A couple of weeks ago I wrote how Microsoft have been forced by the European Union to issue alerts to all Windows users about the availability of web browsers other than its own Internet Explorer.
I’m all for choice and would be the first one handing out the party poppers if the world was to turn its collective back on IE but my prediction was that pop-up notifications would serve little purpose other than to temporarily confuse for the two seconds it would take the average user to click the big red close button.
It seems I may have been depressingly spot on. Alternative browser developers are being particularly cagey about take-up numbers but reports suggest little, if any, increases.
Now those same browser developers are fighting among themselves, each demanding a fair share of top billing in the alternatives Microsoft suggests in its message.
The likes of Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Google Chrome are likely to achieve a more impressive boost by the official death of Internet Explorer 6 last week.
How does a browser pop its clogs in anything like an official capacity, you may well ask.
A campaign group in Denver, US, held a funeral for the much criticised browser which, despite coming up on its ninth birthday is still in use by millions.
In a rare moment of good sportsmanship, Microsoft itself sent a wreath thanking IE6 for the good times and promising greater things to come.
It doesn’t come much more official than that.
