On test: the hidden seven browsers in the Windows ballot

It's Chrome, isn't it. What more do you want? FF is good, yes, but Google's Chrome is top dog as an overall package.

By Bureaunet on 15 Mar 2010

Why be so shallow?

"others are shockingly low quality, either due to low-quality programming or sheer age, to the extent where the EU’s seemingly sensible move to break Microsoft’s monopoly turns into farce"

It's appaling to see that the the it "press" fails to acknowlegde the deeper necessity to bolster competition in highly monopolistic market sectors.

So the last 5 browsers are useless, fine, you don't have to use them, there are still 7 perfectly capable ones you can choose from and, as pointed out in the end, this system may even stimulate innovation in the sector by giving small it start ups some space to breathe.

This "farce" as you call it, is a precedent set for all companies pondering wether to abuse their dominant market position. Such a blatant disregard for the anti competitive legislation will have consequences. Self regulation as lauded in the UK is the real farce, just look at the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

By Olivier on 15 Mar 2010

Flock

Having used this - I know it might sound odd - but occassionally this is faster than the top four! Whats with PCpro loading so many ads??? its taken me 20 seconds to get this page to load in Chrome or FF

By nicomo on 15 Mar 2010

and 10 seconds to post!!

By nicomo on 15 Mar 2010

Others

I tried some of these others many years back K-Meleon, Avant Browser and Maxthon. Its interesting to see that they are still around, however not surprising that they have a mixed reaction. Their disadvantage is they started during the period of AOL/Internet Explorer and these what they aspired to.

It is not suprising that the winners are new products - Google and Firefox. With the long established browsers being merely copycat alsoruns

By Manuel on 15 Mar 2010

I'm not saying MS didn't play hard, but let's not forget that MS won the old browser war fair and square. Netscape were dominant and complacent. IE came along and managed to beat them.

Much in the same way as FF was doing with IE.

This is good for small companies, but terrible for most novice users.

"What would you like, the internet, the internet, the internet, the internet, the internet, the internet or the internet?"

Most users couldn't give a monkeys which browser they use.

It's only us techies who think a few seconds faster page load is important.

By Grunthos on 16 Mar 2010

MS Fair?

Microsoft doesn't know the meaning of fair and square - that was the whole point of the complaint in the first place. IE is, and has been a crappy browser full of bugs.

By rsmits on 16 Mar 2010

What highly monopolistic market sectors?

OK - here we go again - please provide the cash turnover from sales of each of these browsers will you?

Will you provide us with the alterations to their turnover after this ballot?

It does tend towards a farce because the EU was supposed to be making things better. (Weren't they? If not, why have they done anything?) But if people make an uninformed decision and click on a low quality browser - how have they been helped?

By AdrianB on 16 Mar 2010

One they missed...

Surprised that Seamonkey isn't in the list.

It's a Mozilla project, similar to Firefox but IMHO better in many respects.

http://www.seamonkey-project.org/

By Anteaus on 18 Mar 2010

Avant as IE replacement

A couple of points. As I understand it, most of the extra browsers use the IE engine and put a different front on it. I use Avant as my IE replacement because IE7 (unless something has changed recently) will no longer restore tabbed browsing sessions. I also use Avant for those webpages that refuse to load in anything but an IE clone. Otherwise Opera is still my first choice, then Chrome, Firefox and Avant.

By tallsimon1 on 18 Mar 2010

oops!

Not IE7, IE8! Those number keys are so damn close to each other.

By tallsimon1 on 18 Mar 2010

@tallsimon1

"I use Avant as my IE replacement because IE7 (unless something has changed recently) will no longer restore tabbed browsing sessions."

Click Tools > Reopen Last Browsing Session.

Or FF with IETab...

By miffyl on 18 Mar 2010

There is also SRWare's "IRON" which is latest version of Chrome, but without any of the Google privacy & dial home rubbish. I don't need Google knowing anything more about me... they probably know too much already!

For me however, Firefox is still tops. A few of my add-ons now work in Iron/Chrome, but the add-ons experience is a bit clunky! I use IRON for sheer speed of startup and browsing... but almost all everyday browsing is done in Firefox. I wonder if IRON could get enough votes to be in this list in 6 months time, or if it's be classed as Chrome and therefore not eligible?

SeaMonkey is a great concept, but not sure it is ready yet... but I might take another look, as it has been a while!

By mdoragh on 18 Mar 2010

HTML5 support

If you are interested in this 12 browsers HTML5 support, you can have a look at this website http://w3c.html5.free.fr/

By madsenfr on 11 Dec 2010

I love avant browser more than others browsers. His autofill, video sniffer and storage

online are very useful. I can save my password and account without RoboForm .I don’t need

to install IDM because AB downloader instead of it .the most important thing is that avant

browser is very stable .good job

By llddll on 11 Jan 2012