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Firefox Continues Gains against IE
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."
according to a new study by WestSideStory.
It's WEBSideStory , not WestSideStory
I feel pretty, oh so pretty...
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
Not much, could probably be explained away by pure error.
Also, the websites they use probably skew the results as well; Disney, Best Buy, Sony, and Liz Claiborne?
If they want accuracy they should try throwing a few porn sites in, or maybe popular search engines.
I imagine if you had a more accurate sample that Firefox's share might be a little higher.
What?
Figures I have seen on w3cshools show a falling usage rate for opera, from 2.3% to 1.9% - almost a 20% drop. If this is a trend is across the entire userbase, then might firefox end up killing opera rather than (as well as?) IE?
Do not know why MS discontinued IE for Unix. I can see thay can expand there.
http://www.microsoft.com/unix/ie/default.asp/
The more marketshare Firefox gets, the less likely lazy web designers are to design "IE only" websites.
Of course, it also becomes more and more likely that advertisers will spend more and more resources trying to figure out new and exciting ways to get past Firefox's popup blocker and the Adblock extension, so it's a bit of a double edged sword.
If people going on to Liz Claiborne or whatever are using FF, then you can assume that is someone's mom. Either that, or the IT guy trying to look at women's underwear pics through his work's web filtering. :)
Good analysis, though. Let's hope this continues...
Baby steps, right?
but the company said its Windows-only numbers are more accurate because new configurations in Apple Computer's Safari browser inadvertently skewed results. I'm speechless. We (linux/mac users) don't use Windows, so our traffic doesn't count?
Robert Bindler
A Computer Science student's views on technology.
FireFox is actually a good browser.
This would have happened a long time ago if such a good browser had come along sooner.
Firefox is fast, secure, easy to use, skinable, free, and compatible.
For once, IE isn't more popular based on it's merit. It's actually at a technical disadvantage again and it's decline in popularity is a result of that.
I was skeptical about converting most of my less tech savvy associates over to Firefox at first, but when a few actually actively asked me to help them and their feedback was all positive afterwards, I suggested it to a few more and then even more.
Now anyone I don't feel is capable of keeping their system clean while using IE I recommend convert and I've yet to hear one single complaint.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
I think Firefox will continue to be popular if Microsoft makes new additions to IE mainly because I don't see them removing any of the insecurities (ActiveX) or bloat or integration into the OS that made people switch to Firefox in the first place. Since when was the last time Microsoft removed a so called "useful" and "major" feature despite its obvious downsides?
the margin of error will be huge!
seriously, we do the same thing in the UK, but mostly with retail sites (B&Q, Comet, H Samuel, etc) and there are soooo many things that cause inaccuracies!
firstly, the monitors are clientside - so depending on where in the host page they live, howmany images there are on the page, how fast the user's connection is and how long they spend on a page you may or may not even register a hit.
then misconfigured caches can hided it before it gets you your logging server (but there are ways around that).
but for tracking unique users (rather than pageviews), you need cookies as well:
- some peopl have cookies turned off
- some people have cookies demoted to session-only
- some people clear their cookies periodically (e.g. they've been looking at pr0n and dont want their missus to know)
- some people use 'security' software that strips cookies and/or rewrites page content on the fly.
its a mess. numbers are never accurate and its impossible to accurately determine how inaccurate they are!
but they're right - there is a consistent and significant move toward Firefox
But having said that - it has just been Christmas, and there does seem to be a big difference between home computers and business PCs (home = more up to date, more Firefix, work = older, no alternative browsers)
we're actually seeing a *decline* in firefox figures post-Xmas, but hoping that will change!
Say, that's a nice, clear-headed comment, and sure is insightful! Most people don't appreciate how much more insightful something is when it's also insulting. Also, I like how you've taken into account that some projects were kicked off years ago by VB-oriented programmers using early versions of that framework, and thus ActiveX ... way before other tools were even viable for some development teams. You may not like inertia, but it's there, and calling people who probably had an IT budget of one hour to throw together an interactive form for use on an private portal site that eventually became public, etc., is, well, assholish. I know... how about not using web sites you don't like? Nah... that's just good advice, and doesn't give me a good way to call someone an asshole. I'll have to think of another suggestion.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I don't care what my school uses, I've intalled Portable Firefox to a flash drive that I use as well as to my student directory on the school's network. So now, no matter which computer I'm on I can use Firefox (I have the OSX version on my flash drive as well). It's really the only way, the school administration will never listen.
Admittedly, I am not a typical user. I visit numerous porn sites and am addicted to looking at gorgeous, naked women who would never spend time with me. Unfortunately, those sites are also boobytrapped with pop ups, viruses, and malware. If you do not believe me, then use IE on Windows and surf 1000 sites over the course of a month. At the end of the month, your computer will be unusable, and you will be forced to reinstall Windows.
With FireFox, I am relatively safe when I visit those sites. So far, none of the boobytraps have infected my computer. The only negative is that downloading the pictures takes a while with FireFox since it is not as tightly integrated into the OS as IE. Nonetheless, I am no longer reinstalling Windows on a monthly basis.
Now, where's that can of vaseline.... Just kidding.
Help fight these horrible new statistics... Install IE today!
Karma: bad (mostly unaffected by funny mods)
While the parent comment has some truth in it (the ActiveX legacy) I think it's unfair to a lot of good, professional developers who had no choice other than to use ActiveX because a particular component (a grid, graphing tool, whatever) was actully required in the project specification.
I'm thinking of sites/apps for internal, corporate intranets - not the Internet in general.
What were these guys supposed to do exactly? Resign on a point of principle?
Get real!
That's exactly what I'm talking about! Change your freaking bank! That's like when there were some banks that had all-night ATMs, and others didn't (guess how old I am), or later, when only some banks waived fees if you used their own ATMs and others didn't. Or, when some banks had free telephone-based auto-banking, and others didn't. You choose a commidity institution (there are thousands of banks) based on how well they provide you with that commidity. My stupid bank has a great web site for their brokerage area, but the regular banking part sucks. A lot. I've bitched at them, and actually ended up talking to the manager of their web dev team, who was shocked to hear about JVM version problems (what a loser!). They're working on it.
In the meantime, it's just not that big a deal to change banks, or just to fire up IE for minute. Oh... I'm guessing you run on Linux. Alas. Your bank will come around on their own, or they'll get tired of fielding the complaints. Market pressure works - banks are service companies, and believe me, they do listen to compaints - mostly in the cummulative, but they do listen.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Not to people who think slashdot is a major site. I think that's the point here. It's not geeks using firefox, it's everyday people who most people here never thought would want to switch.
Firefox 1.1 is going to be based on the trunk. So it's got a few rendering fixes.
1.1 also contains some decent enhancements.
IMHO adoption will pick up when 1.1 is released and some of these fixes take place.
1.1 will also have a MSI, which will make it easier for corporations to deploy Firefox to computers within their organization. That will allow for more Firefox gains.
...Netcraft confirms it. IE is dying.
"The plural of anecdote is not data" -- Bruce Schneier
I work for a Washington State agency. The majority of the vistors to our main site are K-12 related (teachers, parents, students, etc). Microsoft products are quite popular around this area due to the steep discounts that Microsoft hands out to K-12 schools and their related state agencies. However, the 2004 stats for my employer's main site are quite interesting.
I pirate software, but I paid for Opera.
Why?
Simply because the people who wrote it aren't assholes. They don't have copy-protection to make my life difficult, and they compete on features rather than on marketing.
They offer a student discount, and want a letter from the registrar or a copy of your grades to prove your status. My university is run by trolls, so I wrote them and asked them if I could post a small note on my Uni webspace as proof that I was a student.
Six hours later the response came back: "Sure, that's fine. Greetings from Norway!"
I don't mind paying those guys.
Also, as far as image blocking goes, while the stock Firefox build blocks images from specific domains (so you wouldn't want to block the ad if it came from the same server or proxy as the good images) a simple ad-on like AdBlock gives users the power to easily block ads without losing the legitimate page content.
--Asa