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Mozilla Gains on Internet Explorer
Alizarin Erythrosin writes "PCWorld is reporting that Internet Explorer's share of the browser market has dropped 1%, the 'first noticeable decline since WebSideStory began tracking the browser market in late 1999.' With all the exploits and security holes in IE recently, it's no wonder! Google News has related stories, including many on the recently disclosed (and patched!) bug in Mozilla on Win2k/XP machines (documented on Slashdot on Thursday)"
While Mom and Pop (tm) may still use whatever is default for some time to come, just keep passing out CDs and downloading it for friends... it IS catching on.
I just burned a CD for a friend stuck on dialup. She is a school teacher in NYC and could care less about mozilla/ie/netscape/blah, BUT she has adware/spyware clogging her computer. So I burn a CD with adaware, spybot, AND Firefox along with a text file telling her how and what to do.
Voila... another Mozilla user!
I
I've been using IE all along. I frequent about a dozen web sites and largely confine myself there. In the last month I've been delivered spyware twice and I HAVE NOT changed my surfing habits. Yesterday something from Fark installed TV Media which installed cleverIEhooker.jeired and tryed to download some trojan. After spending half an afternoon cleaning up my machine and learning more about URLsearchhooks and BHOs than I ever care to know, I gave up. This crap has finally entered my world. I use opera all the time to proof web pages, but today it is my default browser for surfing. It's not even about operas feature set, only its limited market share that protects me. This malicious spyware crap has ruined IE where it's lack of standards compliance and reliability I could live with, this I cannot.
What about this enormous list of bugs and broken functionaility.
I wish one of the companies we "partner" with would get on the ball here. 2 1/2 years ago I hounded them about not supporting Netscape 6 as our site does support it and we have clients using it - they'd be SOL using the partner's site. They stalled for a while, claimed it was "too hard" or "too much work" and eventually said they'd put it on the to-do list. We delayed a rollout of our the link-up between our site and theirs for months while we fought over just getting that.
2 weeks ago, we got an email from a client using this system asking when we'd upgrade so that he can use Netscape 7. This company still does not support Netscape > 4.x or any other browser. We had to tell him (and CC'd the person responsible for the relationship with this "partner" that it wasn't our site, it was this 3rd party's site, and we've been trying for a long time to get them on track.
I guess that if (some) online service providers can be bothered to support a significant minority of users (e.g. Mac users, no flames here!), then support for another browser should be possible, and especially in their enlightened self interest
-Fooby
Line eater? What lin
Now that would be significant...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
What's the right way to measure browser usage? They said they picked X many (30,000?) sites and surveyed their browser usage. They didn't take into account the number of faked browser strings, I'll bet. And certain website will skew things drastically, such as Windows Update, well duh, it's going to be 100% IE. If you looked at sites like kernel.org, slashdot, etc, then that'd skew it in the opposite direction. I have a feeling that many of the sites they use ignore most of the geek population, which would probably add another percent or two to Mozilla.
From time to time I have to go to IE or Netscape. Being a bif fan on the mouse gestures, I'm constantly finding myself drawing D to close the tab (which there isn't), or L to back. My next thought is usually, "oh, I should install it here too :)"
I used IE a while ago, and was immediately annoyed by pop-ups, and a bunch of other little irritating things. And ofcourse, we all know the endless stream of security problems, some of which aren't even fixed at all. So why won't users switch?
If you ask random IE users, the answer mostly comes down to that they didn't know other 'serious' browsers exist, think it's too much hassle to download/install/configure, or they're not bothered enough by IE's problems, to make a switch.
I'm sure that if all users would base their choices only on technical merits, Mozilla & friends would have far bigger market share (and open source, as well).
So that leaves the conclusion that throwing in software with new PC's, giving a 'default' to use, really IS a powerful way to push software around. Open source developers should be aware of that, and not underestimate that power. Having a comparable alternative isn't good enough, you really need added value.
Ofcouse, removing $$$ price tags, and having stuff that's more fun and reliable to work with, helps a lot
What he's say (albeit in a definite "troll" like way) is that 1% is statistically insignificant in that such a small margin is generally thought to be more likely the normal variation in sampling procedures and techniques. And, he's probably right.
That would apply to a survey, but that doesn't apply hear. These are the *actual* visitors to the websites that WebSideStory tracks. And it has held steady at 95.7% for quite a while.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
When I log into citibankcards.com (using mozilla of course) there is a message in bright red that comes up warning users that they should not use IE. It seems to come up no matter what browser I use.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
If this argument takes hold and people use it as a reason to switch to other browsers, it will be very interesting to see if the folks in Redmond hold to their "party line" about the impossibility of separating the Internet Exploder from the Operating System...
--Mark
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
I got my mother to switch to Mozilla about 6 months back and she has been thrilled with it. She started using it for the spam filtering and stayed for the browser itself. The other day I phoned her to tell her to upgrade mozilla because of the shell:// problem and she had already done it! I think she may actually be getting it.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
Of course it's statistically significant or they would not have reported it. It's the first time in five years they have notice such a decline. It might be because corporate users have been scared off the internet for a while or it might be due to the noted 25% rise in Mozilla usage, but it's real either way.
It's also socially significant either way. Both ways demonstrate that people no longer trust Microsoft junk when it counts. Adoption of Mozilla on a Windoze platform is even more significant. It shows that people are willing to go out of their way to get more trusted code and that they trust a free program more than they trust M$. It's very bad news for Microsoft.
It might also portend larger shift. It's about as easy to replace your whole M$ system as it is to swap out the browser. As people use Mozilla and realize just how much better it is, they will be tempted to try out distributions like Xandros, Mepis, Suse or Fedora. As more "normal" users make that swap and report how much better things are, we will see a much larger shift in statistics.
Everything is in place.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I've been usin' FF since 0.2 and I just implemented a new "no IE" policy at my office. Everyone is installing FF over the next few days.
I didn't do it for any particularly idealistic reasons, just because IE isn't worth the problems anymore.
You should have seen the looks on people's places when I told them about the IIS/IE attacks that were uncovered last week.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
maybe because ie comes standard and is the default browser on all machines running windows? Do most users actually know what a browser is?
I don't know about other languages, but the localized Arabic version of Windows XP (and probably versions before it) labeled the Internet Explorer desktop icon as simply "The Internet." I always found that disturbing, especially in a market where many individuals are just getting to know computers.
IE marketshare going below 60% is never going to happen. But if it goes below 90% that's still a huge win, since no one will be able to make IE-only web pages and get away with it.
I can turn off flash in FIrefox and it won't ever ask me to install it again except for the first time. Just a nice icon I can click if I ever need annoying flash crud. Google toolbar worked for popups, and I keep IE patched. I don't even use an antivirus, and I haven't had a virus since 1997. I still have to use IE to get full Microsoft support functionality.
Vote Quimby!
I think many of we geeks have taken a lackluster stance on the browser issue; I know I have. I think it's time that all of us actively influence all of those that we support to move to an alternate browser.
In my estimation, almost every computer is supported by an IT geek at some point, and if every geek converted as many computers as possible, we could really make a dent in these stats.
Unfortunately, I think it's practically impossible to motivate IT people as a whole to action. We're all so self-motivated and anti-groupthink (not to mention a touch of laziness in many of us), that I think our inaction will continue to support Microsoft's stronghold for some time to come. c'est la vie..
I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous...
I think the main reason why Mozilla browser usage increased lately is that since Mozilla 1.6 came out early this year, the Mozilla web browser finally has the ability to render most web pages accurately in addition to all the good things we've already expected from Mozilla, namely built-in pop-up window control and less likely chance to get spyware installed. Mozilla 1.7.x versions improve on Mozilla 1.6 with even better page rendering accuracy and also faster operation, too.
I've switched over from using IE to Mozilla in the past month. The features I like:
Tabbed windows
Pop-up control (not sure about pop-unders though).
Download manager.
No preinstalled ActiveX component downloading
It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to visit a web site, and see the covert attempt to download an ActiveX component being trapped by Mozilla and highlighted in a popup window, with the message "Mozilla has detected an attempt to download the file xxxxxx. What would you Mozilla to do with this file?".
When I see this message, the only other feature I think could be added to Mozilla involves the use of medical robotics, so I doubt it will ever be implemented.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
It's like how every time the subject of a competitor to Google comes up, many highly-modded comments are along the lines of 'Oh, Google's entrenched, any new product has to be at least 10x better to get people to switch.'.
Now, I know it's an unpopular opinion, but when you think about it, Mozilla is not ten times better than Internet Explorer. It's better, but not THAT MUCH better, not even in the same way that IE was better than NS4
Heck, I develop CSS/JS-rich front-ends for a living, and to the horror of my peers, I still use IE as my primary browser. Why? Because aside from its nice JS debugger, which only gets pulled out when I'm testing, Mozilla offers no GREAT reason to switch. I keep my system patched, the recent FireFoxes have crashed on me more often than IE ever has, I prefer spatial+visible window organisation, and IE still opens faster*.
The other major good points behind Mozilla (ie Standards Compliant Rendering) are of little consequence to the end-user in an IE-dominated world.
* I know there are counterpoints to all of these, I've heard them, believe me.
on my (admittedly small) web site between May and (so far, at least) July. This, after a steady under-12% usage for the past year. The site is the "home page" for our ISP and featured a story about the problems of MSIE with links to Opera and Mozilla so perhaps this might account for some of the increase. Interesting, however.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
All of you who still use IE, or were only recently persuaded to switch, why do/did you use it? I've seen a number of comments here that say "IE isn't worth the problems anymore" or "I could tolerate the non-standards-compliance and unreliability" etc. What makes it worth the problems? Is there something you actually like about it?
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
No, it is news. Assuming it isn't an error, Microsoft losing a 1% of the market share means that 1 out of every hundred people got so fed up with IE being taken over by popup scripts and everything else wrong with it, that they decided change was in order. Most people loathe the idea of change, especially when it comes to the computer. So this is very significant, if it is accurate. Dropping one percent so quickly is a serious threat to dominance and make no mistake that Bill is concerned. Also keep in mind that this change is mostly home computers, not businesses. Businesses do not change unless they absolutely must, most of the time. So that 1% likely translates to 2 or 3% of home users. Which would mean that 1 out of possibly every 33 homes stopped using IE. You bet your ass Bill has a committee researching this one as we type.
Drop me a line at:
Key ID: 0x54D1D809
A few of my tech-savvy friends tried Mozilla/Firefox and ended up preferring to continue to use IE. From their point of view, a bunch of pages didn't work in Firefox/Mozilla and the bookmark management didn't work as well (no-drag-n-drop within the meny itself, can't get to the bookmark via the windows Favorites menu). They liked the addition of tabs, but didn't notice any speed difference. They have the google taskbar installed so they've already got popup blocking.
In the end, Firefox/Mozilla just had too many issues that were relevant to their day-to-day browsing, and didn't offer enough of an improvement for them to actually want to switch. One ended up using Maxthon and really loves it.
Personally, I'm a loyal Firefox user. I can't live without tabs and have learned to deal with the little ideosyncracies in certain pages.
There seems to be a general consensus here that if only people were exposed to other browsers they'd all pick Firefox/Mozilla...but until they get really really solid and eliminate all page compatibility issues, I don't think that's truthfully the case.
They are very right about the overall trend, it is to see since about a month or so.
But, it seems to be much more in percent as the article stated. The above results are from an international non IT page. So this means Mozilla's are gaining under the common users.
MS Internet Explorer 86
Mozilla 5
Netscape 4
FireFox 3
Opera, Unknown, Safari,Firebird for the rest.
Keep on walking Mozilla!
"A loss of 1 percent of the market may not mean much to Microsoft, but it translates into a large growth, proportionately, in the number of users running Mozilla and Netscape-based browsers. Mozilla and Netscape's combined market share has increased by 26 percent, rising from 3.21 percent of the market in June to 4.05 percent in July"
That 1% (0.84% actually) is not the change in the number of users that are using Mozilla, but rather the additional portion of the entire market that is now using Mozilla.
If I sold widgets to 10% of the planet last month, but sold them to 11% of the planet this month, I've still increased the number of customers by 60,000,000.
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I used to be a student of statistics. I have seen a lot of prople argue here that WebSideStory's statistic may not be scientific or significant enough. Whether or not it is scientific enough remains to be debated. Yes it does use a sample size, but the sample can be assumed to be reasonably random, if only for its large size.
Now, the significance part. Some have argued 1% is not much. You just can't say that statistically. It depends on what the rangle of 95% confidence level (this 95% has NOTHING to do with MS's browser market share) is. And since the article clearly mentions that IE has been steady at 95.7% since June 2002. Then, the real situation is this: It has been 95.7% for 24 months, and then declined in ONE month to 94.7%. The estimated standard deviation is far less than 0.5% (I would estimate definitely no more than 0.05% by the way it is reported, only one place after decimal point). Therefore, any change of over 0.1% over one month is certainly statistically significant. 1% is 10 times that amount. It is a VERY significant change - more than most people realize.
The problem with looking at 95.7 and 1 is that 1 does look very insignificant. But when total amount of time, and other statistical analytical methods are taken into account, that 1 is more than enough to ring warning bells all over Redmond.