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.

Comments

Marketshare Stabilized

[Thanatopsis]

It looks to me as though Firefox's natural marketshare has stabilized. It's just not a large as we hoped.

Re:Marketshare Stabilized

[yfkar]

You shouldn't.
Unless you're a web designer. In that case you'd want them to use anything but IE.

Re:Marketshare Stabilized

[AvitarX]

Because you like designers to use not activex applications.

Re:Marketshare Stabilized

[druske]

You might care because if most people are using a different browser, web developers may target it specifically and leave you with a less satisfying experience. Standards are great, but in the real world developers often choose to follow the masses rather than standards.

In short, the browser other people choose does affect you.

Re:Marketshare Stabilized

[Bullfish]

This is a bit like wailing over a one game losing streak. If the trend continues for six to eight months,then maybe there might be a cause for concern. In the meantime, it's interesting, but not a trend.

The reason for the downturn.

[TripMaster Monkey]

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. ^_^

Re:The reason for the downturn.

[superpulpsicle]

These statistics came from the summer time technically. Wait till september when people go back to school etc.

Re:The reason for the downturn.

[arth1]

The first time your average users hit a site that doesn't work with Browser X (be it Mozilla, Firefox, Safari, Amaya or whatever), they will try the first other browser available, which is likely to be IE. And then they'll never look back until they encounter pages that won't work in IE.

It's unfortunate, and arguably isn't the best thing the users can do, but as long as there's enough sites out there that require IE, users will switch to IE, even from "better" browsers.

Regards,
--
*Art

OMG M$ LOL

[aznxk3vi17]

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.

Distribution Model

[truckaxle]

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.

Re:New computer purchases?

[garcia]

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.

Hemos has it right

[Otter]

This is statistical noise, pure and simple. There is no story here.

Re:Hemos has it right

[swillden]

This is statistical noise, pure and simple. There is no story here.

I don't know about that. To really know if it's noise or not, you would have to understand the details of the sampling process, but even without that, it's noteworthy simply because it isn't an *increase*. Firefox has been increasing every month by an amount of roughly the same magnitude, which means that if Firefox usage is continuing to grow as it has been, and if this is merely a measurement error, then it's a really large measurement error (or else many measurements in the past have been very wrong -- I'm assuming that the measurements in July and in previous months were made the same way, BTW).

IMO, this is a pretty solid indicator that last month Firefox growth at least stagnated, and probably actually did decline. There may be reasons for it that don't reflect badly on Firefox, but it is news.

Downloads do NOT equal users

[zoomba]

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.

Re:How?

[Golias]

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.

Re:Noise my ass

[ThosLives]

I think people are forgetting that a change in market share does not mean a loss in installed base. For instance, if the current total market is 1000 and IE has 900 users and FF has 100, IE has 90% and FF has 10%. Now, let's say the market grows to 2000 and IE has 1850 and FF has 150. The new market shares are 92.5% and 7.5%; FF's market share dropped 2.5%, but their installed base went up 50%.

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.