Google makes its play against Microsoft Windows.

In an attempt to starve off a lawsuit from the EU's European Commission, Microsoft has offered to bundle Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Apple Safari with Windows 7.

When a customer first installs Windows 7, a ‘browser ballot’ screen would appear, giving them the choice of installing Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or a rival browser.

The good news: Mac and Linux versions of Google’s web browser have arrived.

The bad news: on its “Chromium” blog, the company warns:

“In order to get more feedback from developers, we have early developer channel versions of Google Chrome for Mac OS X and Linux, but whatever you do, please DON'T DOWNLOAD THEM!

Google has unveiled a television commercial promoting its Chrome web browser, which has so far failed to gain more than around 1% market share against Microsoft's IE, Mozilla Firefox

Shocking long-time observers, Microsoft has confirmed rumours that its Internet Explorer web browser will be removable from Windows 7.

Earlier this week, a screen shot (below) leaked to developer blog sites, appearing to show a setup screen in Windows 7 that let a user uninstall IE 8. Previous beta versions of Windows 7 had not featured such a “kill switch”.

Under pressure from the EU, Microsoft is going to give people the option to remove its web browser from Windows 7, according to a leaked screen shot.

The screen shot of Windows 7 Build 7048, first posted on the Aero Experience blog, clearly shows a “Windows Features” set-up screen that gives you the option to delete Internet Explorer 8, along with other components.