Slashdot Mirror
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."
Googledot receives a few hits everytime someone mentions it on Slashdot. I've been keeping track of the hits and such, which show 67% of slashdotters (who are willing to click a link for a laugh) are using firefox, and only 14.5% of them are using Internet Explorer. It is interesting to look at how many people still use Windows over *nix too. I guess it is all very much depending on what type of website you're counting from too.
You can look at a few statistics here that have been collected since over a few months.
Proceed with Format (Y/N)? Y
but I haven't run into any sites lately that require IE. Recent Mozilla handles everything just fine. Apart form some minor rendering weirdness on a few sites I haven't had to jump over to IE for anything.
Oh my god! Microsoft's monopoly level has fallen from "complete total dominance" down to "utterly terrifying massively overwhelming" in web browsers.
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?
Firefox has managed to take ~7% of the market in a short period of time from a massively well-funded competitor on an ultra, ultra, ultra shoestring budget. This kinda proves what MS was saying, and disproves what the DOJ was saying.
See this is a new type of business model that Microsoft can't beat. It used to be that when they decided to bundle or bully, competitors are dead.
No more. Firefox doesn't need to make $ to survive, so M$ can't beat by price. Bundling won't work either because broadband is everywhere.
Now, the killer app (analogy) is reputation. IE has been branded as spyware/exploit-ridden. People want an alternative. IE has lost its credibility.
eTrade SUCKS
Okay, just curious, but wondered how much of the traffic measured accounts for, knows about, figures in, etc., for Firefox "reporting in" as Internet Explorer so as not to get rejected from using that site. I have mine set to be "Internet Explorer" for my on-line banking (go figure). Think it would add any significant usage for Firefox?
(answering myself) - maybe lobbing to the windows 98 users? AFAIK people using windows 98 makes around 50% of the people who uses internet. Internet explorer 7 will not be released for windows 98 and in fact Microsoft should already have stopped updating it with security fixes (windows 98 is 7 years old)
May be we could use a catch phrase, say "the one secure option for windows 98/me/NT 4.0" "Microsoft forgot of your Windows 98 box? Try firefox". Or something like that.
You haven't visited http://weightwatchers.com have you?
I went there with Firefox 1.0.4. If you examine the URL they forward you to and the site itself you learn that their web masters assume Firefox doesn't support JavaScript or Cookies, and there's no "Click here to use the site anyway" like button.
I had an exchange with their customer service a month or two ago about this, and their reply amounted to saying they wouldn't support an "unpopular" browser.
I sent back an article about Firefox having more users than all non IE browsers combines, and they sent back the same form letter about not supporting every browser.
Funny thing is, if I spoof my browser string as Internet Explorer 34691.0.45.72.22222 running on Windows THFFFT, the site works fine. I haven't signed up yet though, since I won't spend my money on a site that require me to futz around with obscure browser settings to work.
I also found it odd that their email replies seemed to consider Firefox to be an Opera variant.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Bill Gates: "Internet Explorer has fallen below 90% of the browser market! We still have total dominance! OSS is a dismal failure! Buy Windows XP!"
You must think in Russian.