Independent browser companies in the European Union are seeing a spike in users in the first month after EU legislation forced Alphabet’s Google, Microsoft and Apple to make it easier for users to switch to rivals, according to data provided to Reuters by six companies.
The early results come after the EU’s sweeping Digital Markets Act, which aims to remove unfair competition, took effect on March 7, forcing big tech companies to offer mobile users the ability to select from a list of available web browsers from a “choice screen.”
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I can’t believe this is even remotely surprising. A lot of especially Apple fans and people from outside of the European Union complained left, right, and centre about the choice screen and how it was ugly, unnecessary, and would just confuse users. These are interesting claims, considering the fact that setting up a modern smartphone such as the iPhone takes the user through 40-50 setup screens chockful of confusing choices to make, so adding one more surely wouldn’t make a difference.
Of course giving users the option to choose a different default browser would lead to an increase in browsers other than Safari (iOS) or Chrome (Android) being set as the default. I’m pretty sure quite a few users learned, through the choice screen, for the first time, that there even are different browsers to choose from, and that some of those might offer features and benefits they didn’t even know they could enjoy. That’s the whole point of this endeavour: informing users that they have a choice, something Apple, Google, and others would rather you either do not have, or at least not know about.
It’s far too early to tell if these spikes are a one-off thing, or if the rise in browsers other than Safari on iOS and Chrome on Android is more structural. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the latter, and even if the numbers remain in the single digits or low double digits, it will still lead to an increase in competition, and a more vibrant mobile browser market.
Good news, regardless.
This is good news.
Owners having the right to use the browser of their choosing is obvious. Frankly steps should have been taken to protect customer rights many years ago. Oh well, better now than never.
Meanwhile, a recent update to my Samsung S22 resulted in Chrome taking over as my default browser, and everytime I set it back to Firefox, it would almost immediately revert to Chrome. The only thing that worked in the end was to disable Chrome. Of course, you can’t remove it as it’s a core part of Android it seems. I’m not even giving Samsung nor Google the benefit of the doubt. I think it was entirely deliberate. Dejavu.
dexterous,
To be fair, they literally market the S22 as a phone that breaks the rules…
https://www.samsung.com/us/app/smartphones/galaxy-s22/models/
I have no idea what’s going on with that page BTW, I just found the slogan very ironic.
Anyway, a couple points: the EU law does not cover non EU jurisdictions. Devices sold in other markets may not see any of these choice screens, side loading rights, payment alternatives, etc. In the US we never got the microsoft windows browser choice screens resulting from the EU lawsuit either. Also, it’s not clear to me that the law would cover any pre-existing products, the mandates probably just apply to new products created/sold after some point in time and older/preexisting products are probably not covered.
I don’t get the choice screen, but a few weeks ago I switched to DuckDuckGo as default browser on my iPhone, even though I keep Safari as my browser.
That way, all these annoying 1-time tabs that open from links clicked in mails and WhatsApp messages can be burnt with a single tap on the flame button in DDG. If it is a keeper, I’ll send it to Safari. When I browse on my own, I start Safari.
Couldn’t be happier.
Marc_S,
Many will choose the official browser, as is their right. The point is to make sure consumer have a real choice and prevent dominant companies from exploiting their dominance to eliminate consumer choice. Having a choice screen helps inform customers they have a choice now, many of whom would not realize it on their own after decades of systematic prohibition.
Glad you’re happy. Sometimes I find two browsers are handy when I want to stay logged into multiple accounts at the same time without having to repeatedly sign in and out to go back and forth.
Since most browsers are built off of Chrome at this point not sure if there is a whole lot to celebrate. But ok the same choice is on Windows, Mac and Linux and we see how that is going.