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Firefox Share Slipped in July for the First Time
prostoalex writes "Between June and July of this year, Firefox lost 0.64% of the users, while Microsoft IE gained the same amount, leaving other browsers at their usual zero point something share. Could recent security problems and lack of stability, reported by some users, lead to the decline of the browser that just passed 80 million downloads?" I think the other thing to remember is that while ~8% seems a lot, there's a still a huge amount of ground to cover -- and a number change like this is statistical noise. I should point out that my issue with noise isn't the absolute numbers; it's the somewhat inadequate measurements tools for this.
It looks to me as though Firefox's natural marketshare has stabilized. It's just not a large as we hoped.
Thalasar
Could recent security problems and lack of stability, reported by some users, lead to the decline of the browser that just passed 80 million downloads?"
Actually, the decline is probably because everyone who wants it has it by now. ^_^
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
One must remember that IE has just added tabbed browsing, among other "features." The average Joe, who is not hugely concerned with security, probably downloaded Firefox for the tabs and MAYBE extensions. With a browser that will come equipped with tabs, a significant number of people will lose their interest in a browser like Firefox.
As long as the distribute of IE comes on virtually all new machines IE will remain around 90%. People will not go thru the trouble to downloading a different component of software for what is now a commoditity.
40,000 sites - 0.64% drop/gain. The results are neglible and worthless.
When it goes down/up 8+% over 100k sites then there's cause for news.
Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?
Firefox is a decent browser but it is NOT as good as the hype would have you believe. Someone who understands tech might be able to not only see but appreciate the benefits, but the AVERAGE user doesn't give a rats damn about it. What the average user gives a crap about is how long it takes to load, how much slower their machine is when it's running, and how often it crashes. Yeah yeah I know that the next 14 replies will be "HEY it runs fine on my pc!" and please don't bother, just because it works great on your pc doesn't have shit to do with how well it works on my grandma-jo's pc, or anyone elses for that matter. You can't talk about 80 mil downloads and 10 million users and also think that your one example means dick.
Geeks keep forgetting that it's regular average non-tech people who determine the failure or success of a product, not fellow geeks, and those regular average non-tech people don't really see much special about firefox.
This is statistical noise, pure and simple. There is no story here.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I have to admit, it's an amusing bit of misrepresentation the community uses when citing download figures for Firefox as if they really truely mean something. One user may account for dozens of downloads alone if they have multiple PCs, or upgrade versions, or if they reinstall their OS and have to reget their apps. Then there's the user who gets Firefox but for whatever reason goes back to IE. I'm tired of the download number being heralded as some great victory when it means very little in terms of real market penetration.
Should we start counting every copy of windows sold or bundled with a PC as a "new IE user"? I bought a cheap dell recently to use as a quick and dirty Linux box. It came with WinXP Home and IE, but I don't use it. But by the reasoning usually given for Firefox, because I have it, I should be counted as a user, as a part of the marketshare.
Please stop using download counts to prove your argument that Firefox is toppling IE. It's not yet... While it's doing better than any competitor since Netscape, it's not the killing blow to IE just yet.
I think a lot of analysis over this loss of market share forgets where a good amount of internet browsers (the people part) are.
;)
Security and stability? B'ah! Honestly, nearly any issue that Firefox could run into seems rather paltry compared to what domintes the market share of web browsers (IE). What issues that do arise are usually fixed in relatively short order as well. If nothing else, Mozilla developers move at light speed when compared to Microsoft in the browser world.
I really honestly don't want to sound like a Troll, but I think bringing up topics like security and stability bugs to explain a loss of market share seems like a way out of pointing out the obvious: The majority of internet users are too lazy to install something when there's an alternative that's 'good enough' already.
Heck, I think it's pretty antiquated that most of the laymen internet users still use the term 'surf' when describing actions performed on the internet
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
Now I'm no Firefox fanboi (I use it but don't evangelise it, and also still use IE), but didn't they consider the possibility that the change is instead in the readership of their monitored websites?
:-D
Of course, that would bring doubt into their business model so of course not - "the figures show it so it MUST be true."
Anyway, I think it's more than Firefox users have a better memory - so have less reason to revisit pages.
I question these numbers in general.
Apple has something like a 2% to 4% share of the sales market (depending on who you ask) and something like a 5% to 8% share of active personal computers in use (depending on who you ask).
Given that nearly all current Apple systems are running OS X, and well over half of them are running Safari, how do they arrive at "Less than 0%" of users for all browsers other than IE and Firefox?
Even using the most anti-Apple zealotry numbers available, Safari use has gotta be at least 1%.
I also think Firefox use has got to be a bit higher than the 8% claimed here. Sure, IE is "what's there" on a new Windows installation, but I've yet to meet anybody who actually prefers IE. Sure, I could see some people jumping ship to it when the new version ships (if it even comes close to delivering current promises), but the current state of IE is that it is inferior in almost every way that matters to Firefox.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Simply looking at market share doesn't tell you anything except for relative adoption with respect to the overall market, and that may or may not even be a useful measurement. It depends on if you care about relative share or absolute adoption, really.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
I think new PCs is a major reason. There are a lot of people (in fact a client I just worked at) who had Mozilla/Firefox on their old PCs but when they got new ones wanted to use IE.
They switched to Moz/FF because their old PCs were encrusted with spyware and IE became unusable. The "fix" for this problem by many is to buy a new PC (can't argue if consultant-paid OS install plus apps equals the cost of a new box).
The new PC has IE, IE works because there's no spyware, voila, FF "loses" marketshare.
A small percentage shift for the visitors, etc. doesn't really mean much. No one really explains how these visitor numbers are calculated.
I know how it is at my mom's house. First off, during the school year, she's the primary user, but in the summer, there are kids visiting sites all day. So their usage and number of sites visited goes up, likely resulting in more hits on those sites tracked.
Second, my mom uses Firefox all year round, but she dumps the kids into AOL's browser, which, in her version, is really IE with AOL surfing blocking. So, yeah, there's more IE stuff.
Third, a bunch of people are buying computers for their kids over the summer and graduation and going to college presents (or required items). And gee, I bet those machines have IE preinstalled. Ding! Increase in numbers again.
Lastly, since I bet that those sites are using cookies to track users, a number of people who use spybot and/or ad-aware will be wiping out those cookies and getting counted multiple times. During the year, my mom runs it once every two weeks, but in the summer, with all the crap those kids try to download, she runs it about every two or three days, meaning that she's wiping the cookie 10 times a month.
Multiply that to many, many households, and you start to wonder how much the IE figure could actually be inflated.
It's not that there can't be a drop in Firefox and a rise in IE. But without stats, reports, real academic information with methodology, well, it means diddly.
Linux - because it doesn't leave that Steve Ballmer aftertaste.
If you say this variation is statistical noise, which is very probably is, why are you still reporting it as news???
The biggest offender in this case is MSN Messenger. That messenger thing ALWAYS use IE as browser, no matter what system defaults you have. Ej: If someone sends you a link and you click it, it will be IE who opens it even if you configured your system to use Firefox.
And this will prompt the user: "Do you want to make IE your default browser?"
When I install firefox in someone's machine, the first thing I do is setting it as the default browser, then running IE to get that window prompt to me, and press "no" while checking the "don't ask this again". So, even if Messenger uses IE, at least it won't change your system's settings. I also delete the IE icon from the desktop and start menu and quick bar, BTW.
While this doesn't necessary concern the widespread adoption of Firefox, I would like to comment on embedding Gecko. For the past week or so I have been attempting to embed Gecko into a proprietary C++ graphical user interface toolkit. So far I have found it quite difficult.
The existing documentation is either extremely out of date (ie. 2002 or earlier), or partially complete. Some of the documentation contains old names for various XPCOM interfaces. While the various embedding examples are a start, they are very poorly commented and as such are quite useless.
Now, I realize that Gecko is a very complex piece of software, but in order for it to become widely accepted there needs to be many pieces of software which use it. But as of this time it is quite difficult for a developer to quickly embed Gecko within an existing application. That may very well be because there is a complete lack of documentation describing how to do so.
The path to more users is more products. The path to more products is easier development. And easier development is often due to accessible, correct and descriptive documentation. So please, if there is someone reading this who has the knowledge, write us developers a decent guide on embedding Gecko.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
RE "... as Bogus and Firefox flaunting 80 million downloads"
No, the count is correct: they downloaded 80M copies, what is made of the figure is in dispute.
Next I was just hearing via my son that there is supposed to be one count per IP address, though we updated and downloaded multiple times for several machines we represent only one download. If that is correct then we have been under counted. Previously I had heard that a Window's machine that updates was not counted as a download, but a fresh install was.
Now if you really have a critical mind, you might recognize the ambiguity of the download count. If you had ANY scientific experience you would recognize that even precise, physical measurements have surprising few significant figures (a measure accuracy). Assuming you have such knowledge you would address my point about the overblown claim of precise measurement from a very imprecise data set.
Address that issue if you can.
If nobody had reported this on the web yet, we wouldn't have a thread to discuss this in, would we? As it is, two separate individuals in this thread have reported this problem in Win2K.
Maybe instead of calling them liars (which is exactly what you're doing, and it's very rude), you could ask for details so you could reproduce the problem yourself.
Editorial fairness, perhaps? When the market share goes up by 0.64% everyone decries the editors for not publishing the other side of the coin. When they publish the bad news about our beloved products we should ask ourselves (and our development communities) "Why?" rather than "Who cares?"
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
To me, the issue isn't whether more or fewer people use firefox. The issue is whether or not all of the big browsers follow standards.
As long as that's the case, I can run my browser on linux, and I'll have access to the web.
I think that people tend to downplay the value that open source products have as disciplining forces for prorprietary companies.
Firefox is forcing IE to improve on features and security, and by all accounts the next version is going to be much better on standards. That's the victory.
I belive that it will take a lot of effort for FireFox to make inroads in the industry. It is necessary to look at, and be realistic about, some of the problems which FF has encountered so far.
First of all, the amount of udpates which have been released over the last little while, are trying - even to die-hard users of the product. I believe that better QA is necessary. More effort has to be put into the software update process as well. I know that "a better installer" is coming. But, so far, you have to uninstall, and re-install the entire thing. That's just not very slick. Remember: users see something like Windows Update - and I have to admit - it's slick, painless, and automatic. Gates & Co. have put a lot of effort and thought into that one. FF auto-update is not. In fact, simply telliing me that there are updates available does not really solve any problems.
I am glad that FF is the knight in shining armour, which has decided to support all of the W3C standards to the tee. Unfortunately, IE has not. The reasons for this lack of support, are beyond the scope of this comment - you can read about the speculation all over the web. The net effect is that browsing those sites with FF, yields unpredictable results. Instead of griping about it, we should just learn to imitate what IE does (badly), but at the same time, definitely do it more securely.
The rally which has caused FF to become so popular is great - we just need to ensure that it's for the right people. Your average person does not really care what browser they use, or whether the browser was built by the Open Source Movement or not. They just want to see the information they requested.
I think that in order to make a difference, we'll have to think outside of the box - we'll have to truly ask some people out there what it would take to make the switch. The crux of the matter is, we could find out (quite harshly), that there is no interest in a second (or alternative) browser for the rest of the world. Perhaps (as was indicated in other posts), this is something of a niche market, and it may just remain as such. We also have to remember that, for the average person change is hard, the path of least resistance prevails. We, somehow, have to get on that path.
Everyone doesn't use winzip and winamp. Most people here in the University with shiny new laptops do use the default software loadout. On the rare occasion they need a zip - mostly anything they need is a self-extracting installer or uncompressed - they use XP native zip folders. For media, they DO use Media Player or itunes if they own an iPod or are into playlist sharing. The only major winamp users are the mp3 early adopeters (read old-timers), and even many of these were pushed off the Winamp platform due to the problems with Winamp3.
People see the computer as a tool, and don't often distinguish the software from the operating system. No other consumer device, and few other professional devices, maintain this distinction. Hence, the New P.C. factor very definitely is a factor, and this is why MS is keen to push Media Center and the like, and not keen on supporting older hardware because it derives New P.C. sales. Most people won't migrate old applications, only old data. The exception is migration of old devices, because poeple WILL install software bundled with their digital camera or scanner or whatnot, becuase they feel they need it to make it work. And even sometimes not this, because XP has quite a bit of native support for consumer peripherals. Hence, I now see people who used to use Canon's photo management software ZoomBrowser copying their Photo Albums folder into My Photos, and using XP's thumbnails, slideshows, print wizard and the like to manage their images.
The distinction between hardware, O.S. and application is not strong at the consumer level, and hence we DO see upgrade-displacement (which is why bundle agreements are attractive for software providers and I.S.P.s).
Ever since the user could action files directly with the mouse, rather than invoking a piece of software by mouse or C.L.I., the boundaries have blurred to the degree that the file is the data, and everything else is the single, albeit complex, tool that manipulates it.
IE6 has a popup blocker as part of the browser, has for like a year now. So I don't know how old this cut and paste is, but it's seriously misinformed.
Really? It's in the View Objects list. Sort by cookie.
I'm not sure what you're trying to do, but this seems more of a case of inexperience than a feature. Mozilla's is a little bit easier to find, but it also provides less information and doesn't appear to let me easily view the contents of the cookie.
And of course there are none for Mozilla, because it's really super secure and you don't need to worry about patching or anything.
*snark*
Yep. Because they also sell a lot of server and development tools which make use of the internet. As such, they develop the browser to promote new technologies made available to developers...
But out of curiousity. Have you ever stopped to wonder why Mozilla has spent so much time and money on a product that they give away for free?
Is it to fight Microsoft, or is it to introduce new technology which makes the user and developer experience better? Frankly, I think it's the latter... Netscape tried the Former and failed.
What browser you use doesn't matter. Just like it doesn't matter what car you drive, or what golf club you want to use.