Microsoft has hit back at Opera antitrust claims regarding Internet Explorer, denying that it is abusing its dominant market position to lock users into the web browser.

"We believe the inclusion of the [IE] browser into the operating system benefits consumers, and that consumers and PC manufacturers are already free to choose to use any browsers they wish," said a Microsoft spokesperson. "Internet Explorer has been an integral part of the Windows operating system for over a decade and supports a wide range of web standards."

The Microsoft spokesperson claimed that "computer users have complete freedom of choice to use and set as default any browser they wish, including Opera, and PC manufacturers can also preinstall any browser as the default on any Windows machine they sell."

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