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Firefox Continues to Bite into IE Usage
InformationSage writes "According to Information Week, Firefox usage is now over 6 percent, pulling Internet Explorer usage down below 90 percent. 'Firefox is currently the only browser that is increasing market share on a monthly basis, and it is growing at the direct expense of Microsoft's Internet Explorer'"
It's good that Firefox is gaining market shares... but what about Mozilla?
The whole mozilla projet (mozilla + firefox) is what *really* matters, not only Firefox!
I think it could, and I also think it will be easy for Microsoft to stop firefox growth. They only have to ameliorate IE enough for people not to care about installing and using another browser. The only reason firefox is growing is because IE is flawed and annoying in several ways, so if a part of Microsoft's army of programmers is directed to remove that factor, firefox's growth will decrease greatly, in my opinion.
Then again, there may be some major annoyances that they won't be able to remove for compatibility reasons, such as ActiveX (which as you know is responsible for much of the spyware problem). What people should do is get rid of features like that completely, so that IE can be a secure browser...
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
But Most of the users that are currently switching are users that allready used browsers other than IE (That is, Opera, Mozilla Suite, Netscape, etc. users). I would like to see actual numbers, not numbers that cames from the logs of some website, but stats that let's us track individual browser use, and see who is switching from what to what.
Most Internet Explorer market is people with default windows installs, and that is at least 70% of the market. That people is not going to switch anytime soon. So the grow of firefox will sadly certainly encounter it's roof soon.
I Would also like to make something clear, this is not a victory for Free Software like many people understand. This is not a victory against propietary software. Most of the people that installs Firefox doens't undestand or care about the fact that firefox is Free Software. Most firefox installs are under windows.
We will be talking about the victory of Free Software when people understands why Free Software is important, and why proprietary software shouldn't be used, and NOT when some specific piece of Free Software gains marketshare.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
That is certainly important. Free Software encourages diversity. back in the day, even in the world of proprietary software, people had alternatives, they would ask you what OS you run, if you had a gui or not, what word processor you used, or what spreadsheet, what browser, etc.
Now, people using proprietary software uses a given set of applications, for a given set of basic tasks, and there is allmost no variation, besides versions.
Free Software encourages the necesary diversitiy in the software that is used. I Think there are not 2 geeks that has the same setup on their Free Software Box. We have various OSs to choose from, and we do, in the case of GNU/Linux, we have different distros, we use various browsers, terminal emulators, editors, office suits, IM programs, media players, mail clients, etc,etc, etc.
ALMAFUERTE
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
This is true for a lot of open source software. Developers often ignore the need for more advanced management of applications. A lot of companies will not touch software unless installation and configuration can be managed properly.
I believe that it is quite easy to add this type of support to a lot of open source software. A simple thing like creating an MSI-package for your application will often help deployment a lot.
Maybe all that is missing is a few decent tutorials on packaging and AD integration to get open source software into corporate IT-environments?
Standards Schmandards
I think you're miscalculating. The set which includes all other browsers has risen more than the single browser Firefox, but as long as that set has even share in growth, that means Firefox is still very much the leader.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I was thinking about the following: Every time the is a security warning, such as "Do you want to install this programme?" or "Do you want this java applet complete access to your hard disk?", shouldn't there also be a button marked "I have no idea what this means" and make it the default button. This button has obviously the same function as cancel.
I hate M$ but I'm realistic. Once IE7 comes out - matter how badly it will support standards, people will go back to it.
a) it's support for (group) policies. which is simply defining control points in the registry and reading from the points and following instructions. this should not be difficult.
b) it's scripted/automatic install *and* repair. there may be some of this in there but i'm not sure.
c) other remote/automatic managenent support for not only ADS but also NDS (SuSE/Novell would be very interested in that).
eric
Why would Microsoft care how many people use IE? They give it away for free. Is it just that Firefox is a "gateway drug" and leads to use of other non-Microsoft solutions?
Plus, as long as you keep nursing at the MS teat, you are assured a job in the tech support industry, as you are sure to have many, many fires to fight each day, to justify your presence. Sometimes it is wise to build a fire break, unless you just get a rush from watching things burn. In that case, keep the status quo, and pass the marshmallows!
It's 6 freaking perecent. It's not much. It's nothing to get excited about, nor is it news.
For developers who produce public websites it is very important. It used to be the policy of some organisations to only develop for IE viewing. That policy no longer makes sense. It would mean that more than 1 in 20 of your customers would have difficulties with your website. For a business with thousands of users (or more), like a bank, that is a real problem.
"Better security"
Ah, but what's the standard? Better security than Firefox, or simply better security than IE6?
"Tab Browsing"
We'll have to see the specifics of their implementation, won't we? For example, will I be able to force IE7 to operate in just one window?
"Conformance to standards"
Yes, but for Microsoft's definition of the word "standard." Rarely does it have anything to do with how the rest of the world uses that word.
It used to be the policy of some organisations to only develop for IE viewing. That policy no longer makes sense. It would mean that more than 1 in 20 of your customers would have difficulties with your website.
1 in 10, not 1 in 20.
The important statistic here isn't the increasing Firefox usage, it's the decreasing IE usage. A year ago, IE had 95% market share, meaning that if you developed for IE only, 19 out of 20 users could use your site. That was good enough to allow IE-only development policies, especially since the majority of the 1 in 20 non-IE users out actually did have access to IE and were tech-savvy enough to realize that if it doesn't work with Opera/Netscape/Mozilla/Whatever, they should try IE. So the net effect is that a year ago, an IE-only web site annoyed about 1 in 20 users, but only drove maybe 1 in 100 away (that's a wild guess, obviously).
Now, only 9 out of 10 users have IE as their default browser, and a smaller percentage of non-IE users recognize that a site that doesn't work well will work with IE. So now an IE-only web site annoys 1 in 10 and drives away a larger percentage of those. Perhaps half? Who knows? Anyway, not only is the non-IE population twice as big, but it's more likely to be dissuaded from using your IE-only site, so the combination means the damage to your audience is several times larger.
If IE usage continues to decline, eventually IE-only development policies are going to become untenable for most web sites. I would guess that if IE usage drops as far as 80%, most developers of non-intranet web sites are going to have to test on multiple browsers and focus on standards compliance.
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