoft forces them anytime at startup to be busy removing it, I consider this as a violation of my ‘freedom of choice’!!!
Now, I use version 8.0.6001.18702. There is absolutely NO need to renew my IE. The ms worm asks (demands) me to install an IE 7 version. Very funny.
So far many people around me have asked what to do. I simply tell them: from now on do not use MS IE anymore. (Exept for the basics of course)
I myself am trying out the windowsversion of Safari. I like it! Earlier I worked with Opera, and it worked fairly well. Never had no pushing troubles as with IE.
So. exellent business idea of microsoft! Pushing so hard people run away meanwhile screaming and getting fed up with Billy Gates!
An European User.