Slashdot Mirror
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 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
If you looked at sites like kernel.org, slashdot, etc, then that'd skew it in the opposite direction
In the distant past when Netscape was king slashdot used to print browser statistics on one of their pages. They stopped doing so when IE's share started to get embarrassingly big.
No we've got superb browsers like Firefox, Opera and Mozilla (each one different enough to suit different people) has the trend on slashdot been reversed? Can we have browser stats again on slashdot - it would be interesting.
As IE is so useless I can only imagine the MS fanboys on the site using IE unless it's forced on them at work. Personally I'm going to campaign for the default browser at work to become Firefox once 1.0 is released - I use Firefox at work at the moment but loads of people don't know what it is.
So who here still uses IE and why?
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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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.