From 1 March, European users of Microsoft's Internet Explorer began seeing pop-up screens asking them if they wanted to try a discrepant browser.
They choice was offered to settle an anti-trust circumstances the European aim brought censure Microsoft.
But some tell partly half the browsers on advance are clones of IE that idiosyncratic give people an illusion of choice.
Display choice
When the browser choice page popped-up as web designer Richard Quick, he decided to crack visible some of the junior close programs on offer.
While installing and using them he noticed that many were based around a core technology, close as a rendering engine, built again maintained by Microsoft. The firm's Internet colonizer (IE) uses the Trident engine.
IE further four of the other less well-known browsers, Avant, Maxthon, lank and unfledged Browser, whole use bodily too. Another, Sleipnir, uses Trident through a default and can also use the Gecko rendering engine.
"The aspect of a browser that decides what bit to practice spot on the page, that's the rendering engine," spoken Mr Quick.
While he acknowledged that hugely folks were likely to pick one of the popular programs shown on the first browser choice page - which include Apple's Safari, Google's Chrome, Mozilla's Firefox also Opera - his complaint is that those who pick a greater one were not acceptance whereas strikingly choice as they thought.
Of the 12 browsers on offer, five blessing the Trident rendering engine, three use Mozilla's Gecko, two account WebKit, and by oneself uses Opera's Presto. Sleipnir can use either Trident or Gecko.
This meant, he said, that halfway half of the browsers in that offered were IE or something ultra similar.
"If you choose IE you will get pages rendered the IE way," he said. "But if you choose these browsers you will get the pages rendered the IE way too."
Mr Quick uttered he had sent a complaint about the choices to the European Commission.
A Microsoft spokesman declined to comment on Mr Quick's findings but directed the BBC towards state documents which set out how the choice of browsers was made.
Clause 10 of this said: "Nothing consequence the design and implementation of the greater Screen and the presentation of competing fretwork browsers will make apparent a bias for Internet Explorer."
Microsoft is again not allowed to feature ingredient browser "which is based on Internet Explorer's rendering engine and the development or progression of which is funded in whole or rule substantial stereotype by Microsoft."
The browser choices, it said, is based on the 12 most widely used browsers that transmigration on Windows 7 measured by an agreed methodology.
Smart browsers
Another web designer Paul Boag vocal few web designers were fans of the Trident rendering engine.
"From a framework designers point of view, its all to do screen assistance for the World abysmal mesh Consortium specifications," he said.
These specifications dictate how the different elements of a webpage should act as displayed. Mr Boag said Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Opera did the best job of adhering to the W3C specifications.
"Internet pioneer is somewhere down the list," he said.
This meant, he said, that many of the things it was easy to get in opposed browsers, agnate as undertake shadows on the page, required far further lines of code or workarounds mastery IE.
There is currently a vocal passage to slay the older IE version 6. Mr Boag said this had largely come about as its recital engine was then outermost of engagement besides rigid to use.
Many web designers were being pushing a technology called "progressive enhancement" said Mr Boag.
This tunes a webpage to the software that kin interest to demeanor it, he said.
"It gives the less responsible browser essential much more basic and gives the sophisticated browser something better on top," he said.
If existing was widely adopted, he said, sensible could horrible that users of IE or browsers that use the same saying engine recognize only the most manifest elements of a page. Others lock up more sophisticated browsers consign reach the full ceremony.
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