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Firefox Continues Gains against IE

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the second-f-is-lower-case-on-my-version-but-not-cnet's dept.

kurtz_tan writes "News.com reports that the popularity of alternative Web browser Firefox continues to rise at the expense of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, according to a new study by WestSideStory. The study measured market share by embedding sensors on major web sites such as those of Walt Disney, Best Buy, Sony and Liz Claiborne. WebSideStory retrieves data from 30 million internet users a day passing through its monitored sites. The company then takes a snapshot of two days and compares the growth. Since beginning its measurements last summer, WebSideStory has been cautious to draw any broad conclusions about Firefox's popularity. This time around, the company said many people are not only downloading Firefox, they're sticking with it and using it."

3 of 585 comments (clear)

  1. -1, Redundant for me, please... by halivar · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Why is the best browser available making strides against IE news anymore? It's better, everyone knows it, including our government intelligence (hah!), and only PHB's give me any reason to use IE anymore.

    Cue Opera fans.

    1. Re:-1, Redundant for me, please... by jfengel · · Score: 0, Redundant

      Well, it's not big news, the way hitting 10% would be, or when they somehow pull ahead. The same way your 37th birthday isn't nearly as interesting as your 40th.

      But it's still good to know that Firefox is still making progress. Sure, it's unarguable that it's a better browser than IE. But IE still has 90% market share, and that market share is self-reinforcing: web sites will orient to it, so some people could be expected to use and abandon Firefox as incompatible with the web sites they use.

      Therefore "making progress" is news.

      It's news you can use. You can preach to the unconverted and tell them that it's going up, and IE is going down, and therefore they won't be marginalized if they jump to Firefox. It's also encouragement to the Firefox developers, that their efforts aren't being wasted.

      Plus it gives you a warm, fuzzy feeling inside that Microsoft is getting its due, a bit, which is the best possible reason. (And yes, I'm posting this from Firefox.)

  2. hmm ... by slavik1337 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    don't we already know this?

    --
    just my 2 bytes