Opera: Microsoft's browser ballot has tripled our downloads

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Opera has reportedly witnessed an influx of downloads since the introduction of Microsoft's browser ballot to Europe two days ago. After the rollout, Opera downloads more than tripled in major European countries, such as Belgium, France, Spain, Poland, and the UK, according to Rolf Assev, Opera's chief strategy officer.

Microsoft introduced the ballot to appease EU regulators after rival browser makers (including Opera and Google) complained that Redmond had an unfair advantage by preinstalling Internet Explorer on every Windows PC. The ballot randomly sorts the five most popular browsers (Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and IE) and lets users pick which they want to install.

It's unclear whether other companies have also witnessed a rise in downloads, and it's worth noting that some of Opera's sudden traffic may stem from yesterday's major release of version 10.50. Hopefully Mozilla and others will step forward with some statistics in the near future.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/38094-opera-microsofts-browser-ballot-has-tripled-our-downloads.html

 

[Didou]

So when does one actually see the ballot screen ? After a fresh install ? At first bootup ?

 

[Clrabbit]

They show Opera, IE, FF, and Sarfair on the ballot screen screen shots all the time, I hope Lunascape, Maxthon, Advent, Kmelon, Flock, chome, SeaMonkey, Amaya, iRider, & Sleipnir

are getting just as much screen time as the Big 4.

 

[Clrabbit]

"the ballot randomly sorts the five most popular browsers"

Opps my bad, well I guess that means none of the other great lesser know browsers are getting any screen time... They should have at least added Sleipnir and Lunascape sense they're two of the most popular browsers in Japan.

 

[slh28]

clrabbit said:
They should have at least added Sleipnir and Lunascape sense they're two of the most popular browsers in Japan.

But this is for Europe... anyway I don't think any casual users would have heard of browsers other than those 5 main ones, and giving users too much choice will just confuse the hell out of them and they will probably just default to IE.

 

[Clrabbit]

I suppose... I always favorer more choice, maybe not have them in the BIG showcase but a drop down menu with show Top 5, Top 10, All.
That that way more adventurous users could at least see them, the ballot may give users the wrong idea that the top 5 are the only 5 worth using, and want venture out to find the others.

 

[darkjeric]

Meh, I'm not so convinced the Ballot Screen has much to do with it. I think it has more to do with them just releasing the newest version (10.50) and not making it available yet as update for existing users. I just downloaded and installed it manually on 4 computers today, so there's your triple numbers

And yes I live in Europe and I saw the Ballot Screen. You wouldn't believe how many people have asked me 'what the hell is that?' or 'what the hell is a browser?'...

 

[Xclusiveitalian]

In the future when you turn on your new computer a ballot box will appear asking you which OS you would like you use...

 

[Guest]

What about apple computers their defualt browser is Safari! Are they just going against the big browser who has the most.

 

[tengeta]

Downloads tripled, fine. Will they stick with it?

 

[slh28]

darkjeric said:
And yes I live in Europe and I saw the Ballot Screen. You wouldn't believe how many people have asked me 'what the hell is that?' or 'what the hell is a browser?'...

In that case maybe the EU should have not included those browser logos... cuz most people will just click on the big blue "e" logo.

By the way, wasn't the ballot supposed to be in a random rather than alphabetical order? Or is that just an old screenshot

 

[Clrabbit]

tengeta said:
Downloads tripled, fine. Will they stick with it?

That's hard to say, sense Opera feels so much different then any other browser people use to IE or FF not willing to go though a learning curve will just move right back. Plus Downloads mean very little.

As somebody else said 10.5 dose not auto-update from 10.1 I had to grab a DL for it, and update all my systems manually as well that alone added 5 DL's from me alone, sense I didn't feel like finding a USB key for such a small DL.

 

[SNGX1275]

Plus Downloads mean very little..

Firefox sure got a lot of press for some number of downloads a while ago. Agreed they don't mean much, but its only fair Opera gets a news story when FF was getting a ton, and Opera needs the attention.

 

[red1776]

Firefox sure got a lot of press for some number of downloads a while ago. Agreed they don't mean much, but its only fair Opera gets a news story when FF was getting a ton, and Opera needs the attention.

I agree, I am not by any stretch of the imagination a fan of the 'ballot system' but Opera is a tremendous browser, and I cannot understand why it cant get any gription.

 

[JudaZ]

ok, so now 30 people use opera instead of 10?

its rediculous. downloads meen nothing, how many actually use it?

 

[Guest]

It's not because of the browser ballot. It's because of the new Opera 10,5 version that is really fast and good. Everyone is talking about it and that's all. I switched from Firefox to the new Opera because of the update and really fast work.

 

[alexandrionel]

To be honest, it is hard for me to understand why Opera has such a small market share because since version 10.00 it has been my favorite.
Now with version 10.5, it is really good.

 

[LightHeart]

Some Thoughts

Let's see, MS introduces a ballot in Win 7 and Opera releases a new version, which caused 3x more downloads. Do they have a way to track if the downloads came from someone clicking on the ballot or people with other OS's just downloading them. I'm sure many people are trying out the new release but in a month or so how many will continue to use it? One other note, wasn't Opera one of the big complainers that got the EU to force the ballot in the first place? If so, wouldn't they want to show that all the effort by the EU made sense and was justified?

 

[windmill007]

If a browser is slow I say you need to upgrade your internet. I use firefox mainly and when I do use IE the difference in speed is very marginal. Sure if you have a slower computer/internet certain browsers maybe faster but come on..Were talkin milliseconds here and before long all browsers will be just as fast as each other. I love firefox because of all the ad-on. I can stop those nasty ads and alot more. IE would be great to if they had ad block. I hate IE just because I get all kinds of ads and virus pop-ups.

 

[NeoFlux]

ok, so now 30 people use opera instead of 10?

its rediculous. downloads meen nothing, how many actually use it?

Let's put it this way : I downloaded Opera one time and installed on 30 computers.

Numbers always mean something, given they interpreted correctly...

 

[TorturedChaos]

clrabbit said:
I suppose... I always favorer more choice, maybe not have them in the BIG showcase but a drop down menu with show Top 5, Top 10, All.
That that way more adventurous users could at least see them, the ballot may give users the wrong idea that the top 5 are the only 5 worth using, and want venture out to find the others.

Yah but your average user doesn't even know what a browser is. If someone knows enough to know about less common browsers, they probably know enough to try them out without having to be prompted at the browser selection screen.

What i wonder is if you select something non-IE, does it still have IE on the machine or is it gone completely??

 

[Afroaggie]

Well I have been an avid Opera user for a while now and think it is great that they are getting some of the browser attention.

 

[buendia]

If only Opera would create a plug-in system, similar to Chrome.
I really miss my Xmarks addon; my bookmarks are always synced and backed up.
Opera Link is only limited to, of course, Opera. When I add a bookmark in Opera I need to add it again to FF, so I will rather use FF.

 

[AmpFeare]

I'll always be a firefox guy until opera has a BUILT IN adblocker by default that will block the adds WITHOUT u having to manually do so.

 

[JudaZ]

and as an example I've downloaded firefox probably 200 times last year ... used it only, maybe, 20 times in total. .. virtual machines, testing purposes. .. to lazy to save the exe file .. so download again .. and so on. ... probably installed it more often then i've ever used it.
...and everytime time a new release comes out, thats yet another download. The only stats that really matters is how many active users there are. And since you can fake the header (often its good to fake as mozilla or opera)....that makes even those results unreliable. But at least it more interesting stats.