Browsing for choice on March 1st

From March 1st Microsoft will be presenting users of Windows XP, Vista and 7 a choice of browsers as per the requirements laid out by the European Commission as part of the resolution of browser monopoly and integration of a browser within an Operating System.

During the automatic updates from Microsoft, users will see an icon appear on their desktop which when clicked on will present users with the browser choice screen with the option to install Internet Explorer 8, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and other browsers which are presented in a random order. Users who currently have Internet Explorer 6 or 7 will be encouraged to upgrade to version 8. If you do not have your system set to automatically update you can still obtain the option screen by clicking on the Start menu link to Windows Updates. You may need to check with your system administrator (or IT Depatment) if your system isn't allowing you to install external, executable files as most corporate systems are often locked and updates rolled out - why not ask if you can have an optional browser included as part of the next scheduled update?

At Just30 we primarily use Firefox for day to day browsing and Chrome for initial site design testing and layout etc but we do test our designs against a fairly large number of browsers across several versions of Windows, a couple of different flavours of Linux as well as on Mac OSX Leopard and Snow Leopard to ensure that what we design will look as close to the intentional design as possible and work as intended.

Over the past few years Microsofts' grip on the browser market has loosened and popular browser alternatives such as Firefox and Chrome are now taking a larger market share, but it is worth mentioning that whilst it may be great to use Firefox for instance you will need a robust updating policy in place because as these browsers gain more promenance in the market the more likely they are to be subject to the level of hacking attempts usually reserved for Internet Explorer.

We think that adding this option to download different browsers is a great thing, it will open up users to a world of different browsers and the experiences they can offer (customization, add-ons etc), it will hopefully also push for the need to get browsers to all follow a common method of rendering pages so that layouts and cascading style sheets are the same in all browsers and having to design elements for each browser will one day be a thing of the past.

Well, we can all dream I guess...

Published on February 21, 2010 by Andy Gaucher

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Views or opinions contained in this blog, are those of the author and may not represent those of Just30 Ltd and its regional subsidiaries.

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