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Mozilla Usage Doubles in 9 Months

TheBadger writes "Thanks to the success of Firefox, Mozilla now appears to have 14.9% of the browser share, double that of 9 months ago. Let this be a lesson in complacency."

48 of 773 comments (clear)

  1. Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is a completely non-story. W3Schools is a (good) site aimed at web developers, ones that actually understand and use HTML/CSS/etc rather than whatever Frontpage makes. Yes, it's good that more developers are using Firefox/Mozilla, but it is not indicative of average users. Google's Zeitgeist was a good measure of the average user, but they've dropped the browser stats. My non-techy websites get about 7% Firefox, and about another 3% of Mozilla/Netscape 6/7 users. Is Firefox/Mozilla usage increasing? Yes, but it is not at 15%.

    1. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by rseuhs · · Score: 5, Interesting
      On a completely non-technical site I manage (f1-facts.com), Gecko has increased from 3.482% in February to 9.274% last month (August), that's pretty impressing.

      Actually 9.274 or 10% (like in your case) isn't very far off from 15%.

    2. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by Curtman · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Some workplaces (like mine) have instituted a no Exploder policy. If you're caught using it here, you get a reprimand, second offense is a day off with no pay, third you lose network privilages. Our admin seems to be a much happier guy lately.

    3. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by bsharitt · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I keep fixing people's computers because they have become so infested with spyware that they are unusable. In all those cases I install firefox and tell them to use that, and about 4 out of 5 keep firefox, so from my perspective usage has increased too.

    4. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I think you'd probably get the best stats from a general interest news site or perhaps mail.yahoo.com.

      You might get more representative samples from a company who gives a **** about web standards and doesn't write crappy code that doesn't work unless you're using IE. Numerous Yahoo-related web sites, including BT Yahoo's webmail, fall/fell into that category for a very long time.

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    5. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by bsharitt · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Although I am just a lowly nurse, I provide ad hoc tech support to our little off site research facility. When I repair some infected machine, I just delete the "E" icon, put on Mozilla and tell them thats what they have to click now to get on the internet. The only comment I've ever heard was "Why don't I get all those popups blocking my screen anymore" Most people never notice the differance.

      I don't remove IE, I just tell them the "e" is what messed up their computer and that the firefox icon is the new link to the internet.

    6. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by chez69 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      they tried to force us 'rebels' to use IE only by checking the user agent. all I did is get the firefox identity plugin and now those morons think i'm using internet explorer.

      everything displays the same as IE.

      --
      PHP is the solution of choice for relaying mysql errors to web users.
    7. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by Curtman · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You don't get punished for using IE...

      I suppose I should mention that I've never heard of anyone actually getting sh*t for useing it. I would imagine if there was ever a problem though, those still using it would have a lot of explaining to do. But there was a memo, and it did use the word Exploder in the title. I haven't heard any coworkers complaining either.

    8. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by bigbadwlf · · Score: 3, Interesting

      CNN's results would be skewed slightly in favour of Americans. I wonder if pr0n sites would be more neutral? .... Nah, skewed towards guys.
      Forget it - we can't win.

    9. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by Bert64 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Being not so picky about broken html is a bad thing, it encouraged people to code broken html and think it's acceptable.
      Aside from this, it was intentional for ie to accept broken html, coupled with ms programs designed to write broken html (frontpage, word) that would intentionally not display in netscape, so they could point at netscape and say "look! its broken" and the average user wouldn't know the truth.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    10. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by jonadab · · Score: 2, Interesting

      > real stats from a large entertainment company website

      Large entertainment company websites tend toward the low-end of userdom, in
      terms of tech aptitude. Not as extreme as MSN, but more biased than Yahoo.
      Of course, W3C is biased heavily in the other direction, toward geekdom.
      Stats from Google or Amazon would be more meaningful, but Google no longer
      shows their browser stats publically, and I don't think Amazon ever did, nor
      Ebay or any other of the sort of sites that I would expect to get an unbiased
      userbase consisting of geeks and nongeeks alike.

      Nevertheless, while the W3C numbers don't give us an accurate count of the
      percentage of users using Mozilla.org browsers, they do show an increase,
      and that is probably reliable as far as it goes. I think it's safe to say
      based on this article that Firefox usage has increased rather significantly
      over the last several months. What the exact percentage is, we don't really
      know, but it's up from whatever it was before.

      If I had to guess percentage, I'd say 15% is wildly high, but 3% may be a
      little low, perhaps.

      There's also the small matter of the discrepancy between raw number of users
      and raw number of hits. It is a truism that the top ten percent of users
      (in terms of amount of internet usage) account for *way* more than ten
      percent of the total page hits. I strongly suspect that the average geek
      causes way more page hits than the average non-geek. Consequently, when I
      say that 3% may be a bit low, I mean in terms of the number of hits, not the
      number of users. I doubt anywhere near 3% of *users* are using Firefox yet,
      but the ones who are may be generating 4-5% of the page hits -- especially
      if you take that as the percentage of pages deliberately loaded by the user
      (i.e., not popups).

      On a side note, my Dad recently asked me if his computer has Mozilla FoxFire
      [sic]. He was asking some non-techie people on a mostly-non-techie hobby
      forum about a certain browsing pattern related specifically to that forum
      website, and how to get around hitting the back button a whole lot of times
      and stuff, and someone told him to get Firefox for the tabbed browsing. I
      showed him how to use the tabbed browsing feature in the Netscape 7.0 browser
      that he already has, and that made him happy. (I'll upgrade them to Firefox
      eventually, but I'm waiting for 1.something probably. My mom doesn't like
      frequent upgrades. Well, she says she doesn't. I don't think she can really
      tell the difference, but whenever she knows I've been upgrading stuff on the
      computer she claims it confuses her.)

      --
      Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
  2. Is This True? by The+Lost+Supertone · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Seriously? Hmm... they don't seem to have any category for Konquer/Safari users... or am I missing something? Either way nice to see Moz gaining ground... but... is this really true?

  3. The interesting thing is.... by UncleBiggims · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The interesting this is that the browser with the biggest drop in usage from January to August is IE5. I wonder if this means that users of IE5 decided to switch rather than upgrade this year.

  4. Re:Biased source sorry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Google may have removed it because they dont' want to reveal the extent to which Mozilla is a threat to Microsoft's monopoly of the web browser.

  5. mmmh, not so fast by xlyz · · Score: 2, Interesting


    "Web Browsers Used to Access Google" graphic in google montlhy Zeitgeist shows an improvement as well, but not as big as mentioned

    ehi! why in july report the graphic is not there any more???

  6. I'm sure it varies widely from site to sit, but... by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When I've checked my personal site's stats (small gardening site, roughly 400-500 page views per day) over the past couple months: I've been seeing roughly 70% Internet Explorer, 5% unknown, and the rest are mostly Mozilla/Netscape variants. Safari makes up just a couple percentage points.

    About a year ago hits from IE were at about 90%.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  7. MS not complacent...just looking for revenue by mabhatter654 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    MS isn't complacent with IE...they've just conqured the desktop computer space and want to make money with development elsewhere. Like...MSN! the MSN browser [which only works with MSN's service..go figure!] has all sorts of firefox/Mozilla like features...plus some other ones that are MSN only...like passport/hotmail integration... IE is the "entry level" product, it's a loss leader so you'll buy another service to "fix" the built in functionality's shortcommings... And that's what Windows XP is all about! giving customers enough to get started, but then requiring serious users to buy-up for "professional" features...


    and THAT is why MS is "so great" for the software industry! [at least THEIR reasoning]

  8. I'm more interested in those OS stats. by khasim · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Particularly since it shows Linux at 3% and Mac at 2.5%.

    And it shows a fairly steady (if slow) increase.

  9. Those stats certainly dont reflect my collections by aqui10 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I dont know how real that info is, i mean it may just be that the sites im checking stats on are just a little off, but IE doesnt look like 78% on my sites , more like 95++ and that to, easily. Perhaps the list of sites that they are taking into consideration are just the geeky sites where people actually do have a clue as to other browsers. Im convinced the only reason MSN gets the number of hits that it does is really just because of the fact that so many users dont know how to change their home page ! Can anyone else provide feed back on their site stats ? I use FireFox for my browsing, love the tabs and the download manager, but it sure is memory hungry, i wish it would load up along with Windows and be quicker on the start, perhaps they should do what Winamp does, which is, start a winamp loader by default.

  10. I Switched by DesireUnkind · · Score: 2, Interesting

    After my 15y/o son went on about it, I decided to give it a try. The clincher was when I right clicked and had an option to look up a word. This after trying several browsers in the past.

  11. Firefox in odd places by supmylO · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I just moved to a new highschool for my senior year and signed up for a java class. I was pleased when I found out that the computers in the lab have Firefox (and OpenOffice) on them. I guess word is spreading, even though most CS type teachers are probably nerds too...

  12. slashdot vs. non-slashdot hits on my site by ortholattice · · Score: 5, Interesting
    My semi-technical site (sorry, I won't tell you what it is - the is my only semi-anonymous haven) got mention in a slashdot comment on Sep. 2 (no, it wasn't me spamming!), causing many (around 1100 extra) hits. Here are the Sep. results so far, with 72.5% of Sep. hits from coming from slashdot:

    36.97%=Mozilla/5.0 ; 33.65%=MSIE 6.0 ; 6.45%=Pompos/1.3 http://dir.com/pompos.html ; 6.40%=msnbot/0.11 (+http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm) ; 2.71%=Opera 7.5 ; 2.46%=Yahoo! Slurp ; 2.41%=Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html) ; 1.93%=psbot/0.1 (+http://www.picsearch.com/bot.html) ; 1.49%=MSIE 5.5 ; 0.87%=Konqueror/3.2 ; 0.80%=Mozilla/3.01 (compatible;) ; 0.56%=Konqueror/3.3 ; 0.50%=MSIE 5.0 ; 0.43%=Konqueror/3.1 ; 0.41%=Opera 7.2

    Here are the more normal Aug. results with about 0% hits coming from slashdot:

    46.89%=MSIE 6.0 ; 16.82%=Mozilla/5.0 ; 7.92%=msnbot/0.11 (+http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm) ; 6.50%=Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html) ; 3.55%=Ask Jeeves/Teoma)" ; 3.14%=MSIE 5.0 ; 2.67%=Pompos/1.3 http://dir.com/pompos.html ; 1.86%=MSIE 5.5 ; 1.82%=psbot/0.1 (+http://www.picsearch.com/bot.html) ; 1.27%=HTTrack 3.0 ; 1.05%=Yahoo! Slurp ; 0.93%=Mozilla/3.01 (compatible;) ; 0.88%=Opera 7.5

  13. Don't go by W3Schools Stats by Dracos · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Most people who visit w3schools.com are not the average user, they are developers: early adopters. It would take at least another 9 months for global Mozilla usage to reach half these levels.

    I prefer to go by the stats published by OneStat.com in their Pressbox.

    However, I do think the rest of the year will bring a significant change in browser usage.

  14. Re:In a perfect world... by Izago909 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Make their devlopment tools be as compliant as posible. It's actually better for browsers to not be completely bound by standards. Browsers don't have to be as long as they can render compliant code properly. It would actually be better for the average person. That way any page written by the laziest, poorest educated author can still be seen.

    I just find it amazing that tools like frontpage output HTML looking code that isn't true HTML. Non-IE browsers will choke and render the page so poorly that it's unreadable, yet IE has no problem. First MS gets sued for using their desktop base to force IE on people, then they use their Office base to force the creation and publishing of IE only pages.

  15. Schools and companies by sometwo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Schools and companies are the places where there are a huge number of computers. Those are the places where Mozilla can make inroads for quick jumps in market share. My school finally dropped Netscape 4 and is offering a custom Mozilla browser with its logo to every student. How long before others follow?

  16. On that note... by Cylix · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Not to Firefox troll, but I think everyone should make an effort to switch at least one person over to firefox. Then, see if they can switch at least one person.

    I was happy using Mozilla, but since I switched to Firefox... I've been thrilled.

    It flies, it has some nice plugins (I recommend FTPsync and Browser Agent switching for those annoying sites) and my experience has been nothing but great.

    Just because I occassionally switch my user agent string doesn't mean I don't complain. I recently submitted a complaint to yahooligans (A yahoo kids oreiented site).

    --
    "You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
  17. The stats linked to are useless by Guspaz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As has been said in many previous posts, those stats JUST represent ONE site, and a tech-oriented one at that, making the results hugely biased.

    For a comparison as to how useless those statistics are, I checked out the stats for the most popular site tracked by NedStatBasic. It's startpagina.nl with about 2.8 million pageviews per day.

    Here are the browser stats:

    IE 5/6: 96.7%
    Mozilla: 2.7%
    Other: 0.6%

    You can see the stats here:

    http://www.nedstatbasic.net/s?tab=1&link=5&id=71 03 09

    1. Re:The stats linked to are useless by Combuchan · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Startpagina.nl? Looks like one of the countless other sites that some RANDOM_IE_EXPLOIT bug makes as your home page, inadvertently, forever. People that usually load them usually have a spyware-infected PC/don't have a clue what they're doing online. I see it way too much. The 2.7% for Mozilla is only indicative of potential content on the page.

      Using google or a site like this for stats is highly disproportionate--these pages get loaded once anybody opens up a browser window or tab, regardless of whether any content is accessed.

      Most geeks I know use "about:blank" as their start page anyway.

      --
      "[T]he single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom." -- Barry Goldwater
  18. Re:Something to note by JamesTRexx · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Mozilla/Firefox can do this as well, but so far I haven't encountered sites that had trouble with these browsers.
    Did you also try setting your useragent to Mozilla/Firefox and visit these pages?

    --
    home
  19. Two browsers by fermion · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I have had to use IE more over the past several months because I have to use sites that have complicated and buggy IE only content. As long as these sites, which represent a great investment, have management and 'developers' that believe IE is the best and safest way to access the Web, as opposed to a convenient method of writing application front ends, IE will be be the predominant web browsers. It is simply not feasible to emulate the ever changing designed and accidental features of IE.

    I would hope that large organizations would eventually realize that the money saved on the back end through the hiring of cheap developers and development tools is more than negated when considering that you are also paying for the virus detection systems, support staff, and system recovery of 10,000 users, but this has not happened. And as more money is poured down the drain of IE only sites, it is just going to get harder.

    --
    "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
  20. An alternate view... by ChilyWily · · Score: 2, Interesting

    On the same lines, I wish /. would post their stats... (Cmdr Taco?)

    It would be interesting to see how /.'s stats compare.

  21. Re:Browser usage among mountain bikers and Mac use by bsharitt · · Score: 2, Interesting

    On a lot of website statistics gathering tools KHTML and Safari aren't supported options so they usally get counted as gecko based(at least with mine).

  22. Re:Mozilla is at 54 %, IE at 37 % for a friend's s by theskeptic · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Damn, missed the url

    Browser_Stats

    IMAP for Gmail

  23. Re:IE6 went down and IE5 went up? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    From personal experience, I know what to make of this.

    About 2 years ago I signed up for SBC Yahoo DSL. Their software, required at that time to log on, forced an update to IE 6.0 without even asking. I had been quite happy running 5.0 for years. Within two weeks I had to clean the system down to bedrock and re-install Windows to eliminate some particularly nasty spyware. IE 6.0 is just more vulnerable then 5.0 or 5.5! Need I mention that I no longer have SBC Yahoo DSL?

    Since then, I have noticed a lot of new software requiring IE 6.0 before it will even run. Acrobat Reader 6.0 is really nasty in this regard: they go through ~ 1 hour download and unpacking before the software aborts, telling you that you must install IE 6.0 before it can install. Fuck 'em. I scrounged a copy of Acrobat 5.01 exe (something they don't provide anymore!) from an earlier install and I've been using that since. There will be no later copy of Acrobat Reader until they get rid of this requirement!

    One woman, whose computer I maintain for her business, installed new mortgage apparisal software. It also refused to install until IE was upgraded to 6.0. Within 2 days her system was infested with spyware! I cleaned it all off, installed a copy of Netscape and told her to never use IE except for the updates to her new software (looks like that's all they needed the new browser for). She hasn't had a problem since.

    This heavy-handed approach to forcing me to upgrade my web browser, fer chrissake, in order to run new software is driving me even faster to Linux. I have had enough! Particularly when the upgrade they force on me just leads to security problems!

  24. Safari wrt user-agent strings by ajna · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Safari is based on KHTML, so I don't think it would show up as Netscape 7.

    Indeed, but Safari is a wily beast. Its default is "Mozilla/5.0":
    What is the Safari user-agent string?
    The complete Safari user-agent string is:

    Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/XX (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/YY

    ...where XX is the version of Apple's web technology used by Safari and YY is the version of the Safari application.
    from http://developer.apple.com/internet/safari/safari_ faq.html#anchor2

    My web tracking service definitely seems to lump "Mozilla 5.0", and thus Safari, in with Netscape 7 since the other choices (Netscape 3, 4, MSIE 4, Opera and Other) all have negligible hit counts.
  25. Re:In a perfect world... by argent · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I can not comprehend the confusion in the mind that would lead to the conclusion that IE, once integrated into the desktop, was anything less than the biggest computer security problem in the past decade.

    After having to go over an idiot user's head to get him to stop using IE and Outlook, after he argued with me even as I was cleaning the trojans and spyware out of his computer that were there as a direct result of his decision to ignore the company's ban on IE and Outlook, after I spent half an afternoon doing it... I have absolutely zero sense of humor left about IE.

    There is no excuse for using IE, promoting IE, shipping IE. After seven years of them completely failing (as expected) to come up with a mechanism that would make the IE-desktop integration safe, I literally can not comprehend how anyone can RATIONALLY defend that abomination.

    Yes, I'm upset. I honestly thought Microsoft gave a damn. Boy, was I stupid.

  26. My 10 Year Old Son by enforcer999 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    called me tonight to inform me that his father does not have firefox. My son was upset and downloaded Firefox for his browser. Apparently, my ex-husband has been having problems with my son's games while with dad. We are divorced. My son informed me that his father had a lot of problems with his computer but he was going to fix it. He downloaded Ad-Aware, Spybot Search and Destroy, Mozilla Firefox and he would explain these to his dad. Uhh....he is 10. I think we are making progress. :)

  27. Give me some of the credit! by MicroshaftSucks · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've long been plugging Mozilla/Firefox on my websites, particularly, my anti-Microsoft site at www.freedomware.us

    I'm also running for state office and making Microsoft and open source software campaign issues - in Bill Gates' back yard. See my campaign website at www.edrevolt.org.

    I wish more web designers would take charge of their profession and start plugging quality (i.e. non-Microsoft) software!

    David Blomstrom

    --
    Webmaster of http://www.freedomware.us/ Candidate for Public Office - http://www.edrevolt.org/
  28. Re:NationStates.net by Hi_2k · · Score: 3, Interesting

    While I wouldnt say the site is techy, I would say that the audience probably is because of the subject matter. Not many "normal" people play online games, and I know that there was a large population of people from slashdot on there for a while.

    BTW, Great game and great book. Innovative marketing idea, too.

    --
    When life gives you crap, Make Crapade.
    Sluggy Freelance.
  29. Explanation to your comment by MichaelCrawford · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Sorry, I should have explained, I left off all the more recent browsers. For comparison:

    • 263277 - MSIE 6
    • 11580 - Mozilla 1
    • 5725 - Netscape 7
    • 3250 - Safari 125
    • 1662 - Opera 7
    So this makes it more apparent that users of ancient browsers are a tiny fraction of my visitors, but there are enough of them to be noticed, and to wonder why they never upgraded.

    --
    Request your free CD of my piano music.
  30. Re:Slashdot doesn't render properly with Firefox by callipygian-showsyst · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You mean it looks like this? I know what you're talking about, but every time I mention it here, they tell me it must be *my own* fault!

  31. Let this be a lesson to bloat, not complacency by mnmn · · Score: 2, Interesting


    Mozilla is one HUGE application. It is grindingly slow and painful, IE is lean and mean comparatively.

    For a while Netscape 4.7x communicator was all that was available for AIX, Solaris etc. Firefox has changed things, and gained market share.

    I used to use netscape 3.x back in the early days, then switched to IE because it was there by default, and also because Netscape 4.x was too slow for my brand new hardware. Browsing has to be fast, and most people multitask it with other things, so it shouldnt take 100% of your memory. I then started using Opera as soon as that was available, and now back to Firefox.

    I'm not alone.

    Many others who were capable of downloading and installing Netscape didnt for its size alone. I just hate to see Firefox called Mozilla because theres a big difference. Sure they share code but the philosophy is different.

    I hope they completely dump the entire mozilla browser and continue the firefox line, and even produce something thats smaller, leaner and faster than the current firefox, for older machines.

    --
    "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
  32. Stats for Non-Technical Users by mikeplokta · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I run a large site with a general audience, mostly UK based. Over the past three months, we've served around 350 million pages, and the browser stats are:
    • IE - 86.5%
    • AOL - 9.5%
    • Unspecified - 1.6%
    • Mozilla - 0.9%
    • Netscape - 0.6%
    • Safari - 0.6%
    • Opera - 0.1%
    • Konqueror - 0.01%

    It doesn't look like Mozilla is catching on much among the general public.

  33. Porn sites get heavy mozilla usage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I run a number of porn sites, and if I were more organized in my stats, I could give you precise numbers. But informally, a lot of the freeloader-oriented sites (i.e. sites with free porn, which attract repeat, veteran porn surfers) are getting a strong majority mozilla users. I'd guess pop-up blocking was the driving force, as free porn sites are notorious for pop-ups, and are quick to adopt work-arounds to the various IE toolbar-based pop-up blockers. (So that pop-ups still appear even with google's anti-pop-up toolbar installed). XP's SP2 offers solid pop-up blocking, so I expect that incentive will dissipate now.

  34. Neutral sites are at about 3% Gecko... by rklrkl · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I run a lottery site at lottery.merseyworld.com that doesn't do anything platform-specific and isn't just for techy people. I have put a link to Mozilla/Firefox at the bottom of every page (that only appears if you're not using a Gecko-based browser, BTW) as my modest effort to evangelise.

    Sure enough, the Gecko-using browsers have crept up in recent months, but nothing earth-shattering - what started off as around 2.1% 6 months ago is now 3.2%. Perhaps more interesting is to note that home users are taking up Gecko browsers in a big way (now seeing almost 5% Gecko at the weekends), but on workdays, that slips to back down to under 3%.

    Conclusion: Gecko browser usage is increasing on the average site, but only by about 0.2% a month (will take 3 years to reach 10%, which sounds about right).

  35. Re:Mozilla/Firefox still lacking... by njdj · · Score: 2, Interesting
    if 90% of people use IE, then it IS the standard.

    You can't define a "standard" by what one program does, because that program will change. IE 6 has different bugs from IE 5, and IE 7 will have different bugs from IE 6.

    Adhering to the published W3C standards is the only way to go.

    Personally, I find very, very few sites are written exclusively for IE, apart from microsoft.com sites. Most companies have more sense than to alienate 15% of their customers.

  36. Re:Offtopic by julesh · · Score: 2, Interesting

    only if you believe that there is no drawback to living a (likely) lie.

    His point is that the idea (whether true or not) is one that specifically encourages people to (usually) behave in ways that are better for society as a whole, so it is therefore better to believe it than not believe it, whether it is true or not.

    There are of course other belief systems that do not call for a supernatural supreme being dealing out divine justice after your death in order to give the same results. I call mine "ethics", although there are a lot of people who don't seem to believe in it...

  37. Near 17% by Foofoobar · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Your right. It's near 17% when you consider that Netscape is now based on Mozilla code.

    And this survey is based on several sources, not just their own stats. I can tell you as a developer for a Microsoft vendor where 98% of our traffic is directly from the Microsoft employees, 5% of Microsoft employees use Mozilla.

    So if it's that high even on the MS campus, you can easily expect that 15% elsewhere.

    --
    This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.