There have been complaints that the browser choice ballot is not generating the “random” choice that it should do. Rob Weir of IBM has complained that the ballot is favouring some browsers over others. The ballot has come about after the European Commission’s investigation of anti trust complaints against the company. Opera felt it to be unfair that IE was bundled together with Windows operating systems.

Microsoft has now?updated the algorithm that generates the ballot screen. And Weir is now satisfied that the choice is truly random. Microsoft said:

“We can confirm that we made a change to the random icon order algorithm in the browser choice screen for Europe. We are confident the algorithm change will be an improvement. As always, we are grateful for the feedback we get from developers, and we thank those who commented on the topic and suggested changes.”

Microsoft have not confirmed when the change was made, but it appears to have been some time last week. Surprisingly, Wier’s testing showed that Chrome was receiving the top slot in the ballot, and IE?more likely to receive the last spot.