Following recent legal wranglings, Microsoft put forward a proposal to the European Commission earlier this week that suggested Windows 7 - and indeed other Windows operating systems - could ship with Internet Explorer installed as the default browser, with a ballot screen then allowing users to choose their browser of choice.
We reckons it sounds a logical solution, and we've mentioned previously that we'd liked to have seen this proposal before the arrival of the awkward Windows 7 E editions. Nonetheless, the proposal's now here, and Microsoft has served up the following mock-up of how the ballot screen could be displayed.
Microsoft is said to be suggesting that 10 or fewer of the most widely-used web browsers are listed as options, and that each should have a usage share of 0.5 per cent or more. The five browsers with the largest market share would be displayed more prominently, as above.
Judging by the mock-up, it seems that the choice of browsers would be listed in order of market share - with Internet Explorer at the front, followed by Firefox and Safari.
The ballot screen, which would display presumably on the first load of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, is said to have been "welcomed" by EU regulators, but a decision on the proposal is yet to be made.
