Selima

In the next couple of weeks, you may well be surprised to be presented with a new message on your PC when you log in. This will be a message from Microsoft informing you that you actually have a choice of the browser that you use when surfing the internet. This new ‘feature’ is a consequence of the European Commission ruling against Microsoft, where it was decided that Microsoft had abused its monopolistic position and restricted choice by shipping an operating system that included a browser.

The browser choice screen will only be presented to those running Internet Explorer as their default browser, and only those people that accept Microsoft’s automatic updates will get the choice software installed – meaning a huge majority of ‘corporate users’ will have this blocked at the IT department before they ever see it.

However, those that do get the message will be shown a random selection of browsers (with descriptions) to help you choose the browser you’d like to use from that point on. There are actually 10 different browsers on offer (I’m struggling to think of that many!), although the big five will get pride of place. If you happen to be running IE6 or IE7, Microsoft appears to be taking the opportunity to once again ‘encourage’ you to move to IE8.

The problem is the very people this process is intended to help will be the ones that have no idea what it means. The tech savvy amongst us are probably running Firefox or Chrome already, which means we won’t see the choice screen at all, but the less knowledgeable have got very used to just clicking on the blue ‘e’ on the desktop and going on line – it’s the icon for ‘the web’ isn’t it?

Suddenly many people are being given a chance to fix something they didn’t know was broken, and will probably be unaware of what will happen after a choice is made. For example, Apple’s Safari is a 30Mb download to start with, and then the ‘e’ will be replaced, and the application that people have used every day since they got their PC will suddenly be transformed into something new with a totally different look and feel.

Not only do I think that our support desk may get businer, but my role as ‘worldwide family tech support’ is about to get a whole lot harder as well!

Oh, and if you have a Mac you can ignore all of this, as although shipping a browser as part of the operating system is against the rules for Microsoft, apparently it is not for Apple...