One browser no longer rules them all

Things appear to be looking up for Opera Software since Microsoft began offering a choice of 12 browsers to Windows users on 1 March. They’ve reported significant increases in downloads of its desktop browsers with more than half of all European downloads originating directly from the Choice Screen.  

Microsoft agreed to offer browser choice to European users following a 10 year dispute with the European Commission over competition regulation. As well as the ‘better known alternatives like Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Internet Explorer and Opera, web users will also be offered lesser known browsers such as Sleipnir, Green Browser, Maxthon, Avant, Flock, K-meleon and Slim.

It will be interesting to see how this will affect the PR and marketing initiatives of these companies, with companies like Google, Microsoft and Apple already possessing mainstream recognition. Over the next few months I fully expect to see the browser wars heating up, similar to that which the search engine industry has seen over the past few weeks, with a flurry of online touch points being saturated with content around speed, customization and of course security.