So many browsers!

[Statia]

A recent thread about Microsoft's browser choice screen (or lack thereof...) made me curious to the choices being offered.
The usual suspects would be Firefox, Chrome and Opera. I decided to dig into it and see which browsers are being offered and where they originate from.
Turns out no less than eleven alternative browsers are being offered!



Opera, by Opera Software. Norway (not a EU member!)
Maxthon, by Maxthon Asia. China
Firefox, by Mozilla. USA
Chrome, by Google. USA
Internet Explorer, by Microsoft, USA
Dragon, by Comodo. USA
Avant, by Avant Force. China
K-Meleon. Their websites are not working, but it is GPL'ed and not developed by a company.
Lunascape, by Lunascape Inc. Japan
SRWare Iron, by SRWare. Germany
Rockmelt, by Rockmelt. USA
SlimBrowser, by Flashpeak. USA


So, of the eleven alternatives for IE, only one is made in an EU member state.

So how can anyone state that the browser choice screen is a ploy by the EU to give European companies unfair advantage?




(And for the argument that only American companies get fined by the EU: bollocks.
European companies get fined all the time, it's just not newsworthy for most American media, so it does not get media coverage in the US.
Don't get me wrong, I am not a EU fanboy (au contraire), but this is one of the few things they did get right.)

[Grenage]

So how can anyone state that the browser choice screen is a ploy by the EU to give European companies unfair advantage?

I've never heard that argument before.

[Statia]

I've never heard that argument before.

Here, for instance:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2066379&highlight=browser+choice+microsoft&page=4

(Or the comments section on Slashdot)

[Elfy]

Notice how that thread got closed.