Slashdot Mirror
Dutch Survey Shows IE Web Share Below 90%
happycorp writes "We've seen a few too many Firefox articles by now, but
it is gaining a real presence in the market:
Onestat
reports that IE's share is down to 88.9% marketshare,
with the combined Mozilla browsers above 7%.
While we saw this trend much earlier in particular communities
such as
w3schools
this is the first time IE has dropped below 90% in a general survey.
Also interesting, the w3schools page shows a steady parallel
increase in both Linux and Mac OS global marketshare
over the last 18 months."
58% of statistics are made up.
Omnis amans amens
The real numbers and the true impact of Firefox will only mean something after 6-12 months after all the press dies down. Another thing is that MS is really has not doing anything yet, anything publicly, so assuming there will be a responce from MS then we will see how FF withstands on MS's direct line of sight.
Useless sig.
...required for /. to work properly in firefox?
Now tell this to everyone who wants to hear it. Firefox had a great start, and was covered in most newspapers. Let's make sure this story (IE's marketshare rapidly declining) gets heared aswell. Humans are herd animals. If everyone seems to be doing something, they will follow.
Why is this significant? Because it appears to corroborate earlier reports?
What is there here to discuss? We all know that Firefox, Mozilla, Opera etc are (currently) better bets for surfing than IE, saying it yet again won't change anything. It won't convince anyone to switch, it won't convince any company to support a wider range of browsers. It's the very definition of preaching to the choir, in fact.
How about spending a little less time talking about how great the alternative browsers are, and how much better it would be if more sites supported them properly, and a little more time actually working towards that?
It's official. Most of you are morons.
10% still looks to small to some narrow minded web designers that think that people who don't use IE are idiots or a geek.
25% market share is where everyone who counts will start taking Firefox seriously, I think a time will come in the near future when that will happen. It's having a knock on effect at work here, I installed 1.0 on all the machines here and simply said "use Firefox as your web browser as it will lower the number of virus problems that we have", most people are now using it and some people have even installed it in their homes (most people here are not technical).
People need to spread the word, alternatives are good if Firefox gets at least 25% and the others also have sizable market shares (e.g. Opera above 5%) then this will be good for us all.
The real question is if this term is long term. Right now IE is really loosing its share because it really sucks a lot. But when/if longhorn comes out with the new version of IE hopefully they would fix the major issues such as popup blocking control, Better support for the standards, and stronger security settings. Microsoft isn't dumb and they know more then what there people in marketing let on. Sure people are switching to other browsers right now. But if the next version of IE with there copy of windows gets updated. Will they switch back if they get all they wanted. A lot of people especially on windows systems switch to FireFox because it sucks less then IE. FireFox isn't a WOW this is the most amazing thing I have ever seen browser it is just well it is good enough without the popups and spyware loading every day. Most users don't use the tab browsing even after I show it to them they still open an other window, usually and rendering speed is usually a null point to them just as long as it is in the same range. An extra 1/2 second loading a site like Slashdot will not make a difference, just as long as everything shows up they are happy.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
i'll get bored of "IE losing marketshare" stories when i stop hearing people say "IE is the standard so we only need to test our websites against it". banking/utilitiy sites especially.
i work for a small company heading up their i.t dept. and i make sure that all the pc's that i support use firefox. trouble is, they are all windows xp machines (through necessity - if i had my way it would be otherwise dammit!!) and windows keeps on launching ie in a number of nefarious ways such as links embedded in outlook and sent via msn messenger. unless someone can suggest a quick fix (other than the obvious 'ditch windows' response - i would be interested) it's going to stay that way as i haven't got the time to visit all of our pcs and hack at them for an hour or so. but, back to my point, surely this sort of thing has an impact on stats?
Google Zeitgeist shows Firefox the #10 search in October in Germany.
Sadly, using that above piece of evidence, Firefox is still not as popular a web browser as (apparently) Christina Aguilera.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Microsoft recommends Firefox
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
Last time I sponsored a cool browser, AOL slurped it up. I'm not doin that to the poor lil FireFox.
Arachninecronymphocranialpheliaphobiacs Anonymous
...according to this article:
MS PR wigs are denying it, naturally...
If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.
Heise Newsticker is a major IT news site in germany. The linked article is in German, but you'll be able to read the stats.
Only this morning I attempted to log onto the UK national lottery site only to find it tell me I needed a supported browser.
I complained in vain to their customer service people just got back a standard we only support IE ignoring all my privacy / security / platfrom worries (im a Mac user).
IE users have no desire for tabs.
...
There will be patent issues with Linux.
Microsoft is about innovation.
There will be patent issues with Mozilla.
Microsoft is about innovation.
There will be patent
That's it, you're getting sleepy, very sleepy...
Quick somebody at Mozilla.org patent tabbed browsing! I know tabs were in Hypercard in 1940 or so, but they didn't use it for browsing the web and USPTO doesn't look at the real world, just what's been patented.
sigs, as if you care.
Hardly a surprise considering that Microsoft showed off MSN search using FireFox! :D
my school just finally took ie off of all of our computers, both mac and pc. im wondering if this will make a difference, as most people used it just because thats what they were familiar with. i don't see any reason to even touch that app.
This is not so surprising and the trend is most likely going to accelerate thanks to the security worries. For example Cert-fi has send today out the warning that people should cease to use IE until the Iframe-bug is corrected.
Another very visible trend has been lately the success of Apple. Especially he laptops are currently very competitive and at least in my research unit nobody buys anything else if there's just enough budjet.
With the stats of December 2003:
We can see some interesting trends, namely the little change for IE 6.0 but the interesting increase of Mozilla. So is Firefox eating away at IE or rather taking the small marketshare of people who already look for alternatives to IE? (Yeah, I know, this is so little data it's not representative of anything, just a curiosity
---- Take the Space Quiz!
The same is being attempted in the EU by leveraging the desktop monopoly to force WMP's file format into the audio/video streaming market, probably with a goal to go after HDTV in general.
Firefox is good in that it brings up a little public awareness about good products. Also, it's not too far a lead for the rare curious individual to then find out how MSIE got so much market share and what it takes to get rid of MSIE and make the computer secure. With a little digging, they can easily find out about more good products to replace the shoddy MS ones.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
It was even mentioned on dutch radio news, as it is reported through the central press agency (ANP)... it's weird to hear about "the firefox internet browser" on my radio :)
A Mozilia Europe dev slipped spy/adware into the official German build of Firefox!
Great, where's that cluebat.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
We know. The Other Articles told us.
eBayDig 1s a typo saerch engien
Remember, Opera identifies as IE6 by default, so IE6 is probably under 80%, and Opera probably has another 1%. Other browsers like Konqueror and Safari don't by default but they can, and Proximitron users can change their UserAgent header as well. And most of the time, they probably pretend to be IE. I would bet IE6 has 2% less than what they think.
It was pointed out on slashdot once before (I really am not planning on finding out when, sorry) That once Microsoft disbands a software team, it is nearly impossible for them to reassemble it:
Since they have many projects at a time, when a project is finished (like IE was several years ago,) they re-assign all but a couple of the developers, who may end up in 5 different new projects. Once they start working there, it would be disruptive to those projects to take key developers out. Furthermore, it's been years since these people looked at their own code on IE. It will take them months to re-acquaint themselves with it.
It siomply is near-impossible for Microsoft to do this without deciding to do a new version of IE, which would require a major commitment and a big push. They need to feel pretty threatened first, and firefox isn't there quite yet.
I'm a concientious
You simply cannot get accurate statistics from observing HTTP traffic
How come? I would have thought that a large enough sample would provide useful information, albeit not perfect information.
Surely it depends what statistics you're gathering? Clearly we can't draw conclusions about precise market share, but surely trends might be identified? For example, current surveys hint at a trend away from Internet Explorer; should we disregard this as a statistical hiccup?
NB. I'm not trolling, or even particularly disagreeing, but I would like more evidence/citations to support your viewpoint.
This is where the serious fun begins.
Has anyone noticed that there's been a serious lack of browser innovations since the death of Netscape? I remember how during the good old days of the browser wars both camps would come out with new features and nifty ideas all the time.
With Netscape's passing, all M$ has been doing is sitting around on their fat a$$es and doing NOTHING. Not even fixing bugs that have been out for months!
Hopefully with the rise in popularity of Firefox, competition will heat up again, which ultimately leads to better products for consumers.
One downside though, is that during the "innovation" periods, competing browsers hijack standards so much (especially M$) that most websites break upon rendering, and required lots of ridiculous re-work.
eTrade SUCKS
Plus all the people who change their UserAgent setting so that it works with the stupid browser sniffer that their bank/pr0n site uses and will only let them in if they are using Exploder.
In this situation complain to the management, not the the techies. Point out that they are losing over 10% of their prospective customers.
Because IE only sites tend to have lower accessiblity than properly designed sites it may also be worth mentioning that they do not comply with the Disability Discrimination Act (in the UK) or Section 508 (in the US).
Finally, point them to the CERT and SANS Institute reports and let them know that you are following their guidance and using a more secure browser. This is of advantage to both the supplier and you as a customer.
Don't rant on about M$ monopolies, or W3C compliance.
I have done this with a number of sites and it does have an effect.
Once they have a browser neutral site then you don't need your browser to advertise itself as something it isn't. As a result, alternative browser share will increase, if only by a small amount.
I don't understand why there's not more support on Slashdot for Opera. It's been fighting IE for years. (And Firefox now incorporates many of its ideas). An arguement I hear against free software is that there's no one to hold responible if something goes wrong. Well, Opera is not free, so there is someone to hold responible.
Despite what some people may think, it's possible to have more than one browers installed at a time. I have Opera and Firefox both on my machine. I'm checking out Firefox but I find myself switching back to Opera often.
I'm not anti-Firefox. I just don't understand why it gets all the attention.
And a related question: How can I find information on how to program a Firefox extention. I can't seem to find any links about coding one from the Firefox website. (And google didn't help either.)
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
You'd think that slashdot crew don't uses IE, but surveys in the past has show the contrary.
Besides, slashdot is now frequently cited as sources of news in multiple IT news sites around the world.
So why not putting a Firefox ad in the top of the page? I bet there're a lot of users who look at slashdot from a IE browser just because there was a link in other news site or because they're working or because they like lokking to slashdot. One would think that so many Firefox topics showld have convinced to many but...why not a firefox ad in the front page and in each one of the articles?
It's strange, though. Closed-source companies like Nintendo and id Software get plenty of coverage, and are almost worshipped by large parts of the Slashdot crowd, it seems.
So I can't imagine why Slashdot would ignore Opera. So, it's closed-source, but it is also "the third browser", and has been around since the days of Mosaic. And as I said, Slashdot generates a lot of hype for other closed-source companies, including Apple.
Clever signature text goes here.
Yeah dude, I got no problem here either.
__
Thou hast besquirted me, O leotarded one.
Maybe now msnbc.com will not require IE to view video. If you click on a video link on msnbc (and probably msn but i never go there) the very first requirement is to download and install IE.
I make it point to periodically send their customer support an email requesting that they adhere to standards and not require a specific web browser to view video. I encourage others to do the same.
One time I told them I tried to follow their recommendations by the "IE thing" just would not run on my lunix machine.
The point is not how much market share Firefox or Mozilla have by themselves. The point is that 11% of users are not using IE so that must surely make the owners of IE-only ecommerce sites think again.
The simple solution is to encourage sites to generate valid HTML.
Only if a page is valid does it make sense to compare how different web browsers render it.
It's not helpful to make a C compiler accept something that is not valid C source code. Why shouldn't the same reasoning apply to HTML?
Mozilla will get greater market share than what it has now if it starts supporting Dynamic Fonts. Lot of indian websites are using Dynamic Fonts to render their pages due to issues with regular font support. We browse lot of indian newspaper websites daily and we could read only if our browser supports Dynamic Fonts. Newspapers are not going to change its current process as IE users have no issues and they constitute 90% more of the hots. Once again we have lot of population and we could change the statistics if Mozilla starts supporting Dynamic Fonts
telnet to port 80.
What is slashdot?