From PC World: Microsoft has retired the browser choice screen it agreed to show new Windows users in the European Union as part of an antitrust settlement.
For five years it showed the screen to new Windows users in a 2009 settlement of an antitrust case in which the European Commission found it had exploited its dominant position in the operating system market to push its own Internet Explorer browser.
The choice screen—at browserchoice.eu until Wednesday—is now gone, and in its place is a message from Microsoft: “The obligations imposed by the decision have now expired and Microsoft will no longer maintain this website. Microsoft encourages customers who want more information about web browsers or want to download another browser to do so by visiting the websites of web browser vendors directly.”
The Commission’s goal in imposing the remedy was to give other browsers developers a chance. The screen initially offered users a choice of Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Opera, with seven other browsers revealed by moving a slider: AOL, Maxthon, K-Meleon, Flock, Avant Browser, Sleipnir and Slim Browser. The list was reviewed every six months and in the end showed Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Maxthon, SRWare Iron, Sleipnir, Lunascape, K-Meleon and Comodo’s Dragon browser.
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