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Firefox Share Slipped in July for the First Time

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the the-sky-is-falling-the-sky-is-falling dept.

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.

27 of 557 comments (clear)

  1. Marketshare Stabilized by Thanatopsis · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

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    Thalasar
    1. Re:Marketshare Stabilized by ugmoe · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Why should I care what browser other people are using?

    2. Re:Marketshare Stabilized by yfkar · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    3. Re:Marketshare Stabilized by AvitarX · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because you like designers to use not activex applications.

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
    4. Re:Marketshare Stabilized by druske · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    5. Re:Marketshare Stabilized by Bullfish · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  2. The reason for the downturn. by TripMaster+Monkey · · Score: 4, Insightful


    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

    1. Re:The reason for the downturn. by Evro · · Score: 5, Interesting

      That would account for a decline in the rate of downloads, but not a decline in use. Maybe millions of web developers testing IE7 is lowering Firefox's share, or maybe people tried Firefox, didn't like it, and went back to whatever they'd been using.

      --
      rooooar
    2. Re:The reason for the downturn. by superpulpsicle · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    3. Re:The reason for the downturn. by arth1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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

  3. New computer purchases? by darylb · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Could be that it's the time of year for lots of people to buy new computers (back to school, lots of deals to be had), none of which SHIP with Firefox. And it may just take a bit of IE use to remind them why they need to get to mozilla.org after all.

    1. Re:New computer purchases? by garcia · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:New computer purchases? by diegocgteleline.es · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Why all this fud about "if it comes installed, everyone will use it"? Why is that everyone uses winzip and winamp, then?

      Netscape didn't lost the browser war because of not being installed by default. It helped, but that was not the main reason: Ars Technica sits down with Scott Collins from Mozilla.org:

      "Ars: You mention mistakes made by Microsoft. What do you feel are mistakes that Mozilla has made in the past?"

      One: There was a fundamental mistake made by Netscape management, twice, which cost us a release at the most inopportune time. I think we can attribute a great deal of our market share loss to this mistake that was pretty much based completely on lies from one executive, who has since left the company (and left very rich) and who was an impediment to everything that we did. He was an awful person, and it is completely on him that we missed a release. We had a "Netscape 5" that was within weeks of being ready to go, and this person said that we needed to ship something based on Gecko within 6 months instead. Every single engineer in the company told management "No, it will be two years at least before we ship something based on Gecko." Management agreed with the engineers in order to get 5.0 out.a

      Three months later they came back and said "We've changed our mind, this other executive has convinced us, except now instead of six months, you need to do it in three months." Well, you can't put 50 pounds of [crap] in a ten pound bag, it took two years. And we didn't get out a 5.0, and that cost of us everything, it was the biggest mistake ever, and I put it all on the feet of this one individual, whom I will not name.

  4. OMG M$ LOL by aznxk3vi17 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  5. Pseudopod by Stanistani · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A few of the folks I set up with Firefox have gone back to IE because their default browser settings changed with a Windows Update, and they were not interested enough to change them back.

    Then the spyware came back...

    --
    You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
  6. Distribution Model by truckaxle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  7. I tried by thc69 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Don't blame me. I recently got a die-hard IE/OE user to switch to FF/TB. He was tired of paying me my standard rates to come and clean spyware...

    --
    Procrastination -- because good things come to those who wait.
  8. Hemos has it right by Otter · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    --
    What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
    1. Re:Hemos has it right by swillden · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  9. Downloads do NOT equal users by zoomba · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  10. Possibly due to win2k updates? by domipheus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There were a few major win2k updates last month, and as Windows update is IE only, surely most will have had to get it from there. may account for a *tiny* amount of deviation. But hell, there is deviation in every statistic. We will jsut have to wait till next month - if it was a blip, hey, it may shoot up to 10% for August ;)

  11. Re:How? by Golias · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  12. Re:Noise my ass by ThosLives · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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.

    --
    "There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
  13. It was me, sorry by digitalgiblet · · Score: 5, Funny

    Geeze, guys I'm really sorry. It was me. I bought a new computer with XP (long-time critic, first time user) and actually liked the way IE rendered text. I SWEAR I'm planning to go back to using Firefox ANY DAY NOW. The numbers should be back up then...

  14. Massive surge coming, just look by 0xABADC0DA · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you look that the traffic for mozilla.org you see a slight downward trend during summer and a massive spike just recently in august, coinciding with the kids going back to school.

    So basically the kids using firefox at school stopped for the summer because some of them were using their parents computers that had IE. Now that the kids have gone back to school the ones that weren't using firefox are downloading it in huge numbers (probably mostly to be cool). Next set of statistics will probably show a 2% rise for firefox, imho due to this.

  15. Misleading by dtfinch · · Score: 4, Informative

    This says that Gecko browsers overall have been growing in popularity every month. In fact, all major browser engines, including IE6, have been gaining share at the expense of IE5.

  16. The main problem as I see it by kilodelta · · Score: 4, Informative

    I have both IE and Firefox on my machine. Why? Because I can't access certain sites that are very MS specific with Firefox.

    That being said, 95% of the time I use Firefox.

    I'd like to see IE go away but it just isn't going to happen anytime soon. But remember, IE was once a marginal and buggy browser too.