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Internet Explorer's Share Dips Below 90%
sheepoo writes "CNN has a story stating that, according to a WebSideStory report, Internet Explorer has slipped below 90% usage share for the first time." From the article: "Firefox, an open-source browser collectively developed by the Internet community under the Mozilla Foundation, had a 6.8 percent share as of April 29, an increase from 3.0 percent since WebSideStory began tracking Firefox separately in October."
Now "only" 9 out of every 10 systems uses IE. Hopefully FireFox will continue to grow and IE will continue to shrink.. of course that will be tough when Microsoft copies all of Firefox's features in the next release of IE.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - The Celtic - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
What does 90% market share really mean? I use both IE and Firefox on the same machine. Do they both get counted?
I love vague facts and figures
If posessing 90% of a market denotes an "almost dead" product, I'm glad you're not MY boss! Sheesh!
Maybe when IE has less than 10%, you can start calling it "almost dead".
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
FireFox has tallied up 15.52 percent of the hits to my site since May 1.
It's probably based on the platform you use to work on.
When i was at school i predominantly surfed from linux, at work it's predominantly solaris, and when i change jobs i'll be back to windows.
If you are in the computer field then you pretty much run whatever OS is required for your job.
Internet Explorer has slipped below 90% usage share for the first time.
First time? Was the author born after 1998?
Speak truth to power.
Just imagine what the market would be if every user were presented with a informed opinion about each browser without having any of them installed yet, when they first connect to the internet and need one.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Just imagine what the market would be if every user were presented with a informed opinion about each browser without having any of them installed yet, when they first connect to the internet and need one.
Ummm.... How would they connect to recieve the information in the first place? IRC? FTP? TelNet? HTTP sure seems to be out since they won't have a browser...
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
That IE has 90% is a clear demonstration that the DOJ anti-trust stuff is having no real impact on slowing the Microsoft monopoly.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I hope that this data will motivates webmasters and site designers to create more universally viewable sites.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
The problem was never really that IE was bundled with the OS. The problem was MS forcing vendors NOT to bundle Netscape with Windows, which they could get away with due to the Windows monopoly. Thus they were illegally leveraging their monopoly.
Thinkin' Lincoln - a web comic of presidential proportions
"But, wait, actually. Seriously for a second. Isn't this exactly the type of competition that the DOJ argued would/could never happen as long IE was integrated into Windows? Wasn't the argument that IE was illegal tying because there would not be competition due to MS's dominance with Windows? "
That's right. And you yourself admit that 90% is dominance. Why don't we wait till MS share drops below 50% before deciding who was right and wrong. As of today it looks like the DOJ was 100% correct. Due to bundling of IE a superior, more secure and free product is not able to get even a 10% share.
evil is as evil does
It's called "anticompetitive behavior" for a reason. It doesn't mean that it's impossible to compete, it means that they are using illegal tactics to make it more difficult to compete with them.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
f(x) = number of user
f'(x) = growth = growth rate
f''(x) = grown increase rate
So
Decrease in growth rate == decrease in growth
This kinda proves what MS was saying, and disproves what the DOJ was saying.
Lets see an obviously inferior product maintains 90% market share through leveraging another existing monopoly even thought they add basically no new features for years and despite a competitor who gives away a superior product that is written by people who are so fed up with how broken the aforementioned product is, they make it for free. Yeah, I'm sure that monopoly isn't being used unfairly and bundling has nothing to do with it. You've really opened my eyes or something.
Idiot.
...if Firefox (or any other browser) were installed with Windows machines by default like IE, said browser's share would be much higher. MUCH higher.
People use what's put in front of them. IE's 90% share doesn't mean it's that much better than the alternatives.
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
If IE were unbundled and it had to stand on its own, Netscape would still be in business, and Opera would have much more of a chance.
Microsoft has effectively cut off the air supply of the competition, which is illegal. Think what a dump the Internet would be by now if business and individuals hadn't donated a top-quality browser. That shouldn't be necessary.
Same way they always managed before IE being a mandatory unremovable part of the OS; get a browser by other means.
ISP's still give out CDs with a browser and an account setup script. That browser could just as easily be firefox as internet explorer. Flash drives, network installs, isp ftp setup script, hell even a custom front end that not only lets you choose your ISP but your browser too.
But nobody does any of it, because there's already a browser built into the computer. Why bother supplying a second one when you can support the one already guaranteed to be on the desktop of 90% of your customers?
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
Winshit? It's idiots like you that gives the OSS community a bad name.
I think you'll find that Mozilla 0.7 from several years back will suddenly work on most sites now too. It's not "recent builds of Firefox" getting better causing these websites to work, it's these websites finally fixing their HTML/CSS/Javascript.
Why do people assume that the only reason for not using Microsoft products is that you don't like Microsoft?
I don't use Cubase because I hate Emagic, or PSP because I don't like Adobe.
I do use Firefox because it works fine, and I have not had any spyware since I started using it. It's quite simple really, and if Microsoft comes out with a better browser, I'll use that. They are both 'free' as I got explorer free with Windows.
I wonder why they have manipulated the statistics like that. They split Opera into different versions and systems, while not doing the same for IE and "Mozilla". In the case of Mozilla it's even worse, the lack of Firefox suggest they lump all Gecko based browsers together as Mozilla. Besides where are Konqueror and Safari?
Bzzt, wrong!
Firefox renders to something called a standard.
Slashdot is absolutely nowhere near any known web standard.
Thus, Slashdot's HTML is ballsed up. Firefox may stand a better chance with valid HTML, the other browsers are using 'quirks' mode and rendering what they think the page should say, not what it does.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Also add in that Microsoft pretty much disbanded their IE team for several years, so that meant there was no improved competition for Firefox. If Microsoft had continued to work on IE (adding tabs, anti-popup, more security etc) then I wonder how much market Firefox would have now.
Ummm... why would they need to connect to the internet to be presented with a choice? OEMs bundle 2nd and 3rd party software along with Windows. Just about every software OS / distribution vendor that I can think of has distributed 3rd party application software with their OS. What makes Microsoft any different, besides your perception of what they're willing to do to ensure the implementation of standards and interoperability with the rest of the computing world... oh, wait.
For example, Opera / Firefox / Galeon / Thunderbird / Chandler / whatever could be preinstalled, or available as installable packages. If, that is, Microsoft was really excited about standards and interoperability and choice. Choice, you'll note, is one of the things the platform prides itself on. They could be a leader for software choices on their platform, but they'd rather let 3rd parties discover markets for them that they can later try to gobble up. Set Program Access and Defaults isn't there because they thought it was a great idea. It's there because the antitrust verdict demanded it.
Like the grandparent poster said, imagine what the computing infrastructure would be like if Microsoft could change its behavior in this market. This time, use your imagination instead of your powers of logic and analysis.
firefox does not render the web according to a standard. check this test if you dont believe me:
http://www.webstandards.org/act/acid2/
no browser renders the web according to the standards. have you ever tried writing a website to work across all browsers?
even safari (the only browser so far to pass acid2) doesn't render according to standards - they had to hack the code to make it render the parts of the standards that acid2 touched on (not the entire standard).
Firefox has a bug, deal with it.
dude, you got issues. if you are a linux user, I'm ashamed. winshit? it's a decent product - of course it is, it's got 95% of the desktop market.
idiot. posted it from a windows box too I bet.