Earlier this week, the much awaited web browser ballot screen that was to be deployed by Microsoft Corporation in its Windows operating systems went live in the European Union and since then, one of the major web browsers, Opera has experienced an exponential growth in the downloads for its browsers. As per the company, Opera launched the all new Opera 10.5 for Windows in Europe in context to the introduction of the ballot screen and this prompted a massive surge in the downloads of the company’s browsers, amounting to a three fold increase.

According to Rolf Assev (Chief Strategy Officer, Opera),

“It varies from country to country, but yes, in several major countries, Opera downloads have tripled since the ballot screen appeared. “We compared the downloads against previous launches, such as Opera 10.0, 10.10 and 9.5, and the tripling is above what we would normally expect with a new version launch.”

Opera officials have stated that, this growth has been unexpected and in the previous releases of Opera web browsers, the company has never witnessed such massive support from the users. About two years ago, Opera had filed an official complaint with the EU antitrust regulators, accusing Microsoft of stifling the competition by not providing the users with an option to choose the browsers of their preference and force feeding the Internet Explorer as part of the Windows package. Soon after the European Union officials ordered Microsoft to provide a ballot screen for users enabling them to choose their preferred browsers.

The new ballot screens provides the users with options of downloading their preferred web browsers, that range from Apple, Google, Mozilla, Opera and others and as per Opera, the ballot screen has proved its significance in the very first week of its introduction. However, with the success of the ballot screen in EU, a conglomerate of IT big hitters, including IBM, Oracle etc. are now reaching out to the antitrust regulators across the globe to make them enforce browser ballot screens from Microsoft, throughout the international market.

According to Joaquin Almunia (EU Competition Commission),

“Giving consumers the possibility to switch or try a browser other than that included in Windows will bring more competition and innovation in this important area to the benefit of European internet users.”

Via Computer World