Another week, another complaint about the IE browser ballot. Opera—the company whose complaint triggered the EU's investigation in the first place—has identified
another issue with the browser ballot. Under certain circumstances the browser ballot is obscured by Internet Explorer configuration dialog boxes, and is only visible once the boxes are dismissed.
When Internet Explorer is used for the first time, a short setup wizard is shown to allow the user to select the default search engine, accelerators, and other things. The browser ballot itself is presented using Internet Explorer. If the two events coincide—the first use of Internet Explorer and the display of the browser ballot—then the setup wizard is shown first, with the browser ballot hidden behind it. Opera's concern is that after clicking through several screens of setup wizard, users won't pay attention to the browser ballot, and will instead dismiss it, opting to choose later.
