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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."

148 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 JoshMooney · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Unfortunatly, your non-techy websites don't represnet the entire web. Perhaps if you gave us a link, we could judge better. From my point of view, many "average" users are switching to Firefox. My mother and father (no, I don't live with them) have recently switched to Firefox on my suggestion and have thanked me for that suggestion. So, from my usage viewpoint, Forefox usage increased 100%. Its all relative.

    2. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You missed the point completely. I can give you the stats for my site, w3schools can give you the stats for their site, but none of them really mean anything. Only a major site like Google that attracts users of all types can really tell us anything.

    3. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by JoshMooney · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Google still isn't major. I know people who are using yahoo or alltheweb or whatever for their searches. Truth is, no one can really tell us what the exact percentage that Firefox or Internet Explorer market share has gone up. Companies can bombard us with statistics, but no one knows what everyone is using. Theres simply too many sites.

      I understand your point, but I'm trying to make one of my own as well: Each site can only tell us about THEIR visitors. To say "Oh everyone on the internet searches for britney spears using a command line based webbrowser" is impossible to say.

    4. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Google isn't major? What site is major then?

    5. 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%.

    6. 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.

    7. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by jericho4.0 · · Score: 5, Insightful
      You don't need to sample _everyone_ to get valid data. That's the point of statistics.

      I would guess that google is a little skewed, though. People not useing google are probably useing the default search in their browser, ie; IE. People visiting w3 are probably more net savvy than others, which would also skew the numbers.

      I'd say a general interest site like ebay would give a close to accurate picture.

      --
      "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
    8. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by Tack · · Score: 2
      I never said it wasn't major.

      Actually that's word-for-word exactly what you said.

      But anyway, I think you misunderstand what statistics are. When you want some data, like say -- off the top of my head -- browser marketshare, nobody expects every Internet-connected user to be included in the data. Obviously that'd give the most accurate result, but it's so ridiculously impractical that there's no point in even discussing it.

      So instead one must find a source from which one can obtain a reasonably representative sample of "WWW users." Google may not be the best site from which to gather browser usage statistics, but I think it's probably _one_ of the best ones these days. I'm much more inclined to accept google's browser usage statistics as an accurate sample of all web users than most others. And suggesting that marketshare statistics have absolutely no worth unless all Internet users can be sampled is mind-numbingly absurd.

      Jason.

    9. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by JamesTRexx · · Score: 5, Funny

      *sighs at the dream of having that policy at his work, being able to be just as happy*

      --
      home
    10. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by NutscrapeSucks · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Google may not be the best site from which to gather browser usage statistics, but I think it's probably _one_ of the best ones these days.

      Depending if you are counting unique users or hits. I might hit Google 10-20 a day -- while the average person maybe only runs 1-2 searches a week. So Google would be highly biased towards people doing research, or trying to find answers to technical questions.

      I think you'd probably get the best stats from a general interest news site or perhaps mail.yahoo.com.

      --
      Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
    11. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by Tim+C · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

      Not far off? It's 50% off...

      (ie to go from a market share of 10% to 15%, you have to increase your install base by 50% - that's a pretty big leap)

    12. 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.

    13. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by raverbuzzy · · Score: 3, Informative

      Here are some real stats from a large entertainment company website for the month of August.

      1. Microsoft 9,888,438 84.0%
      2. AOL 1,235,916 10.5%
      3. Mozilla (Gecko) 263,605 2.2%
      4. Netscape 224,704 1.9%
      5. Safari 63,597 0.5%
      6. Opera 59,646 0.5%
      7. Other 32,933 0.3%

      No. 1 includes all Microsoft Browsers. IE4 - 6 The AOL users are also using microsoft browsers so that 94.5% of users using IE.

      Now I wish this wasn't the case but it's true.

    14. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by bsharitt · · Score: 2, Insightful

      some sites(like my bank) used to force me to do this, but reacently they've been getting better about it, and haven't had to do it in a while.

    15. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Ironically, I've just been told my happy little Firefox/Thunderbird combo is under threat at work. I'll probably have to give up Thunderbird for Outlook so I can use Exchange Server, and Firefox "may not be compatible with the corporate intranet". That's what happens when you get a small company full of smart people bought out by an American megacorp. :-(

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    16. 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.
    17. 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.

    18. 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.
    19. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2004/July/browser. php

      mozilla at 2%.
      nuff said.

    20. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by Stephen+Samuel · · Score: 5, Funny
      Google isn't major? What site is major then?

      er, um, Windowsupdate.microsoft.com????

      I mean everybody goes there... Even linux geeks have to go there to get updates for their friends who are stuck on Windows and too virus-infected to get updates from via own computers.

      Given that I've just proved that everybody goes there, I think that we could use that as a really good measure of what percentages of Web users use Mozilla vs IE.

      No???

      (( Asbestos suit, Asbestos suit .... where did I put my asbestos suit????? ))

      --
      Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
    21. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by penguinoid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Strange, the statistics for kernel.org showed that IE had a market share of only 2%.

      Or did you think that geeks would be visiting some large entertainment company's website (unless it was pr0n, of course)

      --
      Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
    22. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by zapadoo · · Score: 5, Informative

      Here's the stats for a financial services website, which while doesn't attract traffic such as the likes of Schwab, is visited enough to be a good sampling:

      .........JAN 04 AUG 04
      MS IE.....91.5 % 66.4 %
      Netscape...5.6 % 12.3 %
      Unknown....1.4 % 3.2 %
      Opera......1.2 % 0.5 %
      FireFox....0.0 % 12.8 %
      Mozilla......... 2.4 %

      Anomolies are present due to better browser detection implemented mid 2004. This particular site put out a couple of articles (out of many hundreds of other articles on its core topic, financial services) which suggested a browser switch to clients.

      Apparently several paragraphs of advocacy make a difference.

    23. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by Toresica · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If he gave us a link the number of users using Firefox would incease dramatically. Which may not be a bad thing, from my biased viewpoint...

    24. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by Curtman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Keeping Windows up to date is the admin's job. Not something the users should ever do, or have access to in the first place.

    25. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by Cromac · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Google results might be skewed slightly in favor of non MS browsers, I'd think CNN would have a more neutral sampling and would be large enough to be statisticaly significant.

    26. 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.

    27. 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.

    28. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by flacco · · Score: 2, Insightful
      The scientific view of religion is not atheism. The scientific view is agnosticism and simplicity.

      yes, but most atheists i know are actually scientific agnostics, but functioning atheists. ie, we can't *truly* know whether there's an "other side", but it's mad to conduct our lives and organize our societies around the contention that there is.

      --
      pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
    29. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by dildatron · · Score: 3, Funny

      I have recently instituted a Lynx only browser policy among my users. Now, we have no security problems, and out web traffic was reduced to only 5% of what it was before!

      --


      If you had nuts on your chin, would they be chin nuts?
    30. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by utlemming · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think that this is a tech trend that Microsoft is not paying attention to. With all the spyware/viruses that are out in the wild, I have installed, recommneded and even forced (if you don't use Firefox, I will not fix your computer again) people to switch to Firefox. In my college apartment, all of us are now using Firefox. And the funny thing is that they are all non-Geeks (music majors mostly) and they are recommending it to their friends too. Microsoft seems to have forgotten the economics of the browser wars. Just because they won over Netscape by using the operating system as a way to distribute, doesn't mean that they will nessasarily maintain. And the thing that is going to be difficult for them is to convince everyone that is using Mozilla to switch back. The lesson that MS needs to learn if they want to maintain the dominance is to produce a secure product that gives people what they want. Heck, when some of MS's own execs use Firefox then you know that something is up.

      --
      The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
    31. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by TheSpoom · · Score: 2, Informative

      My workplace uses a heavily customized version of PeopleSoft that I'm relatively sure would tear a small rift into the space-time continuum if someone tried to access it with something other than IE.

      *sigh*...

      --
      It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
      - E. Debs
    32. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by pingveno · · Score: 5, Informative

      The point is that the default search engine for IE is MSN, whereas Firefox has a default search engine of Google. Google would, therefore, naturally have a greater percentage of Mozilla users than the web as a whole. Ebay, on the other hand, is visited by a wide range of browsers and would be more representative of the true statistics.

      --
      "it's not about aptitude, it's the way you're viewed" - Galinda
    33. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by Blic · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I feel for you. My company was a Netscape house for a long time, tried going to Mozilla because Netscape 4.X just wasn't cutting it, but around that time there was a sort of meltdown in IT and the new management pushed IE/Outlook on the company.

      Now they wonder why the help desk is inundated with spyware calls.

      Funny thing is the corporate mailserver is still IMAP. People who know use Firefox/Thunderbird and just keep quiet about it, but who knows how long that will last - more and more parts of the intranet are requiring IE, and I'm sure Exchange isn't that far off...

    34. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by nordicfrost · · Score: 2, Informative
      Given that I've just proved that everybody goes there,


      OK, I'll prove you wrong. I never use windows update. Neither does my mother, after converting to Mac. Neither does my GF after converting to Mac. My father is moving abroad, he'll never have to use windows update since a moving gift is a iMac. I spent the weekend in a summer house of a friend, now there are two possible Mac converts in the loop.

    35. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by julesh · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Just because they won over Netscape by using the operating system as a way to distribute, doesn't mean that they will nessasarily maintain.

      I personally believe they beat Netscape by having a better product. When the choice was Netscape 3 or IE 3, I would routinely install Netscape on any new windows install I did, simply because it was so much better. When IE 4 came out, I resisted for a while, but eventually gave up. It was faster starting, more responsive, and not as picky about broken HTML as Netscape 4, all of which were useful features.

      And then IE 5 came out, but there was no corresponding upgrade from Netscape. At that point, it was clear that they had lost.

    36. Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by Talonius · · Score: 2, Informative

      >Or Internet Banking (which 9 times out of 10 requires IE, often "for security reasons" [sic])?

      US Bank and Citibank's online banking have recently been redesigned for full usage under Mozilla based browsers.

      They *used* to give warnings similar to what you say but that has changed in the past six months.

      I anticipate more changes will follow.

      --
      My reality check bounced.
    37. 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!
    38. 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. In a perfect world... by Izago909 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The anti-trust suits against Microsoft would have resulted in at least one of two things. The first would be removing IE so the person has to manually install it from the CD or download it after install. Second, force all of Microsoft's web development tools to be 100% standards compliant. Instead, the Bush administration gives them a get out of jail free pass and California accepts coupons for MS products which is the anti-solution for software monoculture in schools.

    How much longer will people vote for politicians who let corporations shit all over consumers in the name of profit?

    1. Re:In a perfect world... by apoplectic · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Second, force all of Microsoft's web development tools to be 100% standards compliant.

      Do you mean 'web development tools' or 'browsers'? I think the majority of people would instead benefit from the latter. In either case, I would argue that there is no 100% standards compliant browser or web development system, so forcing MS in either scenario would be a touch extreme.

    2. Re:In a perfect world... by Evstar · · Score: 2, Informative

      You can force compliance to standards. The FCC does it all the time.

    3. 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.

    4. Re:In a perfect world... by Iberian · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "shit all over consumers"...really. IE isn't some horrible virus MS installs by defauly on everyone's computer, rather it is a functional internet browser. It isn't the governments job to stop companies from making their product as they see fit to their target audience. As the customer you have the option to get another web browser and as the customer if you think MS is "shitting all over you" you wouldn't buy MS thus detering MS from "shitting all over consumers." This isn't communist China, you have a choice.

    5. Re:In a perfect world... by edalytical · · Score: 2

      My 'web development tool', a text editor, is 100% standard compliant.

      --
      Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
    6. Re:In a perfect world... by argent · · Score: 3, Insightful

      IE isn't some horrible virus MS installs by defauly on everyone's computer

      No, IE bears the same relationship to computer viruses and spyware that dirty needles do to AIDS. It's a kind of Typhod Mary of computer software, especially in its incarnation as the Microsoft HTML control that Outlook uses to display email.

      I'm not kidding. I banned IE and all other mail and internet programs that use the MS HTML control about seven years ago, after they integrated IE and the desktop. I could see that this was an incredibly stupid move back then... I didn't know what the results would be, but I knew they would be bad. After Melissa hit, I figured Microsoft would voluntarily undo the damage[1]. After a few years I realised they didn't care, that IE would never be acceptable, and they were probably criminally negligent for using this design.

      Seven years no, and we had ZERO large scale virus problems despite not using any standard antivirus software at all for years. It wasn't until our parent company dcided to merge our networks and force us to switch back to IE that we started getting real virus and spyware problems.

      So, yes, really, IE is worse than some horrible virus. You don't even have to use IE or Outlook to get all the resulting spam[2] and viruses flooding your mail server. This is like a virus that makes their victims actively seek out uninfected strangers and try to sell them viagra and vacation timeshares.

      [1] Boy, was I naive, I really did believe they were just unaware of the problems they were courting and really cares about security: remember, they'd just released NT and it actually had a good security model.

      [2] Spammers are using viruses to take over people's computers and send spam for them.

    7. 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.

    8. Re:In a perfect world... by rainer_d · · Score: 3, Funny

      > If it's not on the CD, how are they supposed to
      > download it?

      wget --help

      Rainer

      --
      Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
  3. 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?

    1. Re:Is This True? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Given that Konq's default browser id is:

      Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/3.3; Linux) (KHTML, like Gecko)

      it's probably just being included in the Mozilla stats.

      I wish the browser id tag had never been put in. Devs would have no choice but to write to the standard.

    2. Re:Is This True? by ernstp · · Score: 4, Informative

      No, since Internet Explorers id is
      "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0)"
      that's probably not how it works at all.

      Or are you saying that IE is inlcuded in the Mozilla stats too? :-)

    3. Re:Is This True? by julesh · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Most browser dection code follows the following algorithm:

      - If the string contains MSIE it's internet explorer, so use the number after MSIE as the version
      - Else, if the string contains Opera it's Opera, use the version number immediately after that
      - Else, if the string contains Mozilla it's a netscape/mozilla family browser: use the number after Mozilla/ as the version number
      - Else class it as unknown

      By this rule, Konqueror and Safari are both detected as a mozilla variant.

  4. IE6 went down and IE5 went up? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It looks like the percentage of users using IE6 went down while the percetnage for IE5 went up. I can't quite figure out what to make of this.

    1. Re:IE6 went down and IE5 went up? by ciroknight · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Less users using IE 6, more using Moz/Firefox with the extension that allows it to look like IE.

      --
      "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
    2. 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!

  5. Biased source sorry by BigAl_nz · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just one thing, w3schools.com is a site for people who write websites, so they'd naturally have a much higher percentage of non-IE browsers than the more general browsing population.

    Personally, I keep an eye on thecounter.com to see how Mozilla's market share is doing. It's certainly more realistic than the linked article statistics page. Pity Google removed browser stats from the zeitgeist page.

    --
    --- There isn't any problem that can't be solved by a small, low yield nuclear device, is there??
    1. Re:Biased source sorry by Frankie70 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Just one thing, w3schools.com is a site for people who write websites, so they'd naturally have a much higher percentage of non-IE browsers than the more general browsing population.

      Any website gathering data is OK as long as the result shows Mozilla or Linux gaining share.

    2. 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.

    3. Re:Biased source sorry by BigAl_nz · · Score: 2, Insightful

      thecounter.com is going to be based on people who look at crappy homepages etc. though, which I would think is not representative either.

      Perhaps so. I only stated that it's more realistic than w3schools's stats, if you're looking for the "general" market share. Any increase is a good increase, but as one of the first posters to this story said, it's not at 15% yet.

      Hopefully 1.0PR (preview release) is only days away ...

      --
      --- There isn't any problem that can't be solved by a small, low yield nuclear device, is there??
    4. Re:Biased source sorry by Sime208 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Heheh, don't you love these die hards that are still out there using Netscape 1.x? All 4 of them! What great guys!

    5. Re:Biased source sorry by shish · · Score: 3, Insightful
      w3schools is a site for people *learning* to make websites. Back when I were a n00b I used IE and I visited w3schools. Now that I know what I'm doing I use firefox and reference my locally stored copies of all the w3c standards. Thus it could be argued that w3schools would have a /lower/ percentage of non-ie browsers.

      For what it's worth, my web server is used to show my avatar on the megatokyo forums, and that accounts for ~95% of my site hits. According to those stats Gecko has 50%, IE has 40% and others have 10%. Again, the stats you get really depend where you look for them...

      --
      I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
  6. 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.

    1. Re:The interesting thing is.... by Jeffrey+Baker · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Could be a lot of IE5/Mac users switching to something decent like Camino or Safari.

  7. Re:Note by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Complacency != Apathy

    Whatever. Close enough.

  8. Re:I for one welcome... by sploo22 · · Score: 4, Funny

    And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced. But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird. The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire and thunder upon them. For the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror.

    from The Book of Mozilla, 7:15

    --
    Karma: Segmentation fault (tried to dereference a null post)
  9. Read your own chart, duh. by xigxag · · Score: 4, Informative

    Um, your own chart shows that IE6 usage has barely budged in the past year and holds firm around 70%, near its high. Yes, Mozilla's increased, but at the expense of old IE5 installations only.

    So, in this case, complacency is working fine.

    --
    There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
    1. Re:Read your own chart, duh. by fabs64 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      i'm sorry? how is the fact that users would rather changeover to Mozilla than upgrade IE not something for MS to worry about? Shows that people changing see more to benefit going to Mozilla than going to the next version of IE... what happens when everyone gets told to upgrade to IE7?

  10. 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???

  11. 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
  12. Here's stats from another source by myrdred · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's some statistics from a different source (which actually presents stats from 5 sources), where Gecko (mozilla) ranges from 4% to 27% - it's clear that the stats greatly vary from site to site:

    http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/stat.htm

  13. 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]

  14. the other 85% by bcrowell · · Score: 5, Funny
    They say 77% are using IE, but I did a poll in the parking lot of my local supermarket, and got the following results:

    • 15% firefox
    • 2% "Opera, goddammit, you got a problem with that?"
    • 20% Internet Explorer
    • 37% "I dunno, what's a browser?"
    • 15% "I click on the blue thing."
    • 6% "I don't use a browser, I use AOL."
    • 5% "I like Google."
    1. Re:the other 85% by Jon+Abbott · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hey, your poll added up to 100% -- that alone makes it more statistically sound than most Slashdot polls... :^)

  15. Security being mentioned on the news perhaps? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Firefox is fairly new to most non nerd consumers. I never even tried it until about 5 months ago.

    The news over last summer with banking information being stolen convinced my old man to ask my about alternative browsers. I burned him a cd with firefox since the New York times mentioned it.

    My gf uses firefox on her old pc because she is worried about security after the scare this summer and due to the fact its an older machine and firefox is snappy on old hardware.

    People prefer IE but if something like online trading and banking flaws get involved all of the sudden switching may not be such a bad idea.

  16. Re:complacency? by bluGill · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How long did it take them to get that? Microsoft has been complacent for several years, doing nothing to advance their browser. Mozilla starts to gain ground and then they do something. I'd say complacency fits perfect with what they were doing with IE until just a few months ago.

  17. Something to note by iamdrscience · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In those statistics (and really any browser statistics like them) Opera's numbers are unfairly represented because Opera allows you to change what header it sends out allowing you to spoof other browsers such as IE or netscape. I, like many other Opera users, generally have my user-agent set to IE. This is useful in the case of sites that (stupidly) limit your ability to access a page based on what browser you're using. For example, when I go to staples.com in Opera with my user-agent header set to Opera, it tells me I don't have cookies enabled (yeah, WTF?) but if I change my user-agent to IE, I can browse the whole site perfectly.

    1. Re:Something to note by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Opera still puts the word "Opera" in its user agent -- any decent stats program can detect it. Opera is just unpopular.

    2. 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
  18. 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.

  19. Market share or something else? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Are these statistics showing the percentage using Mozilla, or the percentage reporting themselves as being Mozilla to webpages?

  20. Re:Read the page by elleomea · · Score: 5, Informative

    "but we are also monitoring other sources around the Internet to assure the quality of these figures)"

    is the rest of the parent's quote.

  21. 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.

  22. No surprise by violet16 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I run two web sites, one of which gets 3 million hits per day, neither of which are tech-oriented, and have seen very similar results to W3schools. In January, 7% Firefox/Mozilla and 85% IE. In August, 15% Firefox/Mozilla and 74% IE.

  23. Re:More cooked numbers by Bastian · · Score: 5, Funny

    If you went with the first answer rather than giving respondents two chances, I'd say you would have had a lot more that answered, "I dunno, what's a browser", and another 30% that answered, "Windows."

  24. Re:14% marketshare at w3schools.com by maxwell+demon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Increase of Mozilla/Firefox use for web designers is indeed very good news, because it means that more web sites will be browsable with those (a typical web desigher surely wouldn't design a web page he can't access with his standard browser, would he?).

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  25. 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.

  26. 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...

  27. Browser stats for seifried.org by seifried · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm looking at btowser stats for seifried.org, averaging 70,000 visits a month in the security area and I'm not seeing even a hint of firefox in the top 15 browsers for any month, "MSIE 6.0; Windows X" and googlebot are the clear winners. You think people interested in computer security and UNIX would have a tendancy to use FireFox or Mozilla but IE is still kicking their butts.

  28. 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

  29. Unfair! by DCMonkey · · Score: 4, Funny

    Unfair! Many IE users are forced to spoof their user-agent strings to represent themselves as Mozilla/FireFox users to make themselves looks hip and socially conscious.

    Or not.

    --
    DCMonkey
  30. Re:Opera? by servoled · · Score: 4, Insightful

    meh.. firefox is free without any catches. Plus, it has a very nice adblocking extension that makes browsing much less painful.

    Just browsing the features listed on the Opera page I don't see much that firefox doesn't offer natively or by installing an extension, so I see no real reason to switch and a few good resons not to.

    --
    "I have a porkchop, you have a porkchop. I have a veal, you have a veal".
  31. Re:Note by shis-ka-bob · · Score: 2, Funny

    Complacency is just apathy in action ... no wait, it is apathy in inaction

    --
    Think global, act loco
  32. 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.

  33. 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?

  34. 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
  35. 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
    2. Re:The stats linked to are useless by Guspaz · · Score: 3, Informative

      That's the point, "most geeks" aren't representative of the overall population.

      If you look at the other 9 sites on NedStat's top 10, there is only one site with Mozilla at 13%. The rest show IE in the mid ninties.

      It's unfortunate there is no overall source as to what browser is most popular. However, overall it seems that most sites show IE as in the mid 90s as far as percentages are concerned.

      Don't get me wrong, I WANT Firefox to gain ground, and I use Firefox myself, both on Linux and Windows. However the claims that it's captured nearly 15% of the market are silly.

  36. Temporary Speedbump by salesgeek · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No one will really notice until Mozilla browsers have 20%+ of the market. Then MS will announce that the next version of IE will:

    * do all the stuff mozilla does
    * works with dot net better
    * never gets dull, and can slice a tomato perfectly after trimming 4" off your car's muffler
    * is a free download
    * but wait... there's more (tm) ms will throw in MR. Paperclip browsing buddie at no cost to you.

    --
    -- $G
  37. I switched BACK from Firefox to IE by callipygian-showsyst · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I switched to Mozilla Firefox a couple of months ago only to switch back. Why? It was too buggy!

    The most interesting thing is that slashdot is one of the sites it has the most trouble with. Take a look at the screenshot on this page! Most of the time it will render /. like that until I hit reload and that will fix it.

    I've seen this behavior on Mac, Windows, and Linux. And there's a bug posted on it in the Firefox bug database. What perplexes me is why the /. folks with the necessary skills haven't fixed this problem yet!

    1. Re:I switched BACK from Firefox to IE by AvantLegion · · Score: 5, Funny
      Hmm, having my personal info transparently swiped, and offer a nice highway for spyware to the world...

      .... or ....

      ... hit Reload every now and then.

      Yeah, I see what you mean - clicking Reload is such a hassle!

    2. Re:I switched BACK from Firefox to IE by pr0c · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes! That is damn annoying! I get it all the time. On the other hand I see daily the consequences of users using IE and IE based browsers at work...

    3. Re:I switched BACK from Firefox to IE by Wildfire+Darkstar · · Score: 4, Informative

      This is hardly an unknown bug. It's been plaguing Firefox releases for various people for as long as I can remember, and it even has an entry on Bugzilla (#217527). It is, however, a little unpredictable. I ran into the problem very rarely until upgrading to 0.9, when it started popping up every time. Other people have said 0.9 has improved things, though.

      I eventually had to switch to the trunk build, which has incorporated a fix for it (although is more of a work-in-progress than the branch build, in general). For those who only encounter it rarely, or aren't willing to bother with the trunk builds, the most reliable way I've found of "fixing" the page is to quickly increase or decrease text size (CTRL++/-). Reloading doesn't always work.

      --
      Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
    4. Re:I switched BACK from Firefox to IE by The+Analog+Kid · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's been fixed in the trunk builds, so by 1.0 or whatever they are calling it (in the about section it says 0.10), it should be correct.

  38. 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
  39. Re:Opera? by TRACK-YOUR-POSITION · · Score: 2, Funny

    My Mozilla has that but I have to right click on the desktop to get display properties, settings, display resolution, move the slider to the left, BEHOLD! And no bilinear filtering bluriness! ;)

  40. 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.

  41. 400-500 hits a day? by boomgopher · · Score: 4, Funny

    When I've checked my personal site's stats (small gardening site...

    400-500 hits a day, ehh?

    Sounds like a:
    M A R I J U A N A site to me

    Sorry, lost my mind for a moment, please mod me down to preserve this fine news site from my abusive post.

    --
    Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
  42. Re:Firefox by Frogbert · · Score: 2, Funny
    Fitzghon

    Your name could be a candidate for the next firefox release.
  43. 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).

  44. 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

  45. Firefox is that a kind of a dog or something ? by rasz · · Score: 2, Informative

    Certainly in Europe :)
    Here are the stats from Poland :
    first all the guests stats
    http://www.ranking.pl/rank.php?stat=browAL
    then Polish users stats
    http://www.ranking.pl/rank.php?stat=browPL
    and outsiders stats
    http://www.ranking.pl/rank.php?stat=browFG

    as you can see Opera RULES in Poland (second after IE) with >4% steady rising userbase :)

  46. 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.
  47. Re:Mozilla is at 54 %, IE at 37 % for a friend's s by NutscrapeSucks · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Dont forget that Gmail is still invitation-only, and therefore a very biased sample.

    --
    Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
  48. Re:Did you believe the parent? by Curtman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think he's just appealing to the groupthink mods.

    I think you're in denial.

  49. Fourth day.... by after · · Score: 2, Funny

    They make you use Amaya!

  50. U.S Patent Office and IE by Ping-Wu · · Score: 4, Informative

    We know that U.S Patent Office is notorious of issuing patents (particularly software patents) that are clearly unpatentable. But very few are aware that U.S. Patent Office is violating our constitutional right by promulgating and enforcing a Microsoft-IE-only policy.

    This little-noticed law really makes me mad and feel like crying--why a government agency can be so stupid.

    Basically, when you file a patent application, if the Patent Office thinks that your invention is not patentable because it is not novel or nonobvious, it will send you copies of prior art patents so you can rebut their rejection.

    Now the Patent Office has changed its policy and will not send you those hard copies. Instead, it requires you to download those prior art reference on-line.

    Under ordinary circumstances, this would not pose any problem, except that we are dealing with one of the most stupid government agencies in the history of mankind. The United States Patent Office, without much notice, now requires that, in order to download those references, you must register with the Patent Office, then the Patent Office will install a program ON YOUR MACHINE WHICH MUST BE RUNNING MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER UNDER MICROSOFT WINDOWS to allow you to communicate with the Patent Office before you can download those prior art patents that our government must furnish you as a matter of our constitution right and as part of the filing fees paid to the Patent Office.

    Thus, basically it has boiled down to this stupid law: if you want to receive a patent, you are now REQUIRED BY LAW to have a machine with Microsoft Windows running Internet Explorer in your office.

    In other words, in order to exercise your constitutional rights, you must have a machine that runs Microsoft Windows and you must set Microsoft Internet Explorer as your default browser.

    What kind of stupid government agency is this? I know many banks used to have the same requirement (i.e., using Microsoft IE running in Microsoft Windows), but they have got rid of this stupid policy because they have to compete in order to survive.

    The United States Patent and Trademark can implement and insist such a stupid policy because it doesn't have to compete. But what about those 4000+ patent attorneys? How come all of them are so quiet? Are all of them idiots?

    Even our HomeLand Security Department has changed its Microsoft-only policy. It appears that our Patent and Trademark Office is the only government agency in the whole world that requires its users to use Microsoft Windows. Unlike Homeland Security Department, the U.S. Patent Office has to account to no one!

    Microsoft survives and propers exactly because our government agencies are unafraid to abuse their power and unashamed of being idiots.

    1. Re:U.S Patent Office and IE by k98sven · · Score: 4, Informative

      How did this blatant, loud, nonsense get modded up? Since this is Slashdot, any rant against the USPTO must be true?

      But very few are aware that U.S. Patent Office is violating our constitutional right by promulgating and enforcing a Microsoft-IE-only policy.

      I certainly am unaware of that. Which constitutional right? Can you point to me where in the US Constitution it says that you have a right to recive patent documents on-line in whatever format you wish?

      [bla, bla, indignation..] The United States Patent Office, without much notice, now requires that, in order to download those references, you must register with the Patent Office, then the Patent Office will install a program ON YOUR MACHINE WHICH MUST BE RUNNING MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER UNDER MICROSOFT WINDOWS to allow you to communicate with the Patent Office before you can download those prior art patents that our government must furnish you as a matter of our constitution right and as part of the filing fees paid to the Patent Office.

      This is all bullshit. Please point me to where the USPTO requires you to run IE. And even if IE was required telephone, mail or fax ordering is clearly available.

      Thus, basically it has boiled down to this stupid law: if you want to receive a patent, you are now REQUIRED BY LAW to have a machine with Microsoft Windows running Internet Explorer in your office.

      Pure bullshit. What law? Which US Federal Code? The policy of a government office isn't a law. Not that I can find any such policy either.

      In other words, in order to exercise your constitutional rights, you must have a machine that runs Microsoft Windows and you must set Microsoft Internet Explorer as your default browser.

      Again no hint as to which constitutional rights you are talking about. Or what policy.

      The United States Patent and Trademark can implement and insist such a stupid policy because it doesn't have to compete. But what about those 4000+ patent attorneys? How come all of them are so quiet? Are all of them idiots?

      Or, just perhaps, this policy doesn't EXIST?

    2. Re:U.S Patent Office and IE by Ping-Wu · · Score: 3, Informative

      The following is the letter that most patent applicants have received or will receive from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office:

      "USPTO TO PROVIDE ELECTRONIC ACCESS TO CITED U.S. PATENT REFERENCES WITH OFFICE ACTION AND CEASE SUPPLYING PAPER COPIES

      "In support of its 21th Century Strategic Plan goal of increased patent e-Government, beginning in June 2004, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (Office of USPTO) will begin the phase-in of its E-Patent Reference program and hence will: (1) provide downloading capability of the U.S. patents and U.S. patent application publications cited in Office actions via the E-Patent Reference feature of the Office's Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system; and (2) cease mailing paper copies of U.S. Patents and U.S. patent applications with Office actions (in applications and during reexamination proceedings) except for citations made during the international stage of an international application under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). In order to use the new E-Patent Reference feature applicants must: (1) obtain a digital certificate and software from the Office; (2) obtain a customer number from the Office; and (3) properly associate patent applications with the customer number."

      I would like note that:

      (1) The "software" mentioned in the letter can be used only in conjunction with Microsoft Internet Explorer and by setting it as your default web browser.
      (2) It is still possible to download U.S. patents without a digital certificate, but you can only access the text portion. Images can be retrieved only one page at a time. (For "high tech" inventions, it is not uncommon to receive more than 10 or 20 prior art references, each more than 20 or 30 pages long.)
      (3) This new regulation, which has a life-turning impact on those of us who despise Microsoft Windows and/or Microsoft Internet Explorer, was never published in the Federal Register, or even the Official Gazette.

  51. NationStates.net by violet16 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Heh, no, not "adult".

    www.nationstates.net

    1. 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.
    2. Re:NationStates.net by kundor · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Holy shit, are you max barry? I just finished jennifer government. GREAT book. and the only antidote I have to my economics class, which pushes all the maxims John Nike would hold dear as inarguable truth. damn, I just went completely fanboy...how embarrassing.

  52. Where the firefox people came from by cgenman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you look closely, you'll see that internet explorer 6 usage has been pretty level, but internet explorer 5 usage plumetted in almost exactly the same proportion that firefox / moz increased.

    It appears, then, that these are people with old machines who won't put up with an increasingly exploited browser but who can't run I.E. 6... either from a power standpoint or an access standpoint. Windows 98 usage only dropped 3% in that time, so nearly all of the converts must be running the older platform.

    I'd be interested to see statistics correlating the two, and whether or not the people visiting w3 skew towards having older computers than the average surfers.

    Either way the conclusion is clear: Microsoft is losing people at the tail end of their product line, because they refuse to offer a low-power, efficient alternative for older platforms.

  53. 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. :)

    1. Re:My 10 Year Old Son by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      You need a bumper sticker: "Proud Parent of a Firefox User"

    2. Re:My 10 Year Old Son by DarkSarin · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'll bite--
      I think divorce, broken families, and the like are a huge problem, and kids are best of with two parents, one male, one female.

      That said, there are always LEGITIMATE reasons for divorce. In my mind, they include, but are not limited to:
      adultery
      sexual abuse
      physical abuse
      any other kind of abuse
      and probably a lot of other reasons that I can't think of right now.

      You don't know why the op was divorced, or had a split family. Neither do I. To resort to such flamage before knowing that, or to even bring it up is a serious case of being a jerk.

      That aside, one can have all kinds of social problems, and still be very intelligent regarding software. The two just aren't related.

      Now, I hope everyone else can keep this place nicer than you have.

      --
      "We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
  54. 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/
  55. Re:Opera? by kryptkpr · · Score: 2, Informative

    The Web Developer extension for Firefox has a Zoom feature (under Miscellanous, Zoom) that works just like the one you describe, scaling images and all.

    --
    DJ kRYPT's Free MP3s!
  56. Does the site require MSIE? by leonbrooks · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Or do some things work in MSIE but not in other browsers? Or will some things work better if they're told that the visitor is MSIE, even if it's really links or w3m?

    Any of this would slant the stats.

    --
    Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
  57. Re:They've come a long way since I filed this bug: by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I just read your "Bugzilla Report".

    It was emotional.
    It was expansive.
    It was wishy-washy.
    It was "I think".

    Did you provide any hard proof of bugs? Nope
    Did you provide what part of the GUI was "broken" or "breaking"? Nope
    Did you use usability sheets to determine what was "wrong" in the GUI? Nope

    It, scientifically, means nothing. It defines no real problems, other than the emotional "my ball-and-chain doesnt like it". As a debugger, I'd have trashed your begging about nothing in particular, but it seems they already did that.

    This is an example why free software debuggers are soo short with users.

    --
  58. Our own stats. by adelayde · · Score: 5, Informative

    Although I think this is great, the statistics from some servers that I manage and run show different and it depends greatly on the type of site. For example this link to a stats report for a site that was Slashdotted shows Firefox users as 26.8% of visitors and Mozilla 16.7%, a grand total of 43.5% against IE, which got 40.7%. All I can say here is well done Slashdotters for using a decent, and probably the best browser - it's excellent.

    Looking at another site, not slashdotted, of general interest for all sorts of users, the stats reveal 9.1% Firefox and 5.4% Mozilla, which comes to 14.5% - a figure very close to that posted in the article. Good.

    However, it's very different when moving to a commercial site selling a commerical product. For example, on site reveals just 1.6% Mozilla & Firefox users against 96.6% IE users and another, selling Jazz and Latino records, has 4% Mozilla against 87.9% IE.
    I reckon that it depends greatly upon who your audience is as to what statistics you extrapolate.

  59. What that bug is by 0x0d0a · · Score: 4, Informative

    It is not a bug in Slashcode. It is a bug in the Gecko (the rendering portion of Mozilla) code related to incremental reflow. It has been fixed in Gecko, but the latest version of Gecko has not been rolled into Firefox.

    (Courtesy of another Slashdotter in the know.)

    I'm not sure what the schedule is on rolling in the fix.

  60. 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.
  61. Bias Defined. by twitter · · Score: 3, Insightful
    BigAl, not from South Park, writes:

    Just one thing, w3schools.com is a site for people who write websites, so they'd naturally have a much higher percentage of non-IE browsers than the more general browsing population.

    Sure, people with the most basic web knowledge know to avoid IE. If you filter out people with a clue you are left with 99.999% winblows users. I'm happy the cluefull are migrating in increasing numbers. It shows that whatever real and perceived barriers there are to using non M$ software are going away.

    Do you suggest we get all our stats from the clueless and deluded? Perhaps we should just get the facts from Bill Gates.

    Oh yeah, this is what they claim about their study:

    The statistics above are extracted from W3Schools' log-files, but we are also monitoring other sources around the Internet to assure the quality of these figures.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

  62. Not a bad idea. by twitter · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Many IE users are forced to spoof their user-agent strings to represent themselves as Mozilla/FireFox users to make themselves looks hip and socially conscious. Or not.

    Or less like an easy mark. The problem is that it's easier to change your browser and easier still to change out your whole OS for something that works. Oh dear, that's what these statistics mean isn't it?

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

  63. Look again. by twitter · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Um, your own chart shows that IE6 usage has barely budged in the past year and holds firm around 70%, near its high. Yes, Mozilla's increased, but at the expense of old IE5 installations only.

    That's some funny math. The way I see it, IE has gone from close to 90% to close to 75%. That's a big difference, 9/10 to 3/4. You are also ignoring the rate of change, which is accelerating significantly. It's surprising when you consider the AOL (you know, world's biggest ISP) inclusion of IE and other changes which should have favored IE usage.

    Predictions of more non M$ use are easier to make. These people are the kinds of "decision makers" that are going to tell people of their positive experiences. Web developers are obviously sick of M$, despite it's "market share" and are learning that other software works better.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

  64. 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!

  65. Re:Mozilla/Firefox still lacking... by GoulDuck · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Until then, I am forced to keep that little 'E' icon in my quicklaunch for emergencies.
    Theres a plugin for that too! http://ieview.mozdev.org/
  66. 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
  67. It's a known bug (and fixed) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Its http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=slashd ot (yes, id=slashdot actually works) I didn't make it clickable because it won't load a with Slashdot referer anyway.

  68. 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.

  69. 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.

  70. Note the flux. by SharpFang · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Yes, Mozilla's increased, but at the expense of old IE5 installations only."

    So you assume the IE6 number didn't change, but people upgrade from IE5 straight to Mozilla?
    Sorry, but this poll doesn't include "transition stats". What I imagine is that about the same number of people run Windows Update and have IE6 installed as a result (or get XP instead of 98SE) as those who change from IE6 to Mozilla. That should be the reason why the IE6 stats don't change much - it gains from one side just as much as it loses from the other, but it gains and loses a lot simultaneously.

    --
    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  71. 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).

  72. 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.

  73. 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...

  74. Screen resolution by mollymoo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They list screen resolution. This is evil. The implicit assumption is that people run their browser full-screen.

    --
    Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
  75. 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.