Mozilla and Opera Software say they are seeing an uptick in demand for their browsers in the wake of Microsoft’s launch of a choice ballot in Europe. Mozilla CEO John Lilly told The New York Times over the weekend that more than 50,000 Firefox downloads have already occurred via direct links from the new choice screen that the European Commission mandated last year as part of its antitrust settlement with Microsoft.
Though Microsoft has said it won’t complete its ballot rollout in Europe until May, demand for Opera’s rival browser has already grown, noted Opera Software Communications Manager Falguni Bhuta.
“Since the browser screen rollout, we have seen downloads of our desktop browser more than triple in major European countries such as Belgium, France, Spain, Poland and the U.K.,” Bhuta said.
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Microsoft’s browser rivals hope to see a further rise in demand once more European PC users gain access to the choice screen. Still, there is a world of difference between the amount of software downloads and the number of users who actually adopt a browser as their preferred surfing application.
For example, the maker of the Maxthon browser boasts of 300 million downloads worldwide, yet the product barely registers a blip on the latest web metrics. However, Opera believes that once users have had a chance to try out Opera 10.50, they will quickly see the advantages — particularly when browsing the web in bandwidth-constrained online environments.
As Bhuta points out, users will be able to set up the browser’s Opera Turbo engine to dramatically cut the amount of time it takes for any web page to load. Even better, the turbo function can be set to automatically engage whenever it detects a slow network connection.
“On your browser window, on the bottom left you will see an icon that looks like…
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