Firefox Growth Slowing?

ninja_assault_kitten writes "Silicon.com has an interesting article on the apparently slowing growth of Firefox. To quote the article, 'The slackening of Firefox's growth could mean that the browser has converted a substantial proportion of its natural constituency, thought to be early adopters and the technically savvy. It could also show that the browser's widely publicised security flaws have begun to undermine the foundation's argument that people should switch from IE to be safer.' One thing's for sure, with the release of 1.0.3 and now 1.0.4 we can probably expect to breach the 80 million download mark shortly."

Comments

How many unique downloads?

[xquark]

80 million I'm assuming a composite...

Arash Partow

Re:How many unique downloads?

[bad_fx]

meh, this comes up in every firefox discussion. Yes, no doubt many people download firefox more than once. But there are also those of use who carry it on a usb key\cd\share\whatever and install it multiple times from a single download (I do so myself.) So what's your point? The fact is number of downloads, while no doubt not accurate, are still a good indication of the popularity of it.

Also, for anyone who thinks updates of firefox count as another download (as someone always seems to bring up in these discussions as well), they don't.

Re:How many unique downloads?

[switcha]

lies, damn lies, statistics..

and disingenuous posters

I'm pretty sure all those downloads(+20 of them) count in on that 80 million.

And so what? A download total number (used for marketing) is essentially used as a "vote of confidence". If you liked the browser enough to not only install each version as it came out, but install each of those on multiple machines, then Hell Yes it's a "vote of confidence" and should count towards the Total Number.

I use Safari, and could really give shit about how many downloads Firefox, Mozilla or frickin' IE get. What I do know is that you're trying to somehow dilute the legitimacy of the number of downloads when your very multi-downloads were an endorsement of the quality of this product.

Re:How many unique downloads?

[VortexMK]

Some companies downloads just one copy of Firefox and then everyone in the company installs that one copy... at least my company (30+ people) does it to save bandwidth. I bet that that many other companies use the same practice.

Re:How many unique downloads?

[Gordo_1]

With Firefox, updates are full downloads. While it may be a vote of confidence to you, to most people it's just another way to lie with statistics.

Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but for it to be lying, wouldn't they have to say something like x million unique *users* rather than downloads? They call it a download because there's no easy way to differentiate unique users without forcing people to register or something... even then the statistics wouldn't be perfect.

Re:How many unique downloads?

[Trillan]

Downloads initiated through update don't count.

Translation to layman's term-

[guardiangod]

All the geeks on planet earth are now using Firefox.

Re:Translation to layman's term-

[Brandybuck]

Except for those using Safari, Konqueror, Opera, OmniWeb, Netscape, Mozilla, several dozen gecko-based browsers that are indistinguishable from each other, emacs in web mode, xemacs in web mode, lynx, links, other text mode browser, etc, etc.

Re:Translation to layman's term-

[pebs]

transalation:

All the geeks on planet Earth are not using IE.

(If you're using IE as your main browser, you're obviously not a geek.)

Re:Translation to layman's term-

[ignorant_coward]

Real geeks stick their tounge on a frayed Ethernet cable.

Corporate Adoption

[chill]

And IBM is encouraging in-house employees to use Firefox.

There are still several "business" websites such as financial services, B2B and corporate intranets that rely on ActiveX and IE.

While Firefox's growth may be slowing, it is still growing -- just not as fast. When the IE-only sites start to get more complaints about usability from their customers, then you will start to see a steady stream of corporate support for Firefox.

-Charles

Firefox is entering an already saturated market

[El Cubano]

It could also show that the browser's widely publicised security flaws have begun to undermine the foundation's argument that people should switch from IE to be safer.

Um... I don't think that's it. While the security flaws might be causing some to think twice, the real issue is market saturation. There does not exist a desktop computer sold in the last 10 years that didn't come with a web browser. They are essentially entering a 100% saturated market. Nonetheless, I think their accomplishments are stunning.

Re:Firefox is entering an already saturated market

[globalar]

Exactly. For a given user at a given instant, the browser market is a zero-sum game. I can only post to /. with one browser a time. Therefore, the question of growth is misleading.

We need to measure marketshare in relation to the rise and fall of other browsers. Unfortunuately, to do this we need to distinguish individual users in a series of samples for each one. We're gauging this by downloads and server logs from a few sample groups. These numbers could be wildly inaccurate.

Also, it's been only a week since the "big" Firefox exploit and the patch has already come (well, the new version anyway). It hasn't been long enough to judge whether or not this alleged impact is from security concerns. Further, we can't tell if the numbers we recieve now are from users who know about the security implications or not.

In fact, we can only guess why users choose one browser over another. We only assume their choice makes any sense. This is all a guessing game with a few numbers.

Firefox users blocking WebSideStory?

[A8bbNjwk]

From TFA, "Website measurement and marketing firm WebSideStory said"

Could it be that Firefox users are blocking marketing firm WebSideStory's tracking images? These guys are just as evil as DoubleClick in assembling a massive database of information on web users' browsing history. Wouldn't ignorant IE users be more likely to allow WebSideStory to track them?

Re:80 Million Downloads...who cares!

[ColMustard]

That's funny. The first thing I install is Linux.

Oh I'll burn for that.

Growth rate slowing?

[Jonboy X]

So, the rate of growth of the number of Firefox users is slowing, or for you calculus geeks out there, the second time derivative of the number of Firefox users is presently negative.

The good news is, the *third* derivative is positive, which means that the change rate of the growth rate is increasing. Soon enough, the growth rate will even out and eventually start increasing again!

Oh, and don't even get me started about the 5th derivative...

Hey here's a thought

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have to look at the second derivative before you start finding bad news, maybe the news isn't really all that bad

Re:Nah

[dtfinch]

Outside? What's that? Oh, yes, the unhappy place where I can't program. Why would anyone want to go there?

Re:And shortly after the 80 million mark...

[Henry V .009]

Arbitrary? The number of mammal digits gets decided only after millions of years of evolution. The decimal notation of counting is developed independently all over the world to mesh with finger number. People finding mystical significance in number spurs Greek mathematics and philosophy and eventually Western Civilization.

And a punk like you comes around and finds round numbers arbitrary. Just where do you get off, huh?

Re:apathy

[friedmud]

People that say the "taskbar is my tabs" make me laugh.

Seriously... try some tabbed browsing... even if you just buy an addon for IE... you should really try it.

Using the taskbar makes a mess when you are doing more than just browsing the web. All of your websites get mixed in with your regular programs. Tabbed browsing keeps everything nice a neat. You can also browse a lot faster (Run down slashdot middle clicking on the interesting links then just close off tabs as you read them... much better than click a link... read.... click back... click a link... read).

Just try it already.

Friedmud

Just say no to IE.

[ignorant_coward]

Using IE instead of Firefox over security concerns is like keeping your eyes closed when hooking up with a drugged up bag of herpes prostitute.

Just stick with Firefox. It's like using a rubber, which at least is 90+% effective at keeping out the herpes.

Re:Widely Publicized?

[GarfBond]

It was actually originally reported to the Mozilla Foundation as a critical security bug (bug 292691, still closed access since May 2), and was actively being worked on with the original bug reporter under wraps before someone managed to leak it without anyone's permission, at which point FrSirt (or whatever their name is) and Secunia repackaged it as their own security advisory.

True credit belongs to Paul from Greyhats Security Group and Michael Krax (and in the spirit of this post, I'm going to give credit to mozillazine for originally posting the summary I'm writing this off of).

I am still trying to gather all the details as to how my research was leaked, but recent conversations are leading me to believe that it was a misplacement of trust, not a server compromise. However, I do not want to jump to conclusions too quickly, as this will only lead to more problems. That's all I will say about that subject, as I don't want to offend anybody.

Stats from my site

[mjtg]

Here are some stats from a site that I help maintain. It is an Australian state government website that receives about 3 million hits per month. The site is not technology-oriented, and about half of the hits come from overseas, so they're probably a reasonably good sample of browser use.

Here are some running percentages for IE and Firefox over the past year:

2004-05: IE 94.1%, Firefox 0.6%
2004-06: IE 94.0%, Firefox 0.9%
2004-07: IE 93.1%, Firefox 1.3%
2004-08: IE 93.1%, Firefox 1.8%
2004-09: IE 92.6%, Firefox 2.0%
2004-10: IE 92.5%, Firefox 2.5%
2004-11: IE 91.9%, Firefox 3.1%
2004-12: IE 89.3%, Firefox 4.5%
2005-01: IE 88.0%, Firefox 5.6%
2005-02: IE 87.9%, Firefox 5.7%
2005-03: IE 88.0%, Firefox 5.9%
2005-04: IE 87.3%, Firefox 6.2%
2005-05 (first 12 days): IE 88.8%, Firefox 5.9%

The big jump towards Firefox occured late last year with the Mozilla Foundation's marketing blitz. Since then, there does indeed appear to be a slowing up in migration towards Firefox. This month's stats so far actually show a reversal.

Re:Well, maybe

[zerocool^]

Hold on, let me go ahead and show you why firefox is better.

Step 1.) Open firefox.
Step 2.) Press Control-T.

Here's another test
Step 3.) Go to www.cnn.com
Step 4.) Open internet explorer.
Step 5.) Go to www.cnn.com
Step 6.) Count the popup windows.

Seriously, man. Have convictions. I do desktop support and network administration for a living, and I can tell you, with almost absolute certainty, users that use Internet Explorer will get spyware. Users that use Internet Explorer will get popups.

Firefox has a vulnerability. So what? The honeymoon is over, as you say. Now it's time to play the lesser of two evils. Now it's time for clothespin voting. Pick which one you think is best for you and your end users. If neither are perfect, pick the one that stinks less. And Lord Knows what's in opera. If you're concerned that firefox's holes weren't showing up before because few people used it, MAN, opera is not for you. I'd take the monster I know (open source) over the monster I didn't (opera).

Be pragmatic. Firefox doesn't have Active-X install popups constantly bugging users to install MyWebSearchToolbarAndAgreeToOurTermsAndConditions. Firefox instead has a way to only accept cookies for the origionating website. Internet explorer still has 80 holes for 6.x according to Secuna, 19 of which are unpatched, while firefox just released a patch in a couple of days.

Don't jump overboard just because no browser is perfect. Some are closer than others.

~Will