Microsoft has found "creative" ways of preventing people from actually choosing a Web browser other than Internet Explorer, according to Håkon Wium Lie from Opera Software (the infamous butterfly ballot is shown above)

t was a Microsoft concession to the EU, to provide a randomized ballot screen for users to select a browser. However, the DSL.sk test suggested that the ordering of the browsers was far from random.

A new push for the Web browser ballot to be deployed on all Windows installers/OEM PCs; other abuses of Microsoft in Europe

Microsoft's EU ballot claimed not to be rearranged at random and besides, it totally disregards the issue of Microsoft perverting the Web to make it MSIE-only

Thanks to the European Commission's antitrust like activities, European citizens will soon be presented with a ballot choice between twelve browsers when first using a newly purchased computer preloaded with the Microsoft Windows operating system. But is this really progress?

Just when it seemed like Microsoft's European anti-trust tangle on browser choice in Windows was over, trouble is stirring again. Opera Software has told The Reg that it has informed the European Union of a possible problem with a fix that was designed to make Internet Explorer in Windows comply with EU antitrust law. Opera has also informed Microsoft.

The "rigged" ballot with "mere IE shells" is not enough to defend the Web browser which broke the Web

Microsoft's original proposal to the European Commission, that it drop the web browser entirely from Windows 7, has been superseded with a new proposal that users be offered a "ballot box" of browser options. According to analysis by Glyn Moody of the presented documentation, it also appears to go much further.

Microsoft's concession to offer a so-called "browser ballot" in the European version of Windows 7 has been covered extensively. European buyers of Windows 7 will, except when the OEM has a separate deal, be presented with a choice of browsers, ordered by estimated market share.