Google will soon prompt Android users to choose their preferred default browser and search app on their devices. This decision was announced by Google after fighting legal battles with the European Commission.
Last year in July, the search giant was fined $5 billion over alleged antitrust practices in Android after which Google announced a handful of changes. This announcement is another step to comply with Europe’s antitrust ruling.
EU enforcers argued that by pre-installing the Chrome browser and Google search app on Android devices, Google gained an unfair advantage over its competitor browsers and search apps.
So European users will now be informed about the range of browsers that are available for Android and given a choice to use other browsers even if many of them will prefer Google’s products anyway.
Google didn’t mention exactly how it will do so. But we can assume that it will most likely happen during the device setup process for new users.
But as far as old users are concerned, receiving a prompt in the middle of the day could be disruptive and annoying.
In response to antitrust rulings last year, Google enforced a licensing fee on device makers in lieu of accessing Google Play Store and it has no plans of taking back its decision as of now.
